Washington, D.C., holds a fascination for Southern Baptists. It is the seat of our democratic republic, and Baptists would like to evangelize those people.
Nashville, Tennessee, is the closest thing to a ‘seat’ for those cooperative evangelism efforts of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Home of the SBC Executive Committee, Lifeway, and others, a half-billion SBC dollars flow through Nashville each year. Much of it is earmarked for evangelism of some kind.
Six hundred sixty six miles separate these two capital cities. But it can be difficult to tell which exerts more pull on the other. We sense, along with the writers of the Baptist Faith & Message, that the supreme need of the world, both in Washington and Nashville, “the acceptance of His teachings in all the affairs of men and nations, and the practical application of His law of love.” We know the world should look at the SBC, scratch its head, and think “well that’s different!”
But how should it look different? Allow me to suggest at least three of them.
In 2008, I sat in a committee room in Nashville, with a dozen people. Our task was to plan the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting. The talk of the summer had been soon-to-be President Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech, delivered to 84,000 cheering democrats. We were all theological conservatives (and probably politically, though I didn’t ask). But we envied the messaging and spectacle of Washington’s new star. We asked how the SBC’s annual meeting could be more relevant to a watching world. If politics offered a false hope, real hope should have the benefit of similar stagecraft and firepower.
In the most positive light, we wanted to make Nashville a little more like Washington to help a sacred effort. If there is wisdom to be found in Washington’s marble halls, the boardrooms of New York, the limelights of Broadway (or Branson), we wanted to use it for good. “Whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord,” Paul wrote to the Colossians, “and not unto men” (Col. 3:23) If we did the Southern Baptist Convention more heartily, more as to the Lord, wouldn’t the world see Nashville match Washington?
In hindsight, no.
I was a little too quick to assume a connection between political oratory and the power of the pulpit. The common missiological strategy of the era was to capture attention and make a case for the gospel as a fulfillment for the American soul’s search for hope. But nowhere does the Bible suggest the world will be evangelized by denominational meetings. And one risk of the strategy is that, rather than combine the energies of local churches to evangelize, the Baptist meeting is reduced to a chance for churches to participate a display that even Washington would appreciate. Rather than empower local churches, a meeting can become something that churches merely observe. And, indeed, if the purpose of the annual meeting is to be an extraordinary display of excitement that grabs the world’s attention, it is easy to criticize anything that lowers ratings.
Others have described this these kinds of assumptions as “neutral world” strategies that work best where the culture is not hostile to the gospel. Without debating the merits of the framework, they point to a real risk: the more hostile the culture, the more likely that something attractive to the masses will miss the gospel mark.
In today’s world, we should be wary of a Nashville denomination that mimics Washington’s tactics. If our churches are embassies of heaven, our denomination should look more like a reunion of expats than an array of pomp and power suits.
In what ways should the ‘watching world’ see something different in an SBC that differs from what it sees in Washington, D.C.?
1. A Better Transparency than Washington
If the watching world observes Southern Baptists, it should see a better transparency than provided by Washington.
Acts chapter 6 highlights the Apostles’ decision to minister without becoming masters to the counting table. They rejected “table service” in favor of prayer and ministry of the word, and had the church name seven men with extraordinary qualifications to handle questions of money and physical ministry.
Likewise, Paul was extraordinarily transparent to churches that donated to his missions journeys. In his second letter to the Corinthian Church, he writes about taking along a brother chosen by the local church to oversee the ministry in 2 Corinthians 8:18–21:
18 With him [Titus] we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel. 19 And not only that, but he has been appointed by the churches to travel with us as we carry out this act of grace that is being ministered by us, for the glory of the Lord himself and to show our good will. 20 We take this course so that no one should blame us about this generous gift that is being administered by us, 21 for we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord’s sight but also in the sight of man.
Sadly, in today’s SBC, we see less(!) fiscal accountability than Washington demands of secular charities. This is a step backward. As recently as the 1970s, Baptist Press—the publishing arm of SBC life—would openly report the salaries of entity heads. Today, many trustees are required to promise those numbers to remain confidential. In the past, messengers were likely to receive direct answers to their questions about financial matters; today, they are likely to receive evasive answers.
Last year, Pastor Rhett Burns asked the Convention to meet the IRS’s standards for secular charity disclosure, captured in IRS Form 990. Even after Burns made it clear that the disclosure could happen without harming missionaries, Convention leaders balked at the proposal. And in so doing, they make D.C. more transparent than the SBC, rather than the other way around.
2. A Better Democracy than Washington
If the watching world takes notice of Southern Baptists, it should find a better democracy than Washington.
There is a longstanding connection between Baptists and democracy. Our Baptist Faith and Message says that God has established voting where, “[e]ach congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes.”
But founding father John Adams once observed, “there has never been a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Pure democracies have a historical tendency to consume themselves.
Why do Baptists believe in democracy? Why do we cling to a ‘suicidal’ mode of government (in Adams’ view) when Jesus says no force will prevail against the Church?
It’s clear that “voting on something” does not make it right. Nearly every pastor has a story about a congregation who has voted the wrong way. A convention of congregations does not guarantee the right outcome; the SBC has made too many errors to count! And, of course, mass democracy follows the pattern; American votes are not infallible, and neither are the votes of our republican representatives.
The political idea of “democracy,” the Washington theory, helps us resolve the question of who should bear the sword of government force. As between competing visions of ‘the good,’ democracy tells us that the majority will of the citizenry rules.
But from the late-twentieth century forward, political theorists, including some Baptists, have re-styled “democracy” into a postmodern religion. Right and wrong are not justified by reference to fixed principles, or to God. Rather, the sheer force of “human will” becomes our master—and perhaps our tyrant. If there is any principle to appeal to, it is toleration. And in a reversal, rather than free faith from government bondage, government works to “free” us from a faith that might criticize the free choices of others. In 1948 John Courtney Murray, a Catholic thinker, issued a stark warning to Protestants, in response a Supreme Court decision that elevated secular humanism to a kind of meta-belief above religion. “If the myth of democracy as a religion is triumphant, and achieves its ‘establishment’ as our national religion, the triumph will be over you,”[1] he wrote. “Your God will have been supplanted by an idol.” If our “religion” becomes “freedom,” no one wins.
1. Murray’s warning was the subject of a 2022 address by R. Albert Mohler, “Your God Will Have Been Supplanted by an Idol” – The Dangerous Illusion of a ‘Secular’ State (Miami, FL: National Conservatism Conference, 2022); Murray’s full statement was republished in 1992; see John Courtney Murray, “A Common Enemy, a Common Cause,” First Things, October 1992.
But Baptist democracy is not grounded in the idol of self, and does not call for a “neutral” church on matters of faith. Instead, Baptists believe true democracy occurs among a new, heavenly people in a new, heavenly relationship: the local church.
Baptists believe we enjoy the reality of heaven now. “The gathered and believing local church,” writes Steven and Kirk Wellum, “is where we go to see a manifestation of the one, true heavenly, eschatological, new covenant church now.”[2] “This new, born-again humanity necessitates a new leadership paradigm”[3]—congregationalism—where all members are equal before Christ, even as they have separate assignments.
2. Kirk Wellum & Stephen J. Wellum, “The Biblical and Theological Case for Congregationalism,” in Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age, ed. Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2015), 58.
3. Mark Dever, A Display of God’s Glory: Basics of Church Structure Deacons, Elders, Congregationalism & Membership, 2nd Ed. (Washington, DC: 9Marks Ministries, 2001), 54.
So the Baptist democracy is always and only paired with regenerate church membership. Baptists don’t vote to accommodate the competing sinful desires of the human heart, or to pick rulers over us. Rather, Baptists vote in a here-and-now reflection of a new, born-again mankind and our new, direct relationship to Christ our mediator.
If Southern Baptists have regenerate hearts, in New Testament churches, they’ll have a renewed appreciation for Baptist democracy.
3. A Better Unity than Washington
Finally, if the watching world looks to Southern Baptists, it should find a better unity.
You don’t have to listen too long to a Washington political speech to hear the note of disunity. The problem is “them”—the elites of the other party—who should be replaced with the elites of my party. Even in the 2008 Democratic nomination acceptance speech Obama gave in Nashville, it didn’t take long for him to identify his opponent: “It’s not [that] John McCain doesn’t care. It’s [that] John McCain doesn’t get it.” And under our current political system, we may indeed have a structure that requires a “them.” As much as we honor the idea of “limited government,” there are many disconnected politicians who advance into the upper levels of Washington and wield enormous power, often for evil ends.
The New Testament church, however, should have no “thems” to complain about. There is no far off bishop, or even a regional pastor of multiple congregations, responsible for our governance. There should be no big “Baptist administrative state” that governs our decisions. If we truly hold to Baptist polity, there should only be an “us,” namely, the self-governing local congregation. “There is no us versus them mentality . . . nor are the church leaders told to read the letters behind closed doors and only tell the congregations what they think they need to know,” write the Wellums.[4]
4. Wellum & Wellum, “The Biblical and Theological Case for Congregationalism,” 68.
This means all the members in the church ought to have an equal stake in governing the church, and an equal interest in seeing it succeed. In Galatians 1:8, Paul tells a young church to “sit in judgment of angelic and apostolic authority if they should preach something other than what they have heard.” “Paul doesn’t write merely to the pastors,” Mark Dever rightly notes; “He writes to the Christians who compose the churches.”[5]
5. Mark Dever, “Elders and Deacons in History,” in Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age, ed. Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2015), 229–42.
Even in our cooperative efforts, Baptists should be wary of raising up “thems” with enough power to operate independently of the messengers. While CEOs and Trustees are Baptists with a special assignment from a convention of churches, the convention will either govern the entities or watch them become self-serving hierarchies. Are the Convention’s entities as open as legally possible, so that messengers of New Testament Churches may make strategic decisions? Or is there the sense that leaders meet behind closed doors and only tell the Convention what it wants them to know?
Conclusion
If a watching world is to observe the SBC and be pointed to the Savior, it must see an SBC reflecting the gospel reality of Heaven, as pictured by our local churches. This is far more impressive in God’s eyes than mimicking the halls of power. If the SBC wilts into conformity to the world under the progressive gaze, then we will lose our brightness and our salt. If we tune in to find Washington-worthy entertainment, the world may be won to something—but not to Jesus.
