SBC Life - Fall 2021 (Vol. 30, No. 1)

Unity IN LEADERSHIP IN GIVING IN GOING

FA L L 2 0 2 1

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Table of Contents

SBC Life is published by the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.

901 Commerce Street Nashville, Tennessee 37203 615-244-2355 E-mail: sbclife@SBC.net

F E AT U R E D A R T I C L E S

8 United in Our Leadership: Litton Aims to Bring

SBC Together Through “Honest Conversation”

Jonathan Howe Executive Editor Andy Beachum Creative Director Allison Young Publication and Project Coordinator

14 Unified in Giving: Southern Baptist Churches

of All Sizes Come Together Through the

Cooperative Program

22 United in Going: The Unifying Power of

International Missions

SBC Life is published three times per year: Fall, Spring, and Summer. It is distributed to pastors, ministers of education, ministers of music, full-time denominational workers, chaplains, missionaries, and vocational evangelists.

Workers retiring from any of these groups may continue to receive the magazine upon request. Subscriptions are free of charge. Bulk subscriptions are available at reduced prices.

For SBC Life subscriptions, call 866-722-5433 (toll-free).

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S B C U P D AT E S

28 Several State Conventions Name

New Executive Directors in 2021

56 EC Approves Guidepost Contract,

Agrees to Waive Privilege

35 ERLC Presidential Search

Committee Named

58 At 75, Baptist Press Still

‘Important Religion News’

38 Capitol Hill Baptist Church,

DC Settle Religious Liberty Suit

62 Why We Need Jesus at

the Center

For advertising information, contact Hillary Krantz at hkrantz@sbc.net.

SBC Life (ISSN 1081-8189) Volume 30, Number 1 © 2021 Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee

46 Litton announces Chair,

Vice Chair for Committee

on Committees SPONSORED

50 Record High Number of

Professions of Faith Recorded

at Falls Creek

20 Brotherhood Mutual 31 Voice of the Martyrs

54 ‘Fill the Tank’ Brings 1,600

Baptisms in North Carolina

42 IMB Week of Prayer

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United in Our Leadership: Litton Aims to Bring SBC Together Through “Honest Conversation”

BY DAVID ROACH

A

n egregious sin in the congregation could have brought division to Redemption Church in Saraland, Alabama, the church Ed Litton has pastored for twenty-seven years.

But thanks to Litton’s leadership, it didn’t, said his longtime associate pastor Billy Graham.

Litton showed “the positive side” of church discipline, Graham said, as “he followed the biblical mandate” of Matthew 18—going to the sinning individual, then taking someone else, then taking the matter to the church and removing the man from fellowship when he didn’t repent. But that wasn’t the end of the story. “As a result of that, there was great repentance that took place. The man came back and repented publicly before the church, and full restoration was brought about.”

Those who know Litton say that wasn’t an isolated incident. For decades, he has forged unity among believers through strained times. Now he’s looking to bring that brand of leadership to the SBC amid its own strained times.

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A MANDATE TO HEED

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“A cool hand on a fevered brow” is how Graham describes Litton’s leadership style. “God has given him great intuition and great knowledge of the Scripture.”

Litton was elected SBC president in June at the Convention’s Annual Meeting in Nashville as Southern Baptists confronted contentious issues like Critical Race Theory, charges of liberal drift and how to handle sexual abuse allegations. Yet Litton believes the occasionally heated discussion of those issues and the narrow 52-percent majority by which he was elected belie an underlying unity in the SBC. That was evident in the hours following Litton’s election, when people approached him in the convention center countless times to say, “I didn’t vote for you, but I’m praying for you.” He has been told the same thing many times since at speaking engagements.

When secular journalists ask Litton the SBC’s perceived division, he tells them, “You don’t understand how unified we still are. I find a delight in knowing that the common Southern Baptist just wants the Gospel to get out and change their community and change the nation and change the nations of the world.”

Southern Baptists are watching to see if Litton can tap into that underlying unity to calm the latest round of Convention squabbles.

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Ironically, he believes two hot-button issues can be among the SBC’s greatest sources of unity: sexual abuse and racial reconciliation. The Convention “gave me a mandate” to address those issues, Litton said, when it voted with near unanimity to add a sixth strategic action to the SBC’s Vision 2025 initiative: “Prayerfully endeavor to eliminate all incidents of sexual abuse and racial discrimination among our churches.”

Both issues “at their core create distrust if they’re not handled correctly,” Litton said. “I can’t create unity. But I can do what the Convention has tasked me to do and believe that when properly done, it will lead to greater trust.”

He began addressing sexual abuse by appointing in July a seven-member task force to oversee a third-party review into the handling of sexual abuse claims by the SBC Executive Committee (EC). A month later, the task force released an update calling for proposals from firms interested in conducting the review. The task force also announced that the review would include EC actions from 2000 to 2021.

Litton long has been an advocate of racial reconciliation. Last fall, he helped draft a statement on “the Gospel, racial reconciliation, and justice” signed by a diverse group of pastors. In June, SBC messengers overwhelmingly adopted a resolution “on the sufficiency of Scripture for race and racial reconciliation.”

“We have to have an honest conversation about race . . . and abuse,” Litton said. “The Convention expresses itself in the motions it makes and the resolutions it adopts, so leaders need to listen to what the Convention is saying.”

EXAMPLES TO FOLLOW

One of Litton’s favorite historical examples in that endeavor is K. Owen White, who served as SBC president from 1963–64 as the Convention sought a unified response to doctrinal controversy and racial strife. White was elected at the same

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Litton is optimistic about leading the SBC to greater unity. The most significant lesson he has learned from his early months in office is that an overwhelming percentage of Southern Baptists are “serious about the Gospel.”

the power of his pulpit” and “captivated by everything he said.” Like White, Litton aims to be “convictional,” “practical,” and “inspiring.”

Litton also looks to the example of former SBC president Jimmy Draper, “a Southern Baptist statesman” and “one of the kindest men that I have ever seen in that office.” Litton served on the staff of First Baptist Church in Euless, Texas, when Draper was pastor.

Draper said the SBC seems to be experiencing a “perfect storm” of challenges, but Litton “has the spirit to deal with that carefully.”

“He’s going to be a good leader,” Draper said.

“I have great confidence in him.”

Annual Meeting where messengers adopted the Baptist Faith and Message (1963)—the culmination of a doctrinal dispute—and debated whether to endorse historic civil rights legislation.

A theological conservative, White had objected publicly to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Ralph Elliott’s 1962 book The Message of Genesis, which denied the historicity of Genesis. White’s election was viewed as a conservative reaction to liberal drift in some Convention entities.

White also led Southern Baptists through racial tension. The year he presided over the Annual Meeting, messengers declined on a ballot vote to support the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act then working its way through Congress. In 1965, White urged First Baptist Church of Houston, where he was pastor, to grant the request of an African American woman to become a church member.

Despite his recommendation, the church voted by secret ballot not to receive her into membership. White expressed disappointment and resigned a day later to take a position with the California Southern Baptist Convention.

White was a friend of Litton’s parents and the first SBC president he knew personally. On occasion, White preached in Litton’s boyhood church.

“As a teenager,” he said, “I was overwhelmed by

BELIEVERS TO UNITE

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Despite the challenges, Litton is optimistic about leading the SBC to greater unity. The most significant lesson he has learned from his early months in office is that an overwhelming percentage of Southern Baptists are “serious about the Gospel.”

That was evident this summer when, on vacation in Colorado, Litton and his wife Kathy were trying to find a Baptist camp that had been destroyed by forest fire nine months earlier. As they searched, the Littons happened upon “trucks with big yellow signs that said Southern Baptist Disaster Relief,” he said. Five Disaster Relief volunteers were sifting through the ashes of a burned house, looking for items of value to the family.

“We sat there and wept with them as they told us stories of how people heard the Gospel” through Disaster Relief, Litton said, noting “the joy of hearing” how God was working to “expand the Gospel.”

He’s confident he will happen upon many other Southern Baptists sharing Christ amid the challenges of 2021. People with hearts like that, he said, can be led to unity.

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

F E AT U R E D A R T I C L E

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Unified in Giving: Southern Baptist Churches of All Sizes Come Together Through the Cooperative Program

BY TOBIN PERRY

D

avid Dykes had always taught his church that ten percent was a good starting point for its giving to the work of missions throughout the world.

But in 1998, as Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas, headed into a $28 million building campaign, Dykes led the church to take an additional step of faith. While raising a faith-stirring amount for the building, he challenged the church to raise their Cooperative Program giving by a half a percent a year until they reached fifteen percent.

“This sounds counterintuitive, but the more generous our church became, the more generous our members became,” said Dykes, who retired at the end of August after thirty years as pastor

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of Green Acres. “We were able to raise all the $28 million in cash the day we moved into the worship center; at the same time, we were increasing our CP giving.”

Among the highest-giving churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, Green Acres gave more than $40 million to missions through the Cooperative Program in the three decades Dykes served as the church’s pastor. During the same thirty-year stretch, the church raised more than $100 million for construction and new property and is now completely debt-free.

Dykes says that giving through the Cooperative Program allowed his church to take part in work they could never do on their own.

“As we all know, the SBC is made up of thousands of autonomous churches,” Dykes said.

“The only time the SBC actually exists is when we are called into session at the Annual Meeting.

So the CP becomes the network that links these thousands of churches together 24/7, 365. I envision it like a fishing net. Jesus told us to be fishers of men. Each [Southern Baptist church] that gives through the CP is like a knot in the fishing net. That’s the only way the ‘net works’—no pun intended. All alone, no single church can support missions and theological education—but together, we can accomplish what would be impossible for a single church to do.”

It’s a common refrain in churches that consistently sacrifice to give more through the Cooperative Program: churches can do more ministry when they work together.

For Green Acres, deep involvement in the Cooperative Program doesn’t replace mission work in its community; it complements the work.

Dykes notes that part of the church’s mission heart is for local missions, helping hurting people nearby. Earlier in this year, the church served free groceries to more than four thousand families in their community. A few years ago, they worked with RIP Medical Debt to pay off $4 million of medical debt for people in the community.

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The church also has fourteen strategic missions initiatives in locations around the world including Cuba, Columbia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and the Philippines. The church sponsors several church plants throughout North America, has taken a special interest in church planting in the Pacific Northwest, particularly Seattle, and partners with the North American Mission Board in that area.

“Our church not only prays for missions, but we also give—and we go,” Dykes said.

The Cooperative Program allows large churches like Green Acres to partner with smaller ones, such as First Baptist Church of Kinston, Alabama, to communicate the Gospel in North America and around the world.

FBC Kinston had a history of both giving to and receiving from the Cooperative Program when Pastor Jonathan Jenkins arrived at the church in 2019. The century-old church, which currently runs about one hundred in attendance, had once given a healthy ten percent of its budget through the Cooperative Program. The church also had a long line of pastors who were educated at SBC seminaries.

By 2019, the church was still active in Southern Baptist life and took part in missions, but its Cooperative Program giving had dropped to about two percent of the church budget.

About a year after Jenkins, a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, arrived at the church, the church began looking at some strategic initiatives that would extend its ministry. For example, the church planned to develop an Acts 1:8 missions strategy to increase missions involvement locally, state-wide, nationally, and internationally.

In addition, Jenkins and other church leaders made a goal of raising the church’s Cooperative Program giving from two to five percent and made a plan to increase giving one percent a year until they hit the ten percent mark.

“The Cooperative Program started in 1925, so we’re just under one hundred years,” Jenkins said.

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As we all know, the SBC is made up of thousands of autonomous churches.

The only time the SBC actually exists is when we are called into session at the Annual Meeting. So the CP becomes the network that links these thousands of churches together 24/7, 365.

David Dykes, retired pastor Green Acres Baptist Church Tyler, Texas

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“I have not come across any studies that show anything that has been as effective, for as long a period, especially when it comes to voluntary participation. With our voluntary participation in the free church tradition, we’re out-stripping churches that have a more hierarchical structure as far as number of missionaries on the ground and impact of those missionaries and missions.”

Plus, Jenkins notes, as a graduate of Leavell College and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, his training—and the training of many of his predecessors at the church—was supported by the Cooperative Program. He also explains that the church has benefited from the work of the Alabama State Board of Missions, whether it’s partnering in statewide missions or through their help thinking through some physical space issues they were running into as a church.

But Jenkins strongly notes, the Cooperative Program is much bigger than their church. Their participation helps to get their eyes off themselves and on the bigger picture of what God is doing globally. Participating in the Cooperative Program, Jenkins adds, helps to unify churches across the SBC regardless of size.

“I think it reminds us that there’s something bigger than us that we’re a part of,” Jenkins said.

“Of course, we know that we’re part of the universal Church, and that’s a given. But through the Cooperative Program churches like mine, which could never afford to pay a missionary’s salary or even buy a vehicle for a missionary on a foreign field, we can be a part of other churches our size—along with bigger churches and smaller churches—all coming together to be part of something that’s bigger than ourselves.”

TOBIN PERRY is a freelance writer living in Evansville, Indiana.

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OKAY, SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED

We don’t have to tell you how tough the last year or so has been. But, looking back, we’ve learned a few things…

We’ve learned how to wash our hands the right way, and that toilet paper is the first thing to go when people start to panic. We’ve learned that some of us have pretty bad mask breath, and that children’s ministry volunteers are superheroes.

We’ve learned some important things about the Church, too.

We’ve learned that the Church is resilient. We’ve learned that the body of Christ can come together in worship, despite division.

We’ve learned that we can still show our neighbors Christlike love and compassion, even from six feet away. At Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company, we’ve learned a lot, but mostly, the last year or so confirmed something we already knew – the Church is worth fighting for. We’ve been helping Christian ministries bear their burdens for more than a century. Through that time, we’ve seen the Church endure countless trials, standing firm in the faith and grounded in love. As we look to the future, we have hope, because we know that no matter what comes, the Church will endure.

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F E AT U R E D A R T I C L E

.eaforminstyghSuA cw*lkpdKM * Names changed for security

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United in Going: The Unifying Power of International Missions

BY DAVID ROACH

W

hen Silverdale Baptist Church began partnering with the International Mission Board to assist and encourage workers in Sub-Saharan Africa, the effects extended well beyond the African continent.

The partnership began in 1998, when the Chattanooga, Tennessee, congregation averaged nine hundred in worship. Within six years, that doubled to 1,800. Today, the church averages 4,000 and has sent out more than thirty-five members to serve as missionaries across the globe. Pastor Tony Walliser credits international missions as a catalyst for unity and growth.

“At the point we made missions a priority of our church, we saw God bless every other area of our church,” Walliser said.

He thinks an SBC-wide refocus on international missions could have a similar effect on the Convention as a whole. Walliser is not alone in that assessment. Churches across the SBC that have seen their health and unity increased through an international missions focus say the Convention too can experience missions-driven unity.

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To facilitate a refocus on missions, the IMB has developed five targets to engage unreached people and places over the next five years: • Send an additional five hundred fully-funded missionaries, bringing the total to 4,200.

• Mobilize five hundred global missionary partners to join IMB teams overseas— workers from other nations funded by overseas churches, networks of churches, and Baptist conventions.

• Engage seventy-five global cities with comprehensive evangelistic strategies.

• Increase Lottie Moon Christmas Offering receipts six percent annually ($10 million per year), the amount required to fund a net gain of five hundred missionaries.

• Mobilize seventy-five percent of Southern Baptist churches to support the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering by 2025, up from less than half that give through Lottie Moon currently.

Not only do the five targets have potential to unite Southern Baptists, IMB President Paul Chitwood said, unity is required if the targets are to be achieved.

“These five targets are about fulfilling the Great Commission,” Chitwood said. “And no single church or even an entire association or state convention is going to be able to meet these Godsized goals. Hitting these targets will take all of us working together. That’s what cooperative missions is all about.”

With the global targets established, the question is whether enough churches will embrace them to spark renewed unity in going.

One church in Missouri is doing its part by partnering with a South Asian city to help a church there develop a comprehensive evangelistic strategy.

Through a longstanding relationship with an IMB worker, the church learned of a large Muslim pilgrimage that occurs in their adopted city annually. A local Baptist church across the street from the pilgrimage site was a natural global partner,

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so the Missouri congregation began travelling there to conduct evangelism training and develop strategy. Though travel was slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, pastor Henry Jones* said a global focus has sparked local missions as well.

“The people who go come back incredibly motivated to do more evangelistic work in our own area,” Jones said.

He’s among the growing cohort of pastors who see international missions as the apex of Southern Baptist cooperation.

“The high point” of each SBC Annual Meeting is the IMB commissioning service, Jones said. “It moves the voices that are upset” to “the fringe, because the bulk of us love just coming together to hear what we are able to accomplish together internationally.”

With the five global targets, opportunity abounds for churches to turn their focus to the nations. For each target, the IMB needs churches to help.

• To help send more missionaries, churches can develop missionary-sending pipelines and focus their international missions giving through the IMB. • To mobilize global missionary partners, churches can connect their existing overseas partners with the IMB. “Many US churches have longstanding relationships overseas that can help push the mission forward to unreached peoples and places,” Chitwood said.

• To help engage cities, “churches with experience in urban ministry [can] adopt a global city where they can work alongside our city teams,” Chitwood said.

• To increase Lottie Moon receipts, every church can give a little more. If every Southern Baptist increased their Lottie Moon offering by $0.63 per year, that would yield an extra $10 million annually.

• To mobilize more churches to give through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the IMB needs “advocates,” Chitwood said, “people and churches who share the news of what

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My prayer is that Southern Baptists will not allow the controversial issues of our day to distract us from the fact that more than three thousand people groups have yet to be engaged with the Gospel and 155,473 people die lost around the world every single day.”

Paul Chitwood, president International Mission Board

God is doing through the IMB and invite others to join in that work.” Churches and pastors can help the IMB connect with non giving congregations by providing information on those churches via info@imb.org.

“My prayer is that Southern Baptists will not allow the controversial issues of our day to distract us from the fact that more than three thousand people groups have yet to be engaged with the Gospel and 155,473 people die lost around the world every single day,” Chitwood said. “May those two realities motivate us to work through our differences and remain committed to working together for the sake of those who, without hearing the Good News that we’ve been entrusted to share, will spend eternity in hell.”

That’s the kind of unified focus missions has brought to Harp’s Crossing Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Georgia. Since adopting a Southeast Asian people group in 1995, the congregation has “grown steadily” and unified around reaching people at home and abroad, pastor Dennis Watson said.

Ten years into its missions partnership with the IMB, Harp’s Crossing built a new 1,200-seat worship center. The estimated cost of $2.9 million became $6 million by the time the project was complete, but Harp’s Crossing moved into the facility debt free thanks to the culture of generosity that had been cultivated.

Watson believes an international missions refocus across the SBC would yield a similar athome benefit.

“Our folks [at Harp’s Crossing] are pulling together with a vision and seeing why we’re here,” Watson said. In the same vein, “our Convention would benefit from a very clear understanding and focus on what we’re trying to do” across the world. *Name changed for security

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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S B C U P D AT E

Several State Conventions Name New Executive Directors in 2021 State Conventions in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Nevada all welcomed new executive directors since early 2021, beginning with Texas in February.

The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) Executive Board voted unanimously to confirm Nathan Lorick as the SBTC’s second executive director Sunday, February 21.

Lorick succeeds Jim Richards, who has served as the convention’s executive director since its founding in 1998. Richards announced his retirement in November of 2020.

“I never thought it would be possible to be able to follow your hero,” Lorick said. “I am forever changed because of you two (Richards and his wife, June). I still have a lot to learn. You’ll be on speed dial.”

For Lorick, who has served as executive director of the Colorado Baptist General Convention since 2017, the new role heralds a return to Texas and the SBTC, where he served as evangelism director from 2012-2017. Prior to that, he served

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in multiple Texas Baptist churches as a student pastor and interim pastor and as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Malakoff and Martin’s Mill Baptist Church.

Lorick began his work as SBTC executive director April 1 and Richards will continue in an advisory role through the remainder of 2021. He and his wife Jenna live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with their four children.

Todd Unzicker, chief of staff at The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, was elected executive director-treasurer of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina on May 22, 2021.

Unzicker succeeds Milton Hollifield who had held the position for fourteen years before his retirement earlier in 2021.

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Unzicker, 44, served on staff at The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, since 2012 and worked closely with The Summit’s lead pastor, J. D. Greear, during his tenure as president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Unzicker said he wants to see the Convention “connect churches to relationships and resources that fuel mission partnerships across the state and around the world.”

“The church is God’s plan A for reaching the lost world,” Unzicker said. “In the kingdom of God, there are no small churches. There’s only the Great Commission. . . . We’re going to do together what might be more difficult to do by ourselves.”

Unzicker has been married to his wife Ashley since 2007. They have three children and reside in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

In a called meeting of the Ohio Mission Council this June, Ohio Baptists elected Jeremy Westbrook as executive director-treasurer of the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio (SCBO). Westbrook succeeds Jack Kwok, who retired in 2020, and began the new role August 1.

He had been serving as the senior associate pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, since 2017. In 2018, Westbrook began a joint position as lead missional strategist of the Suncoast Baptist Association. In that joint leadership role, he helped mobilize Suncoast churches for church planting and revitalization.

“I believe we have the greatest pastors, the greatest leaders, and the greatest opportunity to advance the kingdom in the state of Ohio,” Westbrook said. “Ohio matters more than just every four years in the presidential election; it matters in the advancement of the kingdom.

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“I long to see the day where all of our churches in the Ohio convention and throughout the Midwest are filled with multiplication pipelines.

Every church, no matter the size, can develop and implement a pipeline to raise up and release leaders for the next generation of Gospel impact.

I believe Ohio has the kingdom potential to be the epicenter of a movement of pipelines to call out the called for the Gospel of Christ.”

Westbrook and his wife Jennifer have been married since 2002, and have three children, two of whom were born in Ohio.

Damian Cirincione began serving as the executive director-treasurer elect for the Nevada Baptist Convention on September 7.

Cirincione had been serving as executive pastor of Shadow Hills Church in Las Vegas, as well as the current president of the Nevada convention.

During the search for a new executive director, the executive board said in a statement that Cirincione had “removed himself from any responsibilities as president of the convention,” as it pertained to the search process for a new state executive director, in order to avoid a conflict of interest.

In the letter announcing Cirincione’s hiring, the board said every step in the process of naming a new director—from approving a job description, to processing applications, to conducting final interviews—was “saturated in prayer.”

Upon acceptance of the position of executive director-elect, Cirincione stepped down from his role as convention president, and will begin his role as active executive director-treasurer at the Nevada Baptist Convention Annual Meeting October 18-19.

Cirincione and his wife, Judith, have two children together.

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uring World War II, Sabina and Richard Wurmbrand were arrested by the Nazis for their Jewish identity and Christian faith. Then, in 1945, when Russian Communists seized Romania and attempted to take control of the churches, Sabina and Richard began an “underground” ministry to oppressed believers and boldly witnessed for Christ to former Nazis and Russian soldiers. The following is an excerpt from Sabina’s book, The Pastor’s Wife, in which she recalls their radical obedience to share the love of Christ with even their enemies.

All through World War II, we had worked to help victims of the Nazis — Jews in concentration camps, children orphaned by the massacres, and Romanian Protestants, who were greatly persecuted under Antonescu, the Romanian prime minister who led the pro-German government during

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the war. We organized the first relief to Hungarian Jews and to another oppressed minority — the gypsies.

But when the war ended, a new minority had been created. The hunter had become the hunted. German troops left behind in the retreat had to fend for themselves, and many died during the

Russian occupation of Romania.

We were utterly opposed to the Nazis: They had killed millions; they had devastated whole countries, leaving cities in ruins; our friends and relatives had been thrown into their furnaces.

But now they were defeated and offered no danger. Most of the soldiers who remained were like ourselves, simply victims of war. They were starving and terrified. We could not refuse them help.

People said, “You’re taking foolish risks for the sake of murderers.”

“God is always on the side of the persecuted,” Richard answered. It was not only Nazi Party officials who were being hunted like animals; it was also the silly boys who had paraded in Brown Shirts on Sunday afternoons and become soldiers by order. And not everyone was brave enough to prefer

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THE VOICE OF THE MARTYRS

death to taking part in Nazi massacres.

Anti-Semitism had prevailed among Germans and Romanians, but there also existed small groups who had risked their lives to help Jews. Why hate a whole people because of a Hitler and his many followers? Why not rather love this people for the sake of its saints and the few who resisted the tyrant?

The Bible tells us what it really means to be a Jew. The biblical word for “Hebrew” (Ivri) historically meant to stand on the other side. The first Hebrew was Abraham, and he was one in a real sense of the word, standing on the other side. When all men worshiped idols, Abraham worshiped the living God. When others are bent on revenge, on ways of doing more evil than their neighbor, God gives the ability to return good for evil.

LOVING THE NAZI ENEMY Once, three German officers hid in a tiny outhouse in our yard. It was a dark little garage, half-buried in snow. We fed them and emptied their buckets at night.

We hated their former atrocities. We ourselves had been the victims. But now we talked to them, trying to make them feel less like caged beasts.

One evening when I called, their captain said, “I must tell you something that’s on my mind. You know that it is death to shelter a German soldier. Yet you do it — and you are Jews! I must tell you that when the German Army recaptures Bucharest, which it surely will, I’ll never do for you what you have done for us.”

He looked at me strangely. I thought I should try to explain. Sitting down on an upturned box, I said, “I am your host.

My family was killed by the Nazis, but even so, as long as you are under my roof I owe you not only protection, but the respect due to a guest. You will suffer.

The Bible says, ‘Whoever sheds man’s

2

blood, by man his blood shall be shed.’

I will protect you as much as I can from the police, but I cannot protect you from the wrath of God.” “Humbug,” he answered.

He patted me on the shoulder. I drew back. His hand had shed innocent blood.

He apologized: “I did not mean it badly.

I just wondered why a Jewess should risk her life for a German soldier. I do not like Jews. And I do not fear God.” “Let us leave it,” I said. “We remember a word of God in the Old Testament: ‘Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.’”

He seemed puzzled. “That was thousands of years ago. What is it to you if your forefathers suffered in Egypt?”

I said, “God says, with good reason, to love strangers; for in the last resort we are all strangers to each other … even to ourselves. As He has forgiven us, so we must forgive others.”

“Wait a minute!” said the officer. “Jews have committed crimes against the German people and mankind. Honesty makes me tell you this to your face. But you must look on us as men who have committed crimes against the Jews. And you forgive them all?”

I answered very earnestly, “Even

 Sabina shares the gospel with her enemy, from the film, Sabina: Tortured for Christ, the Nazi years, coming to theaters this fall.

the worst crimes are forgiven by faith in Jesus Christ. I have no authority to forgive. Jesus can do so, if you repent.”

The soft crunch of footsteps on loose snow came from the yard outside. I peered out through a crack. But it was only the deaf old janitor from next door.

The captain lit one of the cigarettes Richard had found for them (although he himself hated smoking). He inhaled and passed the butt to his friend.

He said, “Gnädige Frau, I won’t say I understand you. But perhaps if no one had this gift of returning good for evil you talk about, then there would never be an end to killing.”

When I stood up to leave, they rose and gave little formal bows. I put their laundry in my shopping bag and went out.

These men eventually crossed the frontier safely into Germany. But many thousands like them were rounded up and died after spending years in Soviet labor camps, together with Russian Christians who might have taught them further.

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FOUNDATIONS

▶ Sabina and Richard Wurmbrand co-founded The Voice of the Martyrs, an international missions organization serving persecuted Christians around the world.

Every German at that time wanted to get rid of his military uniform. How proudly they had once worn those well-cut tunics, the badges, and the medals. How hard it was now to accept in exchange the poor civilian clothes we offered.

It was at this time that Richard began to bring home Russian soldiers. He was determined to tell them about Christ.

Others rightly believed the country should be rid of them.

“Do be careful, Sabina!” said Anutza, a dear friend from our church. “What will you do if the two armies meet in your home?”

We took care not to let that happen.

REACHING THE RUSSIANS Richard began by entering Red Army barracks posing as a black market dealer in cheap watches. A group would gather around. After a time, he would lead the talk away from bargaining to the Bible.

“You haven’t come for a watch,” an older man would say, “you want to tell us about the saints.”

As Richard spoke, one would put a warning hand on his knee.

“Talk watches. The company informer’s coming.”

The Red Army was full of them. They spied on comrades and reported all they said. The young soldiers knew nothing

about God. They had never seen a Bible or been inside a church. Now I learned why Richard said it was “heaven on earth” to bring the gospel to Russians.

I found some educated men who knew German or French. I told them the Creed.

“It begins with the words I believe. It isn’t like a Party order that tells you what

to think. It says that you must become an ‘I,’ a personality in your own right.

You must think for yourselves.

“An army moves at the speed of the slowest truck. And if men advance in the mass, it will be at the rate of the slowest man. Christ calls you out of the mass.

Man’s greatest privilege is the right to say yes or no, even to God.” ◼

Sabina and Richard’s “underground” ministry to both Christians and their oppressors eventually resulted in their arrest.

Richard spent fourteen years in prison, and Sabina endured three years in a labor camp, nearly freezing to death as she and other prisoners worked on the Danube Canal. After being ransomed out of Romania, and following their decades-long ministry work advancing the gospel in their home country, in 1967 they co-founded The Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry dedicated to serving persecuted Christians worldwide.

Sabina and Richard had an unshakable faith. Though they endured great suffering, neither of them gave up hope, and neither of them would stop risking everything to tell others about Jesus Christ, no matter the cost.

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S B C U P D AT E

ERLC Presidential Search Committee Named

BY TOM STRODE

A

search committee has been named to find a successor to Russell Moore as president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

On behalf of the ERLC Executive Committee, David Prince, chairman of the commission’s trustees, announced Tuesday (July 6) the selection of Todd Howard as chairman of the presidential search committee. Howard is the pastor of Watson Chapel Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

The other trustees named to the committee and the states they represent are Lori Bova of New Mexico, Traci Griggs of North Carolina, Christine Hoover of Virginia, Juan Sanchez of Texas, and A.B. Vines of California. Prince, pastor of preaching and vision at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky., and an

at-large trustee, will be an ex-officio member of the committee.

The search committee is charged with bringing a candidate to the ERLC trustee board to recommend as a successor to Moore, whose resignation took effect June 1 after eight years as the commission’s president. Moore announced in mid-May his departure to become public theologian for Christianity Today and lead the evangelical magazine’s new Public Theology Project.

In an ERLC news release, Prince said the search committee members “come from diverse backgrounds and ministry contexts but share a deep and abiding commitment to the Gospel and the need for faithful Christian witness in the public square.”

He expressed gratitude in advance for “the way in which I know this group will work diligently,

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The search committee is charged with bringing a candidate to the ERLC trustee board to recommend as a successor to Moore, whose resignation took effect June 1 after eight years as the commission’s president.

methodically, and prayerfully to search for and recommend a candidate who can serve both the Commission and our Convention of churches with faithfulness, excellence, and skill.”

In written comments for Baptist Press, Prince called the ERLC “a crucial institution in Southern Baptist life.”

The ERLC staff has “continued to demonstrate this fact by moving forward with their important work saving lives, upholding human dignity, promoting religious liberty, and carrying the Gospel forward into the public square,” Prince said. The commission’s next president “will be a leader who has a heart for all those aspects of the ERLC’s ministry assignment and a bold vision for accomplishing them,” he said.

The search committee will meet in the weeks ahead to create guidelines, a presidential profile and the process for submitting names for consideration, according to the ERLC news release.

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Information will then be released to assist those who would like to recommend a candidate.

As with other recent SBC entity searches, the election of a new ERLC president is expected to require “many months,” Prince said during the commission’s report to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting June 15-16 in Nashville. He asked messengers to pray for the trustees’ search for a president and for the ERLC staff during the transition.

The ERLC trustees elected Moore as president in March 2013, nearly eight months after Richard Land announced his retirement.

In its release, the ERLC provided the following descriptions of the search committee’s members other than Howard: Bova, founder of Veritas Classical Christian Academy, is a member of Taylor Memorial Baptist Church in Hobbs, New Mexico.

Griggs, communications/public policy specialist and radio show host, is a member of Fairview Baptist Church in Apex, North Carolina.

Hoover, author and Bible teacher, is a member of Charlottesville Community Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Sanchez is senior pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas.

Vines is senior pastor of New Seasons Church in Spring Valley, California.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on July 6, 2021.

TOM STRODE is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.

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Capitol Hill Baptist Church, DC Settle Religious Liberty Suit

BY TOM STRODE

T

he District of Columbia has agreed to pay $220,000 in legal fees in a settlement with Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC). The settlement comes nine months after a federal court ruled the government could not prohibit the Southern Baptist congregation from meeting outdoors with proper safety measures in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The July 8 settlement agreement followed an October 2020 decision by federal judge Trevor McFadden to block enforcement of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s restrictions on religious gatherings. McFadden ruled the district’s limitations during the pandemic “substantially burden” CHBC’s free exercise of religion and likely violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

In the settlement, DC agreed to pay $210,000 to the law firm WilmerHale and $10,000 to First Liberty Institute, which both represented the church in the suit.

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CHBC, which resumed holding corporate worship in its auditorium May 2, is “thankful for the Lord’s provision to be able to gather” in other locations before returning to its own building, said Justin Sok, a church elder, in written remarks.

“We praise him for the kindness to be able to use our own building again,” Sok said. “We continue to pray for our mayor and leaders that they would lead with wisdom.”

Daniel Patterson, former acting president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said, “A pandemic is no excuse to run roughshod over religious liberty. While it never should have had to go to these lengths, Capitol Hill Baptist Church has rightly prevailed.

“Throughout the pandemic, CHBC served as a model for how to engage local authorities,” Patterson said in written comments. “Throughout the process, I know this local congregation like many others served their community with faithfulness. With this chapter now closed, my hope is that DC officials will see this church as a valuable partner serving the Capitol Hill community.”

The ERLC worked during the pandemic to provide guidance to state and local officials regarding religious liberty considerations.

In the settlement, DC agreed to “not enforce any current or future COVID-19 restrictions to prohibit CHBC from gathering as one congregation” in the district. It also agreed to “not impose restrictions on CHBC that are more restrictive than the restrictions on comparable secular activities, as defined by the Supreme Court.” The settlement specified the agreement is not an admission the district government violated federal or DC law.

The church, which had a Sunday morning attendance of about 1,000 before the pandemic, filed suit in September 2020 after the DC government rejected its request for a waiver from Bowser’s order despite the church’s commitment to require social distancing and the wearing of masks outdoors. At the time, the order restricted

religious gatherings to one hundred people or fifty percent of capacity, whichever is less, whether they were held indoors or outdoors.

In its complaint, the church contended Bowser’s order had been applied in a discriminatory manner, permitting gatherings of thousands for other events while severely limiting the meetings of churches and other religious bodies.

The church said in the suit it “has a sincerely held religious belief that the physical, corporate gathering of its entire congregation each Sunday is a central element of religious worship commanded by the Lord.” Therefore, the church’s leaders chose long ago not to hold multiple services, and senior pastor Mark Dever decided not to live stream sermons during the pandemic because such a video “is not a substitute for a covenanted congregation assembling together,” according to the suit.

In his opinion, McFadden said DC “misses the point” when it proposes CHBC “hold multiple services, host a drive-in service, or broadcast the service online or over the radio,” which other churches in the district have done.

“The District may think that its proposed alternatives are sensible substitutes,” McFadden wrote. “And for many churches they may be. It is for the church, not the district or this court, to define for itself the meaning of ‘not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,’” which is taken from Hebrews 10:25.

DC did not meet the requirements for hindering religious freedom under RFRA, McFadden wrote. The 1993 federal law requires the government to have a compelling interest and use the narrowest possible means in burdening religious exercise. McFadden said the DC government’s support for mass protests in June 2020 attended by thousands or tens of thousands of people “undermines its contention that it has a compelling interest in capping the number of attendees at the Church’s outdoor services.”

From mid-June until the court decision enabled it to meet outdoors in the district, CHBC

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held corporate worship outdoors on Sunday afternoons at the property of a Southern Baptist church in Alexandria, Virginia, where requirements were less restrictive. The church desired, however, to meet outdoors in DC, where more than sixty percent of its 850 members lived.

After the court ruling, CHBC gathered outside in November and December in DC before meeting in January and February on Sunday evenings in a church auditorium in Maryland. The church began meeting outdoors again in March before returning to its own auditorium after receiving a waiver from the DC government in late April.

Bowser lifted the attendance limitations on houses of worship and most other locations May 21.

The church has become known throughout much of the Southern Baptist Convention since Dever became pastor in 1994. He later founded the 9Marks Ministry, which seeks to foster healthy churches. The ministry holds its “9Marks at 9” events on successive nights each year during the SBC’s Annual Meeting.

Southern Baptist leaders commended guidelines issued in May 2020 by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for restoring in-person worship gatherings. The guidance reminded state and local officials to take the First Amendment right of religious liberty into account when they institute reopening policies. No church or other religious group should be called on to enact “mitigation strategies” stricter than those requested of “similarly situated entities or activities,” according to the CDC. A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on July 12, 2021.

TOM STRODE is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.

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Litton announces Chair, Vice Chair for Committee on Committees

BY SCOTT BARKLEY

O

klahoma pastor Jeremy Freeman and Florida ministry leader Amanda Stanton have been named as chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Committee on Committees, Southern Baptist Convention President Ed Litton announced on August 31.

The Committee on Committees will meet prior to next year’s June 14-15 SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim. There, they will nominate members of the 2022 Committee on Nominations, who will nominate trustees for the boards of SBC entities in 2023.

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JEREMY FREEMAN

Freeman has served as lead pastor of First Baptist Church in Newcastle, Oklahoma, since 2009.

As a student at Oklahoma Baptist University, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in religion before pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Prior to arriving at First Newcastle, he served churches in Rogers, Arkansas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“I’m honored and excited to serve the SBC in this capacity,” he said. “Our denomination exists to stand firm on the truth of God’s Word, while

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urgently and faithfully getting the Gospel to all people in every nation.

“I thank God that, by His grace, we have seen our family of churches continue to grow in influence across North America and around the world. It is my intention to ensure that the work of our committee reflects the growing diversity of our convention, while remaining faithful to our theological commitments outlined in the Baptist Faith and Message.”

Freeman and his wife, Emily, have seven children.

AMANDA STANTON

Stanton serves as director of discipleship at Calvary Christian High School in Clearwater, Florida, where she attends Calvary Church with her husband, Kyle, and their three children. Her father, Willy Rice, is senior pastor of Calvary.

A graduate of Samford University in Birmingham, Stanton earned a degree in education in 2006 and went on to become director of guest services and director of assimilation at Calvary before accepting her current role earlier this year.

“I could not be more excited or grateful that Jeremy Freeman and Amanda Stanton have agreed to serve our Convention as chair and vice chair of the Committee on Committees,” Litton said. “The crucial work of this committee ensures that capable and qualified Southern Baptists are identified to serve on the Committee on Nominations, which in turn identifies leaders for our various boards and committees.”

Typically, the chair and vice chair announcements are made approximately three months before the annual meeting, prior to the naming of appointees. SBC Bylaw 19 calls for providing notice to Southern Baptists of the appointees at least 45 days in advance of each year’s annual meeting.

“In recent years, both the Committee on Committees and Committee on Nominations have put forward exemplary slates of nominees

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onAmadSt

to serve,” Litton said. “In order to ensure this trajectory continues, I wanted to begin this process as soon as possible to maximize the time their committee has to work. Please pray for Jeremy, Amanda and the committee they will lead. I have profound confidence in the work they will do on behalf of our convention.”

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on August 31, 2021.

SCOTT BARKLEY is national correspondent for Baptist Press.

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Record High Number of Professions of Faith Recorded at Falls Creek

BY CHRIS DOYLE

“T

o Him be the glory forever”—part of the theme Scripture for summer youth weeks at Falls Creek Conference Center—could also be the response from camp leadership, who saw God move in a powerful way during the eight weeks of camp.

Todd Sanders talks to students who publicly made spiritual decisions.

Falls Creek witnessed 2,645 campers make professions of faith in Christ, the most recorded during a summer at the campground in the Arbuckle Mountains. More than 5,600 total

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spiritual decisions were reported, including 617 campers who surrendered to the call to ministry.

“Falls Creek 2021 is a wrap!” said Todd Sanders, Falls Creek program director, in a concluding email to Oklahoma Baptist leadership. “The stage is cleared, our missions areas are tucked away, the storage building is filled, and the truck is loaded, the rooms are empty, but what the Lord did lingers. There is much upon which to reflect.”

Sanders also shared good reports from many church leaders: “This week has really hit home

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Falls Creek witnessed 2,645 campers make professions of faith in Christ, the most recorded during a summer at the campground in the Arbuckle Mountains. with our group. We needed this.” “I wouldn’t trade our week for anything!”

“So many comments just like these are what I heard,” Sanders said. “The Spirit was so present all summer. So many answers to the prayers we have been praying together.”

The results came despite the cancellation of camps in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as lower attendance in 2021.

“When we pray and ask the Lord to act, this is a prayer God wants to answer,” Sanders said.

“Obviously, we ask of Him, and He brings the spiritual response. We prayed for Him to do what only He can do and not something we can orchestrate. We prayed to see 3,000 (professions of faith in Christ) this summer. We didn’t reach that, but we did see a record number of decisions. It’s not a failure point; it’s pointing out what God did.”

Sanders also noted this year’s lower number of staffers, many of whom were working at Falls Creek for the first time.

“We asked the Lord to work through camp, calling people to Himself and to do ministry,” he said.

“Everyone responded really well. I couldn’t be more proud of everyone—full-time staff, convention staff, area supervisors, conference center staff, especially Andy (Harrison, director of Oklahoma Baptists conference centers), and his crew.

It was a great collaborate effort, which shows the true picture of how Oklahoma Baptists are.

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Monday night invitations during the first evening service of each camp week was a new addition this summer. Sanders said that could have been a factor in the number of spiritual decisions reported.

“Every leader I talked to thought it was a great thing,” Sanders said about adding Monday night invitations. “There were 617 professions of faith on Mondays. I think it did help increase our number of decisions. It was a demonstration to every camp that we are going to get serious about this.

It was well received and set the stage every week, building an environment for students to meet with God and have Him work in their lives.”

Baptism also was a focal point at the camps this year, which Sanders said was in response to a decline in baptisms, especially among students, not only in Oklahoma but across the country.

Each camp speaker emphasized baptisms, and many churches baptized one or more of their students while at camp, he said. Of the 662 “other” decisions that were made at Falls Creek this summer, a majority were baptism commitments.

Sanders could see enthusiasm from churches and students being back at Falls Creek after no camp in 2020.

“There was some adjustment, after taking a year off, but everybody was excited to be back at camp,” he said. “And I could tell churches were excited to invest in students, helping them grow in their relationships with Christ.

“I am glad that Oklahoma Baptists, across the state, support Falls Creek and have made it a priority to reach students with the Gospel.”

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on August 13, 2021.

CHRIS DOYLE is managing editor of the Baptist Messenger, newsjournal of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

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‘Fill the Tank’ Brings 1,600 Baptisms in North Carolina

BY CHAD AUSTIN

E

lle Robinette wasn’t going to let being bound to a wheelchair prevent her from being baptized.

Cradled in her husband’s arms, Robinette entered the baptistry at Salem Baptist Church in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina, where Pastor Danny McLamb baptized her at the conclusion of the morning worship service on September 12.

“God will make a way!” McLamb exclaimed after Robinette’s husband lifted her out of the water.

From the mountains to the coast, scores of individuals just like Robinette publicly professed their faith in Jesus Christ through baptism across North Carolina as part of the special “Fill the Tank” baptism emphasis held in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptism Sunday.

Nearly seven hundred North Carolina Baptist churches committed to participate in the “Fill the Tank” emphasis leading up to Baptism Sunday on September 12. As of 9 a.m. September

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20, more than 320 churches had reported nearly 1,600 baptisms collectively from across the state.

“It’s been exciting and encouraging to see so many churches across our state come together to celebrate new life in Christ through baptism,” said Todd Unzicker, executive director-treasurer of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSC). “We’ve heard so many powerful testimonies of how God moved, and reports are still coming in. I pray that what happened (on Baptism Sunday) would compel us all to be more intentional about sharing the Good News, making disciples and sending the saved.”

All across North Carolina, churches held baptisms both inside and out—in baptistries, tubs, pools, and natural bodies of water.

Merritt Taylor, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Burnsville, North Carolina, baptized six people in the Toe River at a local campground, which was followed by a celebration with cake

and ice cream.

“To me, baptism is something to be celebrated,” Taylor said. “It’s also something to be done as a public witness.”

Quintell Hill baptized two people at Multiply Community Church in Monroe, North Carolina, where he serves as lead pastor. One of the individuals Hill baptized was his 10-year-old daughter, Moriah.

“I told her, ‘The baptism tank is full of water.

Do you want to go public?’” Hill said. “She said, ‘Yes, Daddy, yes!’”

Churches across the state had been preparing for Baptism Sunday for several months by pledging to “Fill the Tank” and praying for God to save people and follow through in obedience through baptism.

Several churches conducted baptisms in the weeks leading up to September 12, and others planned special services on September 12.

Cameron McGill, former state convention president and pastor of the Lake Church at White Lake, North Carolina, baptized three people in the lake on September 5.

“Labor Day weekend marks the end of our official summer here at White Lake and brings many sad goodbyes for our part-time worshipers as they go back home for our off season,” McGill said. “So we chose to ‘Fill the Tank’ on September 5 for baptism. Of course our tank was already full—we have a natural, 1,100-acre baptistry called White Lake.”

The impact of the “Fill the Tank” emphasis in North Carolina spread around the world.

When the “Fill the Tank” emphasis was first announced in the spring, Tamran Inayat, Urdu pastor at The Point Church in Cary, North Carolina, began highlighting it in his online messages that have a significant following by churches in his native country of Pakistan. Leading up to September 12, Inayat said those churches collectively baptized seventy new Pakistani believers.

“When the vision was announced, I wanted to share it with the Pakistani people,” Inayat said. “I

said, ‘If we can fill the tank with water, God will fill the tank with people.’”

Tony Emes, pastor of the church plant Iglesia Casa de Paz in Harrisburg, North Carolina, baptized five people on September 12. Emes’ church was one of the more than thirty Hispanic congregations across the state that committed to participate in “Fill the Tank.”

“I am so encouraged over the ‘Fill the Tank’ weekend to see what God is doing in North Carolina,” Emes said. “People are coming to faith, being baptized, healthy disciples are being made, new churches are being planted, and Jesus is being made known in entire families.

“Most importantly, God is getting all the glory.”

Daniel Dickard, pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, emphasized evangelism in the morning and baptism in the evening worship services on September 12. Evangelist Dave Walton preached in the morning during a special “Bring Your One” emphasis, related to the national “Who’s Your One?” evangelism emphasis. That evening, Dickard baptized six individuals, which included three members of one family.

Dickard said he hopes that the “Fill the Tank” emphasis will spark a Great Commission movement across North Carolina and beyond that is marked by people sharing Christ, people coming to faith in Christ, people celebrating new life in Christ, and people living missionary for Christ.

“Our hope is that our church and every church that participated in ‘Fill the Tank’ would recapture the miracle of believer’s baptism,” Dickard said. “Every person baptized represents the miracle of God’s grace.”

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on September 23, 2021.

CHAD AUSTIN writes for Baptist State Convention of North Carolina Communications.

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EC Approves Guidepost Contract, Agrees to Waive Privilege

BY BRANDON PORTER

M

embers of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee (EC) voted for the waiving of attorney client privilege within the scope of an independent third-party investigation of the EC concerning the handling of sexual abuse claims. The Sexual Abuse Task Force, assembled by SBC President Ed Litton, was mandated by messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in June and will oversee the investigation.

Trustees met for more than three and a half hours via Zoom before the group voted in favor of a motion to waive privilege by a margin of 44–31.

Three members abstained from the vote. Six members of the committee resigned between the October 5 meeting and the meeting on September 28.

The motion, made by EC member Jared Wellman, calls for a selective waiving of attorney client privilege “that includes an investigation into any allegations of abuse, mishandling of abuse, mistreatment of victims, a pattern of intimidation of victims or advocates, and resistance

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to sexual abuse reform initiatives of the actions and decisions of staff and members of the Executive Committee from January 1, 2000, to June 14, 2021.”

“I’m encouraged by today’s vote that honors the will of the messengers who spoke clearly in Nashville and in recent days about their desire for a transparent investigation,” Wellman said.

Litton said, “I am grateful, especially after many difficult weeks of discussion, that the full, transparent, and unimpeded investigation will now commence. Even so, it is critical to remember that today’s vote marks not the end, but the beginning of this process.”

The selective waiving of privilege means that documents and interviews must fit in a limited window: • Allegations of abuse by Executive

Committee members.

• Mishandling of abuse allegations by

Executive Committee members between

January 1, 2000, to June 14, 2021.

• Allegations of mistreatment of sexual

abuse victims by Executive Committee

members from January 1, 2000, to

June 14, 2021.

• Patterns of intimidation of sexual abuse

victims or advocates from January 1, 2000,

to June 14, 2021.

• Resistance to sexual abuse reform initiatives

from January 1, 2000, to June 14, 2021.

The motion also gave EC Chairman Rolland Slade authority to execute the contract between the EC, the Sexual Abuse Task Force and Guidepost Solutions that was sent to trustees on Oct. 1.

Guidepost is the third-party firm selected by the task force to carry out the investigation.

The contract calls for the creation of a Committee of Cooperation of the Executive Committee, which will be composed of four members from the EC. Two of the members will be chosen by the Sexual Abuse Task Force, and two members will be chosen by the EC. The committee will be led by SBC President Ed Litton.

At the end of the meeting, the EC voted to give Slade the authority to appoint the two members to be selected by the EC. The members of the committee must be among those appointed to their first term on the EC in June 2021. This move allows participating EC members to be outside the scope of the Guidepost investigation.

According to the contract, the committee “is charged with:” Financial oversight of the independent investigation in addition to the financial oversight exercised by the Task Force.

Electing, in cooperation with the Task Force, a liaison between the Executive Committee and Guidepost Solutions to ensure smooth flow of information and response to information requests.

Receipt of periodic monthly updates noting document, witness, and information requests made to the Executive Committee, to ensure information sought is consistent with and responded to in cooperation with the Motion passed by the Messengers at the SBC Convention in June 2021.

Ensuring that the Executive Committee and SBC are fully cooperative in this matter.

SBC EC President Ronnie Floyd said, “We thank all of the trustees for their diligence in addressing complex questions brought to bear by this process.”

He pledged the EC will work with the task force as they move forward.

“Now that the Executive Committee’s Board of Trustees have made their decision, the leadership and staff of the Executive Committee will provide support to Guidepost on implementing next steps to facilitate their investigation,” he said.

Bruce Frank, task force chair, responded to the EC on behalf of the task force, saying, “The task force is pleased with the strong vote today by the Executive Committee to abide by the moral imperative directed by the messengers, seminary presidents, state leaders and many, many more.”

Frank said Guidepost will begin its investigative work immediately. It is required to present

a public report thirty days before the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim.

Near the end of the meeting, Slade spoke pastorally to the group reflecting on the process since messengers voted June 15 in Nashville.

“I’d like to really express my relief that this present challenge seems to be behind us,” he said. “Also, I want to express sorrow over the conduct that we have displayed as Southern Baptists over the course was absolutely a necessary deliberative process.”

Slade called on Southern Baptists to stop attacking one another and to “move down this road together.”

“Most importantly, it’s time to know for sure where we have fallen short on the question of sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist convention, so that we can correct any errors and move into the future as a Convention, that’s the most safe for our most vulnerable members,” he said.

Floyd said, “I appreciate the statement of our Chairman Slade at the end of the meeting, including his call to come together now to serve Southern Baptists.”

Litton said, “Sexual abuse is antithetical to the Gospel of Christ. It has no place in the Southern Baptist Convention. And it is my prayer that all Southern Baptists will remain resolute in our commitment to preventing abuse, caring for survivors, and taking whatever steps are necessary to implement reforms.”

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on October 5, 2021.

BRANDON PORTER serves as Associate Vice President for Convention News at the SBC Executive Committee.

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At 75, Baptist Press Still ‘Important Religion News’

BY DAVID ROACH

W

ildfire had decimated the Northern California town of Magalia, and local pastor Doug Crowder didn’t know how his 100-member congregation could meet the swell of community needs. That’s when Baptist Press (BP) published his story.

In a 1976 photo, W. C. Fields, public relations director for the SBC Executive Committee, tears apart a phonebook for the city of Norfolk, Virginia, the site of that year’s SBC annual meeting. The gesture had become a tradition to celebrate the close of each year’s meeting.

As the December 2018 article made its way across the internet, unsolicited donations flooded in: food for 300–500 meals per day, a forklift, RVs, tools, clothes, propane, and enough water to distribute twelve tons each day. BP’s reporting sparked the “worldwide flood” of provision, Crowder said two months after the fire. “We didn’t actually go looking for anything. God just keeps bringing the stuff.”

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That episode illustrates the reach Baptist Press has attained in its 75 years of existence.

From its beginning as a dispatch of SBC news for a handful of state Baptist paper editors, BP has evolved into a worldwide publication with influence well beyond the SBC family.

BP has moved “from a strictly church press orientation into something that constituted an alternative wire service on certain types of issues,” said Terry Mattingly, a nationally syndicated religion columnist and editor of the Get Religion blog, which analyzes media coverage of religion news. Rather than merely covering Southern Baptist news, BP has become “important religion news period.”

The concept of an SBC news service first was suggested in a 1919 SBC resolution, but it didn’t materialize until 1946, when the Baptist Sunday School Board (the precursor organization to Lifeway Christian Resources) began sending weekly news releases to state paper editors under the

name Southern Baptist Press Association. The service was transferred to the Executive Committee later that year and its name shortened to Baptist Press in 1947.

AN EXPANDING FOCUS

BP’s early decades focused on getting “SBC-wide news into all of the state papers,” wrote Duke McCall, EC chief executive at BP’s founding. That function continued approximately three decades with little controversy.

But as evangelicals’ public profile elevated in the 1970s—culminating in the election of a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher, Jimmy Carter, as US president—BP confronted a question: Would it remain a denominational publicity arm or broaden its focus to also cover news and culture from an evangelical perspective?

Baptist Press chose the latter route. That was evident in 1973 following the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade abortion decision when BP secured the first public comments from the case’s unnamed plaintiff, Norma McCorvey. One of McCorvey’s attorneys, Linda Coffee, was a Southern Baptist and also granted BP an interview after the Roe decision. (McCorvey’s views on abortion, like those of many Southern Baptists, changed dramatically in the years that followed. She eventually became a pro-life activist.)

By that time, major religion journalists had their eyes on BP. “In the heyday of religion coverage by daily newspapers in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s, Baptist Press was an important and integral part of every religion editor’s awareness and sourcing,” said Louis Moore, president of the Religion Newswriters Association from 1984–86 and religion editor of the Houston Chronicle from 1976–86. “We relied on BP for accurate, reliable and honest reporting.”

Along with its heightened public profile came controversy. During the SBC’s Conservative Resurgence, conservatives accused BP of slanting

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its coverage toward old-guard moderate leaders.

The conflict climaxed in 1990, when the Executive Committee’s conservative majority fired BP’s editor and the vice president for Convention news, replacing them with more conservative journalists.

Representatives from numerous media outlets, including Baptist Press, cover the SBC Executive Committee meeting in September.

Yet as BP’s perspective shifted to the right, it persisted in the dual focus of informing Southern Baptists about denominational happenings and disseminating religion news to a broader audience.

“We began doing more stories bringing a Christian perspective to the day’s news, largely sourced by SBC and state convention leaders and thinkers as well as local pastors,” said Art Toalston, BP editor from 1992–2015, “more stories, for example, reflecting sanctity of life issues in governmental affairs and the culture; ministry in the wake of crises like 9/11 and storms like Hurricane Katrina; and persecution faced by believers under repressive regimes.”

In Washington, it was not uncommon for senators and congressmen to have BP stories on their desks when they met with staff from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said Barrett Duke, executive director of the Montana Southern Baptist Convention and former vice president of the ERLC’s Washington office.

“We made sure Baptist Press was aware of different pro-life bills we were trying to get passed or bills and policies we were trying to stop as well,” Duke said. “Because Baptist Press was willing to carry pro-life stories,” Southern Baptists had “a good understanding of the different concerns we raised with some bills.” BP deserves particular credit, he said, for rallying support behind Congress’s partial-birth abortion ban in 2003 and President George W. Bush’s 2001 ban of federal funding for research on newly created embryonic stem cell lines.

For Mattingly, BP brought a needed perspective on religious liberty cases in the court

system by quoting conservative legal firms like Becket and Alliance Defending Freedom before mainstream media began using them as sources.

Sometimes BP raised awareness of key religious liberty cases before the mainstream media. “This was sometimes was a place you could hear about an upcoming case for the first time,” he said.

NEW FRONTIERS

Occasionally, a blockbuster BP article drew national media attention, as when Chick-fil-a chief operating officer Dan Cathy said in a 2012 BP story that the fast food chain was “guilty as charged” of supporting the traditional family. But Baptist Press found a consistently influential beat in 2006, when it began reporting polling from Lifeway Research on Christian doctrine, practice, and worship. Major media outlets routinely drew polling data from BP releases.

Late pollster George Gallup once told Mattingly “he was reading Lifeway and it was influencing him” to increase polling on “blatantly church-culture related questions,” Mattingly said.

As circulation increased and mailings gave way to internet distribution, BP didn’t abandon its mission to inform Southern Baptists of key issues in the Convention. That was especially true in the early 2000s when the SBC debated sole membership, a concept related to the Convention’s legal relationship with its entities.

Legal discussion isn’t as exciting “as encouraging missions and evangelism,” said Morris Chapman, who served as EC president during the sole membership debate. “But at the same time, there was a need for the matter to be settled that Southern Baptists owned their institutions in the Southern Baptist Convention.” BP was a key communication outlet to help Southern Baptists “know that their interest as autonomous churches was covered in the work being done by all of our agencies.”

As with any worldwide publication, BP has generated periodic controversy. A 2010 SBC messenger motion called for BP to separate from the Execu-

tive Committee to ensure more neutral coverage of Convention news. That request never materialized. More recently, some have critiqued BP’s coverage of sexual abuse among Southern Baptists.

Yet BP continues to expand its audience. In 2020, the news service saw a 26 percent increase in traffic to its website, with more than 5.8 million pageviews, according to the 2021 Executive Committee CP Ministry Report. Brandon Porter, the EC’s associate vice president for Convention news, said BP seeks “to build on the effective and fair coverage of SBC news and interests” in the years ahead, “as well as reporting on current stories from a Christian worldview.”

“We want to be a part of the digital age as we reach Southern Baptists on platforms where they gather for news and information,” Porter said.

Jonathan Howe, EC vice president for communications, added that “Baptist Press has been primarily driven by the written word. As technology develops and consumer habits change, we must consider how we can best use audio and video technologies to report news for and about Southern Baptists in the future.”

At 75 years old, Southern Baptists continue to monitor Baptist Press with interest and regard it as a trusted partner in gathering information.

That’s true in Montana, Duke said.

“There aren’t that many means to get what we would consider to be a concise and balanced understanding of the issues that Southern Baptists are dealing with,” he said. “But we feel like we can trust Baptist Press to help us know what Southern Baptists are thinking about and what they’re talking about.”

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on October 8, 2021.

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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Why We Need Jesus at the Center

BY ED LITTON

M

ore than anything else, the SBC exists to reach the world for Christ. Our churches are driven by a passion to see the Great Commission fulfilled. It’s why we call ourselves Great Commission Baptists. As a convention, our churches cooperate together, combining our efforts, talents, and resources, to accomplish the goal of getting the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Back in August, I was privileged to visit Anaheim, California, in preparation for the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting. I know it seems early, but June is coming yet again. While I was there, in a room full of pastors, ministry leaders, and laymen, I was pleased to unveil the theme I’ve chosen for next summer’s Annual Meeting. As you might have read by now, the theme for our gathering will be “Jesus: The Center of it All.” I’ve drawn this theme from the opening chapter of the book of Colossians. In that epistle, Paul proclaims the majesty, power, and primacy of Jesus.

He tells us that all things, “visible and invisible,” were created through and for Jesus (1:16). Paul also declares Jesus is “before all things” and that “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). Further, he says that Jesus is the “head” of the church, “the firstborn from the dead,” and “preeminent” in all things. This is the Savior we worship and proclaim.

One thing that God has reminded me of recently is the distinction between fruits and roots.

We usually think of fruits as good things that we desire. But we sometimes forget that these good fruits do not exist apart from strong healthy roots.

I love and share the zeal of our convention for the Great Commission. We must reach the world for

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Christ! Yet to do so, we must also remember that mission is a byproduct of something else. In other words, Great Commission zeal is itself a fruit.

I’ve chosen this theme to challenge all of us to fix our eyes on Jesus, to look to him and only him with a renewed sense of desperation as the root and source of our zeal and strength. Our love and passion for Jesus drive us to mission. With dependence and desperation for him we work to make Jesus known among every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Rev. 5:9). As Jesus himself told his disciples, apart from him we can do nothing (John 15:5).

All of us live busy lives. It can be so easy, even as we work to spread the gospel and see the kingdom of God advance, to get caught up in the work and lose sight of the one we worship. God has laid it on my heart to challenge our convention to place Jesus at the center. We need every part of our convention, every local church, every association, every state and national entity, and most importantly each one of us, to renew our burden and commitment to make Jesus the center of all that we are and all that we do. If we truly want to reach the world for Jesus--and I believe with everything in me that there is nothing we desire more--the world must see Jesus in us.

I want to encourage you to make plans to join us in Anaheim next June for the annual meeting.

But let me also encourage you not to wait until June to take up this challenge. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. We need our hearts and lives to be ablaze with passion for Him. Pray that Jesus would be the center of our Convention. And join me in begging God to use our passion for Jesus to bring salvation to the world.

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