The present crisis within the Southern Baptist Convention over how to handle allegations of sexual abuse isn’t Ronnie Floyd’s first experience responding to such sensitive matters. Before taking the helm of the SBC’s powerful Executive Committee, Floyd was pastor of…
New details emerge about how SBC Executive Committee wants to control the sexual abuse investigation, as outrage mounts among other Southern Baptist leaders
Less than a day after the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee again declined to follow the explicit request of convention messengers, the resulting governance meltdown spread to the leadership of other agencies who fear they will lose funding from SBC…
SBC Executive Committee declines for a second time to comply with will of convention messengers on sexual abuse investigation
For the second time in a week, members of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee have defied the will of the SBC in annual session — previously considered the final authority in governance — by refusing to waive attorney-client privilege…
Southern Baptists, power and the continuum of sexual violence
Note to readers: This article includes content related to sexual abuse and violence against women. The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has found yet another way to retraumatize survivors of clergy abuse and accentuate the convention’s long history…
If pickles had souls, would the SBC Executive Committee still ignore the will of SBC messengers?
On Tuesday, Sept. 21, the single greatest threat to the future of the Southern Baptist Convention since the controversy of the Conservative Resurgence was revealed. It was not revealed to be a liberal drift, inerrancy versus non-inerrancy, women preachers, the…
SBC faces a test of its governance with tug-of-war over sexual abuse investigation
The Southern Baptist Convention currently faces one of the greatest tests ever of its internal governance while also fending off serious accusations of mishandling sexual abuse claims. This dual problem consumed the Sept. 20-21 meeting of the SBC Executive Committee…
SBC task forces hires the same investigative firm the Executive Committee wanted but on different terms
The independent firm originally hired by the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee to investigate itself has been chosen for that task again — this time by the special task force created by SBC annual meeting messengers in a rebuke to…
New lawsuit accuses SBC Executive Committee, Southern Seminary, Lifeway and others of ‘conspiracy’ to cover up sexual abuse claims
A sweeping lawsuit filed by a victim of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of her Baptist pastor father alleges a conspiracy among several Southern Baptist Convention entities and individuals to defame her and squelch her pleas for relief. The…
SBC steers a decidedly conservative course but rejects the most far-right agenda while putting Executive Committee and Ronnie Floyd on notice
While affirming bread-and-butter conservative issues on the first day of its annual meeting June 15, the Southern Baptist Convention turned back attempts at harder-line positions desired by the most conservative bloc of the body. That included a narrow rejection of…
SBC Executive Committee declines to entertain the idea of broadening the scope of its investigation of itself
As an anticipated 17,000 messengers descended on Nashville for the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 14, the SBC Executive Committee defended its decision to pre-emptively investigate itself and refused to broaden the scope of that investigation. Meanwhile, a North…
SBC Executive Committee hires a firm to investigate itself and report findings to itself
In what appears to be a preemptive move four days before the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, the president of the SBC Executive Committee announced he has hired an outside firm to investigate his own agency and, purportedly, report the…
Mike Stone and Ronnie Floyd should step down
When I pulled into the seven-figure neighborhood outside Dallas, I began to wonder to myself why a former seminary president would be living in a mansion in this posh suburb near Plano. Then as I pulled up to the door,…