SBC Messengers Support Executive Board Recommendation to Dismiss Ft. Worth’s Broadway Baptist Church

After several discussions, an exchange of letters, and a lot of media coverage, a motion referred to the executive board of the Southern Baptist Convention from the 2008 meeting in Indianapolis was presented in the form of a recommendation to declare that Broadway Baptist Church of Ft. Worth, Texas was no longer in”friendly cooperation” with the convention.  Specifically, the church has not been able to convince the executive board that they have taken enough steps to demonstrate that they do not approve of homosexual lifestyles. 

Not being a member of Broadway, and therefore not acquainted with the makeup of its church membership, I can only draw conclusions based on media reports.  The church went through a highly publicized conflict in 2007 over whether or not to include photos of gay and lesbian church members as couples in a proposed church directory.  The church voted not to include family photos in the directory at all, but the publicity generated by the conflict obviously prompted the motion at the 2008 SBC.  The SBC bylaws define cooperation, and contain a statement that churches which endorse or approve of homosexual lifestyles are not “in friendly cooperation” with the denomination. 

In a Baptist church, “regeneration” is generally considered to be the qualification for church membership.  What that means is that a church member must have made a profession of faith in Jesus as their savior, a process that involves coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit regarding your sinful condition, repenting of that sin, and receiving the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as a substitute atonement for your sin.  The Holy Spirit, who brought about the conviction, also brings sanctification, the cleansing of your soul from sin, and justification, or being made right with God himself, as the result of this process.  Though there is acknowledgement that this experience does not mean that a person no longer sins, and that continued confession and repentance will result from the continued presence of the Holy Spirit in the individual’s life, the implication is that the person who has had this experience does desire to live life under the Spirit’s conviction and in a manner that is pleasing to God.  Thus, in theory anyway, all members of a Baptist church have had this experience. 

Part of the acknowledgement of the fact that even though this experience has occurred, individuals are still influenced by the flesh and thus, are still prone to sin, is the presence of scripture passages in the Bible which give instruction regarding disciplines of the faith that are to be exercised by the body of Christ, the church, mainly to assist its members in their spiritual growth and formation, and to teach them how to live a life pleasing to God and to avoid habitual and repetetive sin. 

“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”  Galatians 6:1, NIV

One of the functions of the church body is discipleship, and part of that function is to educate its membership in the principles taught by Jesus and the apostles in scripture.  Church discipline of members who are, as this verse says, “caught” in a sin is part of this responsibility.  The outcome of discipline, and of discipleship in general, is the restoration of the sinner to the fellowship of the church body.  It can therefore be concluded that a church which discovers some of its members living in a lifestyle that is considered evidence of unrepentant, or undisciplined sin, and its subsequent lack of applying church discipline as a means of correction and restoration would indicate that it was condoning, or approving of the sin, or that it did not follow the Biblical teaching that defines sin.  In the case of homosexuality, that is grounds for dismissal from the Southern Baptist Convention. 

But in this case, the issue is somewhat more complicated.  There have been some voices among those who have been urging the executive board to make a motion to disfellowship the church who have insisted that it is not just the fact that Broadway has members who are gay or lesbian that is the issue, but that some of its gay members are serving in leadership positions in the church.  The church has not asked these individuals to step down even after their sexual orientation became known to the congregation and that is the reasoning behind the motion to dismiss the church.  There are others who have said that the way the church handled the directory issue, accomodating the gay members by simply not putting in any family pictures at all, is an indication that the church does not meet the criterion of “friendly cooperation” on this particular issue.

For a while, there were some encouraging signs that the SBC and Broadway Baptist Church, a congregation from the moderate wing of Baptist life, might reach some kind of agreement.  The motion made in 2008 was referred to the executive committee, not unlike many of the dozens of motions on various other issues presented to the SBC by messengers each year, somewhat routinely but the committee met with officials from the church, listened to their statements, heard their expressions of desire to reach a resolution and remain in the convention, and to the reasoning behind their actions.  Unfortunately, even though it appears that “gentle restoration” was certainly under consideration, the church, at some point, decided not to follow through on what the executive committee had asked of them. 

The SBC has the right to determine the makeup of its membership, and the convention body decided, back in the 90’s to add this particular provision to the bylaws.  There is really no explanation for why the SBC chose to single this particular sin out in this way, though I suspect that the militant, “in your face” manner in which gay activists react to their perceived enemies may have something to do with it, and the fact that it has become a secular political issue may be another.  It does leave the convention open to the criticism of being inconsistent, of weighing one sin against another, and even of being hypocritical by using this issue to single out churches that it considers to be theologically liberal while doing nothing to churches which do not discipline their members for other sins such as gluttony or gossip.  None of that changes the fact that the SBC executive committee was acting within its rights.  It does appear, in this particular case, that the executive committee did as much as it could do in attempting to bring about a resolution that would have allowed Broadway Baptist to remain within the SBC without compromising this particular principle, and that the church was not willing to do what the committee asked of them to maintain the relationship. 

Churches need to exercise the discipline that the Bible allows them to exercise, and in fact, requires them to exercise in order to help their members grow spiritually, and experience the abundant life that God wants us to have as we go through this life, prior to receiving the gift of eternity that comes from knowing Jesus.  It may well be that the SBC needs to re-examine the manner in which this particular issue is handled.  Sin causes separation from God, regardless of what category it falls in and churches need to love and care for their members enough to speak the truth when they are captured by it.

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