In tennis, players hit shot after shot back and forth over the net and then between the lines into their opponent’s court. If they fail to properly return a routine shot back to their opponent, they commit what is called an unforced error.
We’re seeing lots of unforced errors lately. Not on the court, but by institutions.
In 2000, the Coordinating Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship adopted a hiring policy that had only one condition: a person couldn’t be hired who was LGBTQ. No other conditions. An employee didn’t have to be competent, work well with others or even be a believer in Jesus. They just couldn’t be gay.
Charlie Fuller
It was an unforced error.
I wasn’t there when this decision was made, but I know a lot about it. Ten years ago, I spent 18 months of my life working with the Fellowship to correct this error. The 2000 decision was made because of outside pressure from people who were claiming CBF was promoting “the gay agenda.”
Nothing could have been further from the truth. CBF’s agenda was to preserve the bedrock traditional values Baptists died for: Autonomy of the local church, priesthood of the believer, separation of church and state, freedom of each believer to interpret Scripture under the leadership of Holy Spirit. Values the Southern Baptist Convention had jettisoned during the fundamentalist takeover.
I won’t throw those leaders under the bus. I wasn’t there and don’t know all that went on. Hindsight is 20/20. But CBF could have chosen simply to ignore those critics and let their actions illustrate the truth of their values. Instead, fear ruled the day and a highly discriminatory hiring policy was adopted.
It was an unforced error.
“Fear ruled the day and a highly discriminatory hiring policy was adopted.”
I’m a graduate of George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor. About 10 years ago, the Truett faculty adopted a statement on marriage, locking themselves and future faculty into a traditionalist view. They painted themselves into a hermeneutic corner that was inconsistent with bedrock Baptist values. It appeared they did so because of external voices calling for an extreme narrowing of their approach to biblical interpretation, not for a range of issues, but for only this one issue.
Instead of letting their teaching and their students illustrate their faithfulness to Scripture, their bedrock Baptist values and to their calling to the gospel, they responded out of fear of outside voices.
It was an unforced error.
Fast forward to 2025. I currently serve on the Board of Advocates for Baylor’s Garland School of Social Work. The Garland School was forced to return a grant for the study of how churches can better minister to women and LGBTQ people. Undoubtedly this was based on an internet uproar which itself was based on a misrepresentation of the purposes of the grant.
Instead of standing firm on the values of objective academic research and the gospel call to minister to people of diverse people groups, the university caved and ended the program.
It was an unforced error.
Only two months later, the beloved and highly effective dean of the Garland School was forced out. While the actual reasons for this likely never will be known, by all appearances, this also was due to the fear of outside pressure from outside voices, voices amplified by either these voices’ platforms, money or both.
It was an unforced error.
In my “first life” I was a professor and dean at Ouachita Baptist University. I was named emeritus professor of music in 2016. Just this week, it became widely known that the faculty of Ouachita are being forced to sign a highly narrow and exclusionary “statement of affirmation.”
For 140 years, Ouachita has thrived by depending on hiring people of both faith and competence and allowing them appropriate freedom to fulfill their callings as professors of faith. Countless students have found Ouachita to be a place where their faith was nurtured along with academic excellence. Ouachita faculty have for years worked within a loving, supportive and faithful community while maintaining the highest levels of academic integrity in spite of being compensated at levels much below what they could have made elsewhere.
“A common motivator of unforced errors is fear.”
Ouachita faculty traditionally have understood that all truth is God’s truth as they nurtured students toward their own academic and personal callings.
Instead of trusting Ouachita’s faculty to continue this holy work, the OBU administration and trustees are requiring faculty to agree to an un-Baptist, narrow and exclusionary statement.
It’s an unforced error.
A common motivator of unforced errors is fear. Fear of outside voices. Fear of the loudest, not the most valid and authentic voices.
Fear leads to decision making from the gut and not the head. Sometimes permanent, monumental and far-reaching decisions are made in what is actually only a moment or season of external noise. When fear rules the day, institutions can be damaged for decades or more.
These fear-based decisions often cast off the very identity and mission of the institution. The result is jettisoning decades of faithful service just to placate a loud mob and ignoring the long-term consequences.
Why do institutions commit unforced errors?
It often comes from fear. Fear of not being able to raise enough revenue. Fear of angering donors large and small. Fear of declining enrollments. Fear of declining memberships.
But why would Christian institutions act out of fear? Don’t we often call these institutions “faith-based?” How many times does God tell us in Scripture to “fear not?”
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love,” says 1 John 4:18.
I grew up being told we never should fear doing the right thing. It seems to me that is true for institutions as well as individuals. Granted, that’s truly difficult to do when surrounded by fear. I’ve been on institutional boards. I’ve borne the fiduciary duty to make decisions that will provide for the health of the institution.
But if we believe the health of the institution is ultimately God’s business, then how are we faithful to the institution when we act out of fear? How do we claim to be faithful when we’re acting out of fear?
It’s when institutions are afraid that they tear down the castle in order to build a wall.
The ultimate unforced error.
Charlie Fuller, a professor emeritus of music and a former dean, most recently served as director of Pathways to Ministry at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, where he remains a coach-in-residence.