The Baptist Way: A Personal Perspective

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The Baptist WayA Personal Perspective

• Dr. Chuck Kelley

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Southern Baptist Polity

• Why Baptists do things the way they do
• Specifically

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The Baptist Identity

• Doctrinal Agreement
• Cooperative Missions
• Autonomous Organization

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• No controlling external authority except
  Christ and His Word

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Church is responsible legally and morally
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adopted by SBC
created by SBC
all with Organizational Autonomy
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SBC ownership rights exercised
Decisive Influence
Operational Control

• elects trustees
• determines ministry assignment
• determines business/financial plan
• approves charter
• endorses budget

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Duly elected Trustees exercise complete control
and supervision of entity operations.
Operational Control
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Southern Baptists feel this is as close as we can
get to a New Testament model incorporating our
doctrinal convictions about the Lordship of
Christ and the authority of Scripture into an
organizational structure for the Convention and
its entities.
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Baptist Polity Preserves

• Convention ownership and accountability
• submission to God and guidance from His Word

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Significance of Organizational Autonomy

• Provides checks and balances in all areas of
  Baptist life

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Location of SBC Entities
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Significance of Organizational Autonomy

• Provides checks and balances in all areas of
  Baptist life

• Avoids temptations of centralized power or
  authority

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• Southern Baptists have confidence in their
  leaders, but they have always resisted the
  centralization of power and the temptations that
  centralized power brings.

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Significance of Organizational Autonomy

• Provides checks and balances in all areas of
  Baptist life
• Avoids temptations of centralized power or
  authority

• Local church retains central role

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The Alternative

• Connectionalism

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The Conservative Resurgence
Organizational Autonomy Illustrated

• was a Grassroots Movement of SBC churches
• pulled entities back from a drift to the left
• anchored entities firmly in historic Baptist
  theology

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Organizational Autonomy

• SBC exercised decisive influence
• Trustees exercised operational control

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The most profound and significant course
correction in the history of American
Christianity was not a hard and fast power play,
but rather a long, slow application of Baptist
polity by Baptist people working to address a
Baptist problem in a Baptist way.
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Terminology Changed

• Agency
• vs.
• Entity

for Legal Protection
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Requirements of Organizational Autonomy

• Oversight and Provision
• Oversight is provided by Trustees selected
  through vigilant process of SBC
• Provision is provided by the Cooperative Program

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no problems
problems possible
problems likely
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At the SBC Level

• Weak Oversight (Trustee Selection)
• Strong Provision (Cooperative Program)
• Entities Accepted Change

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At the State Level

• Weak Oversight (Trustee Selection)
• Weak Provision (Cooperative Program)
• Some Entities Refused Change

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no problems
problems possible
problems likely
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Vigilant Oversight and Provision are Necessary
for Organizational Autonomy to Work
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Sole Membership
and Baptist Polity

• Sole membership replaces organizational autonomy
  with connectionalism

Direct Control by SBC
Decisive Influence of SBC
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The problem is not the size of the step.The
problem is the direction of the step.
Rarely is the first step in a new direction the
last step
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Conservative Resurgence Strategy

• Based on changing entity Trustees
• Never any effort to make sweeping changes on
  Boards

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The primary theological issue behind our emphasis
on organizational autonomy is radical commitment
to the supreme authority of Christ and His Word.
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There ARE risks involved in Organizational
Autonomy

• Accept rather than avoid them
• Explore alternatives to sole membership
• Create an environment which makes any change in
  the SBC-Entity relationship unthinkable
• Consider the risks of sole membership

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The Baptist Way
the stuff of legend

• No Leader, but Growth
• No Voice, but Vision
• No Control, but Shared Passion

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• The truth of the matter is this We found in the
  work of our churches the agenda for our
  Convention. We heard in the voices of our pastors
  and people the vision being cast for our future.

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What really needs fixing?

• The Baptist Way has been effective
• Plain enough for consistency
• Flexible enough for growth
• Strong enough for unity

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What happens next?

• The decision is complicated
• It will be made carefully
• It will be made prayerfully
• God will guide the choice
• Once made, we will move on with grace and peace

This is the Baptist Way
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