Law Amendment fails, N.C. pastor elected president in Indy

(Photo by Sonya Singh)
Todd Deaton

Todd Deaton

A constitutional amendment to restrict churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention to those affirming and employing only men as pastors failed to receive the required two-thirds approval of messengers in Indianapolis.

The 10,946 registered messengers to the SBC Annual Meeting June 11-12, which included 439 South Carolinians, approved the recommendations of a Cooperation Group and its task forces for Sexual Abuse Reform and to evaluate the Great Commission Resurgence’s impact.

They also elected a North Carolina pastor as their president, and two South Carolina leaders were named to key roles at next June’s annual meeting in Dallas.

Law Amendment

After approximately 10 minutes of debate by messengers, 5,099 of the 8,298 votes cast (61 percent) were in favor of adding the constitutional amendment limiting the office of pastor/elder/overseer to men only. The vote was perhaps the most highly anticipated and discussed leading up to the Indianapolis meeting.

The amendment, which was dubbed the Law Amendment after its original author, Mike Law, pastor of First Baptist Church, Arlington, Va., received the necessary votes in New Orleans last year, but It needed a second approval at this year’s meeting.

Opponents argued that the amendment was unnecessary because the Baptist Faith and Message Statement already provides “an effective mechanism” to deal with the matter. But Law maintained, “Southern Baptists love the Bible and long to be faithful to the Bible,” and urged messengers, “Let’s be exceptionally clear.”

Cooperation

The messengers approved the four recommendations regarding “friendly cooperation” made by the Cooperation Group, tasked with studying the issue of how Article 3 of the SBC Constitution references the Baptist Faith and Message.

“We believe that the Constitution’s language, which says a church will only be deemed to be in friendly cooperation which has a faith and practice that closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith is sufficient…,” said Chairman Jared Wellman, a pastor from Arlington, Texas. Together with any additional standards messengers have or may set forth, he said, its language provides the doctrinal parameters for the seating of messengers.

The phrase “closely identifies with,” recognizes the freedom of the messengers to interpret their statement of faith and to apply doctrinal standards to the seating of messengers as they so choose, he added.

He noted the group was sensitive to the concern that the changes of Article 3 could be understood to impose a confession of faith upon a church, “which was never our intent,” he said.

Sex Abuse Reform

Messengers overwhelmingly approved two recommendations from the SBC Abuse Reform and Implementation Task Force, handing off the ARITF’s priorities to the SBC Executive Committee.

Objectives outlined in the 2024 Report include 1) the expansion of the Ministry Toolkit, 2) the establishment of the Ministry Check website, and 3) the creation of a permanent home for abuse prevention and response. The ARITF also recommended allocation of funds sufficient for the effective accomplishment of these objectives.

ARITF chair Josh Wester expressed optimism in the future of sexual abuse reform within the SBC. “I hope the Executive Committee will take the blueprints we have laid out, all of the work product we’re going to provide, and secure permanent, long-term homes for abuse prevention and response for Southern Baptists,” said Wester, a Greensboro, N.C., pastor, during a press conference.

The task force also introduced a free five-part curriculum, “Essentials: Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response,” which covers training, screening, protecting, reporting, and caring for survivors.

GCR Evaluation

Messengers adopted the six recommendations proposed by the Great Commission Resurgence Evaluation Task Force, with one slight change clarifying the request for a church to provide its total amount of Cooperative Program giving.

“Our task force understood that our purpose was to examine all pertinent material regarding the original GCR report and to conduct an analysis of their implementation and impact on our cooperative efforts,” said chairman Jay Adkins.

In speaking with reporters after the report, Adkins said that “there were some really good intentions with the GCR,” and Southern Baptists’ struggles to increase baptisms and other areas are not unique.

Stating that the GCR clearly did not reverse the decline in baptisms, Adkins shared with messengers that “there is more than enough blame to go around for this continued trend” even as there are “some very encouraging trends as of late.”

New Officers

Clint Pressley, senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., was elected SBC president from a field of six nominees. In a second runoff ballot, Pressley won over Dan Spencer, pastor of First Baptist Church, Sevierville, Tenn., garnering 4,244 of 7,562 votes cast, just over 56 percent of the vote.

Also nominated for president were David Allen, Mid-America Seminary; Bruce Frank, Asheville, N.C.; Mike Keahbone, Lawton, Okla.; and Jared Moore, Crossville, Tenn.

New SBC officers are (left to right) Registration Secretary Don Currence, Second Vice President Eddie Lopez, President Clint Pressley, First Vice President Brad Graves, Recording Secretary Nathan Finn. (Photo by Sonya Singh)

Brad Graves, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Ada, Okla., was named first vice president, and Eddie Lopez, senior pastor, First Baptist Church en Español, Forney, Texas, was elected second vice president.

Don Currence, administrative pastor, First Baptist Church, Ozark, Mo., was elected to a sixth term as registration secretary, and Nathan Finn, executive director of the Institute for Transformational Leadership and professor of faith and culture at North Greenville University in Tigerville, S.C., was elected to a third term as recording secretary.

Finn was nominated by Tony Wolfe, executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, who later was appointed as the convention preacher for the 2025 annual meeting in Dallas.

Resolutions

SBC messengers adopted a resolution on in vitro fertilization after a sometimes-emotional floor discussion that featured messengers sharing their personal experiences with reproductive technologies.

A resolution “On the ethical realities of reproductive technologies and the dignity of the human

More messengers registered for the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention than in either of the two years Indianapolis previously hosted the event. Nearly 11,000 registered this year, compared to 7,277 in 2008 and 8,600 in 2004. (Photo by Josselyn Guillen)

embryo” called on Southern Baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in the number of embryos generated in the IVF process.”

IVF “routinely generates more embryos than can be safely implanted,” “most often participates in the destruction of embryonic human life” and has generated 1-1.5 million unborn children currently stored in cryogenic freezers in the U.S., “with most unquestionably destined for eventual destruction,” according to the resolution.

In another resolution, “On integrity in SBC leadership,” messengers said that “the legacy of faithful leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention has been tarnished by public failures of leadership that have exposed private sin, indifference to abuse, financial impropriety, sexual scandals, deceptive practices, and abuse of power. They affirmed “righteous and godly leaders” and “call[ed] to repentance leaders who have engaged in public or private sin.”

Messengers also adopted resolutions on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, religious liberty, parental rights, and just war theory.

50 Motions

Messengers acted on several of the 50 motions presented, rejecting calls to abolish the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and to censure three Southern Baptist leaders, and approving a motion to unseat messengers from a Virginia church.

Abolishing an entity requires two successive two-thirds votes of approval. The messengers fell well short of that margin on a motion brought by Tom Ascol, a pastor in Cape Coral, Fla., that received an estimated quarter of the vote.

Louis Cook, a pastor in Oak City, N.C., presented a motion to censure Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler, Lifeway Christian Resources President Ben Mandrell and then-SBC President Bart Barber in relation to signing an amicus brief in a Kentucky-based statute of limitations case. The messengers ultimately overruled the Committee on Order of Business by ruling the motion out of order.

A motion to unseat messengers from First Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., was brought by Aaron Decker, a messenger from Madison, Wisc. The Credentials Committee followed Decker’s motion with a recommendation to deem the church not in friendly cooperation with the SBC based “on the grounds of their public endorsement of egalitarianism.”

Alexandria First

Messengers voted to declare First Baptist Church, Alexandria, Va., which has a female associate pastor, not in friendly cooperation by a ballot vote of 6,759 to 563.

Credentials Committee chairman Jonathan Sams confirmed that the committee previously had asked First Baptist about their beliefs on women in ministry and received a reply contrary to the Baptist Faith and Message.

“We asked the church directly to explain their beliefs regarding the office of pastor/elder/overseer,” Sams said. “The church responded, saying they believe, ‘Both men and women can satisfy the requirements of the pastor/elder/overseer office,’ and more specifically that they believe a woman is ‘biblically qualified to fill the senior pastor position.’”

The Credentials Committee found “no joy in making this recommendation,” Sams said, “but [had] formed the opinion that the church’s egalitarian beliefs regarding the office of pastor do not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.”

Budget

Budget recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year were approved by raised ballot. The budgets recommended by the SBC Executive Committee provide funding for all SBC entities including the six seminaries, as delineated in the Comprehensive Summary Operating Budget of $1.067 billion; as well as the SBC Executive Committee and SBC Operating Budget Summary of $10.23 million.

Sending Service

Newly appointed missionaries Asa and Vanessa Watson are returning to serve in Germany. After serving as missionaries at Winthrop BCM, they moved overseas where they help in church planting and discipleship, sports and women’s ministries. (IMB photo)

Eighty-three missionaries — five of whom had ties to South Carolina — were recognized during the International Mission Board’s Sending Celebration. IMB President Paul Chitwood pointed out this was one of the largest groups to be sent out during an SBC annual meeting.

“Beside you and behind you are row upon row, thousands of Southern Baptists, here to celebrate with you as you prepare to go to the nations,” Chitwood told the new missionaries. “As you go out to literally every corner of the earth in pursuit of the lost, may the Lord remind you that always — always — there are Southern Baptists praying fervently for you, and for the gospel to advance.”

(Compiled from BP reporting.)