What Is "Sermongate" All About?
Regardless of your views on the plagiarism scandal surrounding newly minted SBC President, Ed Litton, here is a good article from the New York Times that provides a fairly neutral perspective in describing the issue.
TL;DR - preaching another pastor's sermon is not new. It is a grey area where there are differing opinions. While not condemned, it certainly diminishes a pastor's credibility when discovered.
This quote by Scot McKnight probably best describes the sense of betrayal church members feel when they discover their pastor is not preaching his own material:
For many churchgoers, a sermon is not just a clever speech but proof of the pastor’s deep spiritual life. “A sermon is a person studying the Bible, encountering God in their own life and history, and then spewing it all out on Sunday morning for the good of the people of God.”
The article also points to the possible root of the issue with the various pastors involved: they all employed a company called Docent Research Group.
On their website, Docent describes their services:
We do everything from demographic research to help plan for a new campus launch or church plant to sermon series preparation and planning. We help churches craft position papers to articulate beliefs, and we write custom curriculum for small groups, Bible studies, and Christian education programs. If you need it, we can do it!
J.D. Greear was an endorser of Docent Group until the scandal broke, and his endorsement has been removed.
Still, all of the players involved in the plagiarism scandal are on public record as clients of Docent including Tim Keller, J.D. Greear, Matt Chandler, and Ed Litton.
Perhaps its not so much an issue of plagiarism as it is all of the pastors mentioned are drinking from the same well, which unfortunately is The Docent Group, not the Bible.
This scandal has also exposed perhaps some previously unknown schisms within SBC leadership. Danny Akin and Adam Greenway have both tweeted in support of Ed Litton, basically saying, "nothing to see here, move along," while Jason Allen tweeted a statement condemning plagiarism without mentioning Litton specifically. Al Mohler has remained silent on the issue.
SBC 2021 Annual Meeting Sets New Direction
Southern Baptists gathered in Nashville, TN, June 15-16 for the 2021 Annual Meeting. This was the first Annual Meeting in two years after the 2020 meeting was canceled due to COVID. With 15,769 registered messengers attending the 2021 meeting, this was the largest gathering of Southern Baptists at an Annual Meeting since 1995. More than 30 messengers attended representing Iowa churches.
As outgoing SBC President, J.D. Greear observed in his address to the convention,
I believe we are at a defining moment in our convention, at a crossroads. In fact, if I can be so bold, it might be the most important crossroads in our generation. Forty years ago a previous generation of Southern Baptists came to a defining moment, a moment in which they considered whether they would hold fast to the authority of God's word, whether they were going to follow the path of every other major denomination in America into the darkness of liberalism and the wilderness of cultural accommodation.
The Annual Meeting began under a cloud of controversy following the leak of two incendiary letters by former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Russell Moore. More resigned from the ERLC June 1 to take a position with Christianity Today and with a non-SBC church.
Moore's letters highlighted the growing conflict between the moderate wing of the SBC and the conservative wing.
Great Commission Baptists
The theme of this year's Annual Meeting was "We Are Great Commission Baptists."
During his convention address Greear noted, "My prayer is that this will be more than a theme for our annual meeting, that it will be a declaration of who we are and who we aspire to be. Our convention is a coalition of churches committed to doing whatever it takes to get the gospel to those who haven't heard it."
Election of New SBC President
A primary item of business during Day 1 of the SBC Annual Meeting was the election of a new president. J.D. Greear served a three-year term after last year's convention was cancelled.
Four men were nominated to become the new SBC president:
Randy Adams, who serves as the Executive Director of the Northwest Baptist Convention.
Ed Litton, who serves as pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland, AL.
R. Albert Mohler, who serves as president of the Souther Baptist Theological Seminary.
Mike Stone, who serves as pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, GA.
Ed Litton was elected president in a runoff with 52 percent of the messengers voting for him versus 48 percent voting for Mike Stone. The divided election results reflect the divisions and fault lines within the SBC.
Resolutions of the Southern Baptist Convention
The Resolutions Committee, chaired by James Merritt, presented 10 resolutions to the messengers for consideration. These included,
Baptist Unity and Maintaining Our Public Witness — the priority of Christians to “walk worthy of their calling” and “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit” (Eph. 4:1–3).
On the Sufficiency of Scripture for Race and Racial Reconciliation — affirming that Scripture in “inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16–17) and that all people are “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26–28).
On Taxpayer Complicity in Abortion and the Hyde Amendment — affirms the sanctity of human life (Gen. 1:27; 9:6) and opposes the use of taxpayer money to fund abortion procedures.
On the Equality Act — affirms that God created two distinct sexes (Gen. 1:27; Matt. 19:4) and opposes the Equality Act that “seeks to revise the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by adding a prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
On Abuse and Pastoral Qualifications — affirms that Scripture teaches pastors, elders and overseers are to be “above reproach” (1 Tim. 3:2) and states that any person who has committed sexual abuse should be permanently disqualified from holding the office of pastor.
On Sole Membership — upholds the Southern Baptist foundational belief that each individual church member is in a “legal relationship” with the SBC and convention entities and that only the convention in session — not the Executive Committee — is the legal “sole member” of the various agencies and institutions of the convention.
On the Uyghur Genocide — denounces atrocities inflicted by the Communist Party of China against the Uyghur people.
On the Coronavirus Pandemic — expresses grief for the more than 3.78 million lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Appreciation for the City of Nashville — adds an extra emphasis because of how many top officials worked together to allow the SBC Annual Meeting to continue in Nashville when restrictions were still an issue up until a few weeks prior.
The messengers also voted by two-thirds majority to call one additional resolution out of committee that the Resolutions Committee chose not to present. This resolution, which passed, called for the Abolition of Abortion, immediately and without compromise.
All of the resolutions were approved by the messengers.
Critical Race Theory
Since the approval of Resolution 9 by the SBC in 2019, there has been strong disagreement over the acceptance of Critical Race Theory/Intersectionality by the convention.
According to Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the leading scholars to develop Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality,
It is an academic discipline composed of civil-rights scholars in the United States who seek to critically examine the law to show, first, that it maintains white supremacy, white power, and enforces societal or structural racism; and, second, that transforming the relationship between law and racial power, and also achieving racial emancipation more broadly, is possible.
Many Southern Baptists have argued that CRT is incompatible with the New Testament teachings concerning racial reconciliation and the hope for true unity found through the gospel.
The Resolution Committee chose to omit any mention of Critical Race Theory in Resolution 2, which was submitted to reverse the decision of Resolution 9 in 2019 that affirmed Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as an analytical tool to help Southern Baptist better understand racism in America.
When a motion was made from the floor to specifically address Critical Race Theory in Resolution 2, James Merritt made an impassioned statement:
It’s time to find out who we are and where we are headed. If some people were as passionate about the gospel as they were CRT, we’d win this world to Christ tomorrow.
We are all created in the image of God. We’ve been given the ministry of reconciliation. …
We are not the 2019 Resolutions Committee. We are the 2021 Resolutions Committee. We are not going to limit anything to just one thing (responding to questions about the resolution on race and racial reconciliation, see above).
What we have done in this resolution is settle this issue once and for all, yesterday today and forever. We reject any theory that the problem is anything other than sin and the solution is anything other than salvation.
There is a world watching out there and this (division about CRT) is exactly what they want.
We can either build bridges and tear down walls or we can put up walls and tear down bridges.
To build a bridge it takes hard work, sacrifice, commitment to reach to the other side but do everything we can to get them there.
IMB Sending Celebration
By many accounts, the highlight of the week happened before the Annual Meeting began. Monday, June 14, at the conclusion of the Send Conference, the International Mission Board presented 64 missionaries to be sent to foreign fields around the world.
Reflecting on the difficulties presented by the COVID pandemic and 20202, IMB President Paul Chitwood stated, "I questioned at times if we would be able to do everything that is necessary to appoint, train and deploy new missionaries in the midst of a global pandemic. But by God’s grace and with His help, your sending of missionaries through the IMB has not. even. slowed.
The majority of the 2021 missionaries being sent were presented from behind a screen to conceal their identity because they are going to closed nations.
Future Impact of SBC 2021
While the decisions and statements made in Nashville during the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting have little direct impact on Iowa Churches, it does signal the overall direction the convention is moving. Local church autonomy is still the hallmark of the Southern Baptist Convention and ensures that each local congregation holds full control over their own doctrinal positions and missional efforts. Southern Baptists agree to voluntarily cooperate for the gospel and the expression of this cooperation is in giving through the Cooperative Program.
Next week, we will examine one of the key initiatives to be approved by the messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting: Vision 2025.
The SBC Alamo
In 1716, Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries established a small chapel in an unexplored and relatively uninhabited piece of land in what would one day become Texas. The nearest Spanish settlement was more than 400 miles away.
By 1744, the mission was home to more than 300 Indians who had converted to Christianity.
It was at this site, in 1836, that one of the most memorable battles in American history would be fought.
Texas was in the midst of a revolution. Settlers from the United States and native Tejanos (Texas Mexicans) started an armed resistance to the rule of the Mexican government, which had become increasingly centralized and authoritarian, eroding away the individual rights and local autonomy of the Texans.
Determined to put down the rebellion, Mexican president and general Antonio López de Santa Anna sent Mexican troops into Texas in early 1836.
On February 23, the first shots were fired at the small Catholic mission now simply known as The Alamo. Over the next 13 days, the small contingent of Texans and Tejanos would be overwhelmed by the Mexican troops and eventually defeated.
Determined to strike terror into Texans, Santa Anna ordered the execution of the remaining troops at The Alamo, but he spared the women, children, and slaves. These survivors were sent to let other Texas settlers know what happened at The Alamo and to warn them to join with the Mexicans in pursuit of peace.
Rather than discourage Texans from pursuing independence, The Alamo became a battle cry--"Remember The Alamo!" Regrouped under Gen. Sam Houston, the Texans attacked the Mexican Army at San Jacinto, and on April 21, 1836, defeated Santa Anna and the Mexican Army.
An Opportunity to Unify
Many Southern Baptists see the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville this week as The Alamo for the Southern Baptist Convention.
Set to be the largest gathering of Southern Baptists in a generation, the stakes could not be higher, or more divisive.
The battle lines are drawn and include the issues of ordaining women as pastors, anti-racism and Critical Race Theory, the sexual abuse of children and the mistreatment of sexual abuse survivors, and a redefinition of the Southern Baptist Convention leaning more towards central authority and away from its historic belief in local autonomy.
The hope and prayer is that when people gather together in the same room, there is a graciousness, love, and unity that is not found on social media and in the blogosphere. It is much easier to call someone “woke” or “racist” in a tweet rather when you are in the same room and you see this person as a brother or sister in Christ.
One issue Southern Baptists cannot ignore is its treatment of sexual abuse survivors or communicate an unwillingness to protect the most vulnerable among us.
While the other issues are important, we must be better at articulating what we are for rather than what we are against.
Is the 2021 Annual Meeting the "SBC Alamo?" Only time will tell. In the years ahead, it is my prayer that when we look back at 2021 we see a convention of churches that unified around a common doctrine and a common mission, but not at the expense of one over the other.
The SBC is fundamentally conservative in its historic interpretation of Scripture. I believe this is expressed in the Baptist Faith and Message. At the same time, I do not ignore the fact that there are agents within the SBC who are determined to pull the convention to the left (what they perceive as the middle). This downgrade will spell the end of the SBC as we know it if it is allowed to progress.
The Challenge Ahead: Religious Liberty
Forced to choose a single word to describe the year of our Lord 2020, it would have to be "unprecedented."
From a global pandemic that shut down the world to a "land hurricane" that left a path of destruction several hundred miles long in the state of Iowa, we have watched many unprecedented events this year.
Like a ship at sea, the church has ridden the rough seas and even found itself in the midst of the storm. For example, churches in some states like California and New York have endured much greater persecution than churches in states like Iowa. These instances of state challenges to religious freedom are not isolated, however, and the trend line points to an increasing loss of religious liberty in America.
Justice Alito’s Warning
Last Thursday, Nov. 12, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered the keynote address to the Federalist Society. The focus of his speech was to issue a warning concerning the loss of religious liberty.
"In certain quarters, religious liberty has fast become a disfavored right," Alito said. "For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It's often just an excuse for bigotry and it can't be tolerated even when there's no evidence that anybody has been harmed."
Alito noted how the pandemic in 2020 accelerated efforts to restrict religious liberties and was used as cover to force the closure of churches and houses of worship.
The underlying risk, however, goes well beyond the pandemic. For many places in America, the very existence of religious liberty is a threat. "The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs," Alito stated.
The Overton Window
Christians need to understand the Overton window named after Joseph P. Overton who defined the theory. The Overton window represents how far a politician can go on policy issues that range from less freedom to more freedom. As the window shifts left or right and grows or shrinks, it defines what is considered popular, acceptable, extreme, or unacceptable.
An example of the Overton window is found in the culture war over marriage. In 1996, Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. According to the Overton window, this was the popular move for Bill Clinton to make. In 2008, Barack Obama affirmed the Defense of Marriage Act and supported traditional marriage. Again, the Overton window showed that this was the right political move for Obama. In 2020, however, the Overton window has shifted completely on the issue of marriage and is now much narrower. Few politicians stand for traditional marriage because politically, the issue has gone from popular to unacceptable. Holding to a biblical/traditional view of marriage is not only out-of-sync with cultural views, but is now considered hateful, bigoted, and homophobic.
The Overton window is shifting when it comes to religious liberty. As Alito noted in his address, holding overtly Christian beliefs is becoming more and more unpopular within our culture and is trending towards being unacceptable in many Leftist circles.
Just this past Friday, celebrity Melissa McCarthy and HBO rushed to apologize to offended followers for unintentionally donating $20,000 to Exodus Cry, a nonprofit committed to abolishing sex trafficking. What offense did Exodus Cry commit? They identify as a "Christian organization" and have ties to "anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion" causes.
McCarthy was quick to apologize to her followers and acknowledged, "we blew it."
In a video released to McCarthy's 8.9 million Instagram followers she stated, "It has come to our attention that our '20 Days of Kindness,' which is something — a kindness that we started to kind of kind of shine a light on 20 great charities — had one in there that, there's no other way to say it, we blew it. We made a mistake and we backed a charity that upon proper vetting, stands for everything that we do not,"
This is just one example from a growing sea of open assaults on religious liberty. As a church, we need to acknowledge the threat that is standing at the door. If you hold to biblically-based doctrine, those beliefs are becoming increasingly unpopular in American culture and are moving quickly towards being unacceptable.
Are You Prepared?
What do you need to do today as you consider the threat facing the church? Here are several starting points:
Start following the Alliance Defending Freedom blog. The BCI has partnered with ADF to fight for religious liberty. Their attorneys are on the front line of the legal battles confronting churches and Christians around the country.
Conduct a thorough review of your church's bylaws and policies. The BCI partners with Brotherhood Mutual to help churches with property and liability risk. When a church faces a legal challenge in the area of religious liberty, it is essential to have up-to-date policies that clearly and accurately define a church's stand on issues. Would your church baptize a transgender person? The time to articulate your belief on this issue is now, not when someone approaches you about being baptized as a man who identifies as a woman. If you haven't defined your belief on this issue in your bylaws, chances are the courts will view your stand as a personal attack on an individual rather than a standing policy. You can find several helpful resources on religious liberty on the Brotherhood Mutual website.
Begin developing and strengthening relationships within your community and with government leaders in your city, county, and state. Religious liberty is threatened on two fronts right now: public opinion and government authorities. As a church, you need to be proactive in developing and strengthening relationships with your community and your government leaders. If all people know about your church is that you are "anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion," you have lost this battle. If you are known as an active investor in your community and as a church that has faithfully and effectively pastored well beyond your church walls, you will have many more friends and advocates when you find yourself in the crosshairs of someone who is determined to destroy you for your beliefs.
Your religious liberty is at risk. Don't take my word for it. Don't take the word of Justice Alito. Listen to our Lord Jesus Christ. In John 15:18-25 He states,
"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'
Jesus uses the word "hate" seven times in this single passage; the emphasis cannot be missed. We need to heed His warning and live and act accordingly. Throughout most of church history, true Christians have faced the hatred of the world and the consequences of this hatred.
As Americans, we lived for over 200 years as a people blessed with religious liberty and freedom of speech. Those freedoms are now at great risk and can quickly slip away. We must shepherd well in the coming months as this story continues to develop.
Christians Need to Have Conversations About Race, But CRT Is Not the Path to Follow
As Christians, and particularly as leaders, we are called upon to talk about topics that are polarizing and difficult. Race is one of those topics. A recent study by LifeWay Research shows that pastors are more hesitant to talk about race and racial reconciliation today than they were in 2016. At the pace division is growing in America, my guess is even this survey, conducted in September 2020, is dated.
There is little room for conversation and deep discussion on issues of race in American culture as a whole or even within the church. We are all too fearful of being branded a racist for simply trying to understand a complex topic from another’s perspective.
At the center of much of the controversy within our culture and specifically within the Southern Baptist Convention is the issue of Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Prior to 2019, most Southern Baptists and Americans had never heard of Critical Race Theory. In June 2019, during the SBC Annual Meeting in Birmingham, AL, SBC Messengers approved Resolution 9, “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality.” Again, I argue that many SBC Messengers voted on this resolution without fully understanding or appreciating the premise from which Critical Race Theory originates. There is even disagreement within the Resolution Committee over the intent and purpose of the resolution.
Clearly, much has been written about CRT in the months following the adoption of Resolution 9. Unfortunately, all the conversation in the form of news articles, podcasts, blogs, etc., has provided little clarity on the issue.
The purpose of this article is not to debate the pros and cons of Critical Race Theory, but to argue that as Southern Baptists, we need to find a way to have deep, meaningful conversations on the issues of race and racial injustice without invoking the tenants and historical baggage encapsulated in Critical Race Theory.
Two Clicks to Understanding Critical Race Theory
Let me take you on a brief web excursion to demonstrate my point. Let’s assume I am Cindy Christian sitting in my Southern Baptist Church on a Sunday morning and the topic of Critical Race Theory is brought up. I haven’t a clue what this means except to acknowledge that smart people on both sides of the issue seem to have very different opinions.
Knowing little about the issue, I do what everyone else does when confronted by a topic I know nothing about: I google it. I type the words “Critical Race Theory” into my trusted Google search box, and the top entry on the first page is an article from Wikipedia on the topic, so I click on the link and read the first paragraph:
Critical race theory (CRT) is a framework in the social sciences that examines society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power in the United States of America. It began as a movement in American law schools in the mid- to late 1980s as a reworking of critical legal theory on race issues.
As the word "critical" suggests, both theoretical frameworks are rooted in critical theory, a social philosophy which argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors.
It is loosely unified by two common themes:
First, that white supremacy exists and exhibits power maintained over time, and, in particular, that the law plays a role in this process.
Second, that transforming the relationship between law and racial power, as well as achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly, are possible.
Sounds decent enough, but what is “critical theory”? Not knowing, I click on the link to “critical theory.”
Critical theory (also capitalized as "Critical Theory" to distinguish the school of thought from a theory that is in some way "critical") is an approach to social philosophy that focuses on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge power structures. With origins in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors. Maintaining that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation, critical theory was established as a school of thought primarily by the Frankfurt School theoreticians Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."
In sociology and political philosophy, "Critical Theory" means the Western-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, developed in Germany in the 1930s and drawing on the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Though a "critical theory" or a "critical social theory" may have similar elements of thought, capitalizing Critical Theory as if it were a proper noun stresses the intellectual lineage specific to the Frankfurt School.
Modern critical theory has also been influenced by György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci, as well as second-generation Frankfurt School scholars, notably Jürgen Habermas. In Habermas's work, critical theory transcended its theoretical roots in German idealism and progressed closer to American pragmatism. Concern for social "base and superstructure" is one of the remaining Marxist philosophical concepts in much contemporary critical theory.
Ok, so I am two clicks into my research and here’s what I have learned about Critical Race Theory:
it is rooted in Critical Theory
it talks about white supremacy, racial emancipation and anti-subordination?
Critical Theory comes from something called “the Frankfurt School” formed in 1930s Germany. (Layman’s understanding of history: nothing good came out of Germany in the 1930s.)
it draws from the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.
it has been influenced by two guys named Lukács and Gramsci, which Wikipedia tells me were both Marxist philosophers.
That is about as far as most people will go when they research Critical Race Theory. Tell me, how should the average Christian respond when they hear their pastor, denomination leader, or politicians talk favorably about Critical Race Theory? What is in that brief layman’s definition that would make the average person think, “that’s something we should depend upon to have meaningful, biblical conversations about race”?
This is my point: to espouse Critical Race Theory as the starting point for any conversation on race is to start the conversation on a losing premise from the beginning. The words point to a complex theory that carries with it tremendous historical, philosophical, theological, and theoretical baggage.
Brothers and sisters, we need to have conversations about race, but Critical Race Theory is not the proper instrument, tool, device, theory, construct, or any other descriptor we want to apply to make it sound acceptable. For the Christian, it is not. It is rooted in a worldview that is completely antithetical to a biblical worldview. (I would argue Marxism is Satanic in its origin, but that's for another article.)
To my fellow pastors and leaders who insist we use CRT as the basis for our discussions on race my question is simple: why? Why insist on using a theory that any grandma with a computer can learn in two clicks is Marxist in its premise and foundation? If your objective is to help increase understanding and clarity on issues of race, haven’t you lost the battle before you utter a single word?
Yes, we need to have deep, meaningful, biblical conversations about race and racial injustice in America. Yes, we need to acknowledge that culturally, there are differences of perspective on the issue of race. Yes, we need to acknowledge that Christian leaders in the past and the present hold to beliefs on race that are unbiblical.
We need to have these conversations, but we can’t as long as we are bickering over the issue of CRT. Let's denounce CRT as unbiblical (because it is); let’s begin with a biblical understanding that because of the gospel, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and because you are my brother and sister, I want to understand some of the cultural narratives that have impacted your life. I want to have these conversations because I love you as a brother or sister and I appreciate hearing your perspective and learning from you.
Don’t miss this opportunity to have these conversations.