Institutional Memory and the Failure of Southern Baptists

The Executive Committee was designed to serve the purpose of Southern Baptist ministry and mission, but the institution forgot its purpose. The only ones who seemed to remember were the lawyers.

A long-awaited report from the task force investigating abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee released on Sunday. The report is devastating, showing patterns of neglect, abuse, and deceit. The Executive Committee, the institution entrusted by Southern Baptists with carrying on the work of the Convention during the 363 days that the Annual Meeting is not in session failed, and thousands of people were hurt. As the report stacked case on top of case of sexual abuse reports ignored or covered up, we are left wondering: how in the world was this allowed to happen?

Among other factors, something struck me in the report’s section on the Executive Committee’s legal representation:

In many respects, the EC’s concern about liability, and its action or inaction regarding sexual abuse, has been guided by legal advice. From 1966 to 2021, the SBC has been advised in its legal affairs by external counsel Mr. Guenther, and later GJP. The key attorneys handling SBC EC matters were Mr. Guenther and Mr. Jordan. They provided counsel on everything from estate grants to the SBC to general litigation support and responding to sexual abuse survivors. Even as SBC Presidents changed and EC staff retired, Mr. Guenther and Mr. Jordan remained an institutional source of knowledge in terms of Baptist polity, risk management and counsel (p. 190).

That last sentence is haunting: the lawyers were a key “institutional source of knowledge in terms of Baptist polity.” Baptist polity is the way Baptists “do church,” how we organize our local churches internally and how we organize the cooperation of our churches externally. Historically, “polity” falls under the doctrine of the church, or “ecclesiology,” and ecclesiology has been the key Baptist theological distinctive for hundreds of years. We believe pretty much everything in common with other orthodox Protestants, except for the way we believe the Bible tells us to structure our churches. Baptist polity is a theological issue. But we let the Executive Committee outsource ecclesiological protection to the lawyers. Not the pastors. Not the seminary professors. Not the theologians. Not the everyday saints. But to the lawyers.

Now, lest you think this is the lawyers’ fault, that’s not my point. Lawyers are focused on limiting legal exposure and liability. The problem is that we let the lawyers swerve out of their lane, to stop being a voice of legal counsel and to become a source—a main source—of theological and ethical decisions. Whether or not the lawyers failed is beside the point. We failed.

As Yuval Levin and Jonah Goldberg have pointed out, a problem in our society has been an epidemic of people swerving out of their lanes all over the road like a drunk after a cocktail party. Politicians want to be celebrities. Celebrities want to be politicians. As Levin has said, this is a symptom of the sickness of our institutions. Institutions, he says, are intended to form people according to certain virtues, but they have become platforms for folks to stand on and shout their own fame.

Such cultural sickness has again infected the people of God, because we caught (and spread) the contagion of institutional influenza, failing to remember the purpose of the institution itself. Southern Baptists created the Executive Committee in 1917 to carry on the work of the Convention during the year, mainly to distribute offerings and manage basic administrative tasks. The Executive Committee is an institution designed to serve the purpose of Southern Baptist ministry and mission, but the institution forgot its purpose. The only ones who seemed to remember were the lawyers, so all the folks elected to serve the purpose of the Committee started learning the wrong institutional patterns from the Committee’s unelected legal counsel.

As I said, a lawyer’s lane is legal protection, but the Executive Committee let that lane become the whole highway. Instead of promoting ministry and mission, the Committee became about protecting resources and reputations from liability. As the report says:

Overall, the legal advice focused on liability created a chilling effect on the ability of the EC to be compassionate towards survivors of abuse. Survivors were always viewed through the lens of potential plaintiffs threatening lawsuits, rather than as individuals who had been harmed and were in need of care.

This was a moral and theological failure, and thousands of people have been hurt and many devastated. Southern Baptists have a lot of lamenting and repenting to do. Part of that repentance needs to be reclaiming the theological purpose and memory of our institutions.