Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee (EC) members may have anticipated wrapping up their Feb. 17–18 meeting in Nashville before lunch on the final day but they ended up eating their Chick-fil-A boxed meals from their seats in the auditorium.
The agenda filled with heavy topics resulted in longer discussions and multiple executive sessions.
Along with routine reports and recognitions, EC members voted to disfellowship a Texas church, determine their role in the current controversy over the upcoming SBC Pastors Conference and establish a plan to answer questions regarding the work of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
Church disfellowshipped
As recommended by the SBC Credentials Committee, the EC voted to disfellowship Ranchland Heights Baptist Church, Midland, Texas, whose senior pastor Phillip Rutledge is a registered sex offender.
Rutledge, who began pastoring the church in June 2016, was convicted in 2003 of aggravated sexual assault against two girls, ages 11 and 12, respectively.
Church officials have reportedly explained their decision as one of Rutledge being a changed man and Rutledge not allowed to be alone with children.
The church is the first disfellowshipped for sexual abuse reasons and the first since messengers to the 2019 SBC Annual Meeting in Birmingham revised the function of the Credentials Committee. The committee can now receive reports of a church’s suspected departure from Southern Baptist polity, doctrine or practice and can make recommendations to the EC regarding a possible disfellowship.
Only a handful of churches have ever been disfellowshipped from the SBC including Georgia’s Raleigh White Baptist Church in 2018 (racism) and California’s New Heart Community Church in 2014 (homosexual behavior).
Pastors Conference
The agreement between the EC and the SBC Pastors Conference (PC) in recent years has been for the EC to cover $100,000 for meeting hall space in the same location as the SBC annual meeting, which starts the following day.
However, the speaker and musical guest lineup announced recently by SBC PC president David Uth, pastor of First Baptist Church, Orlando, for the 2020 conference has stirred debate among Southern Baptists.
First, Orlando, offered to cover the fee prior to the EC meeting, but the EC’s vote only addresses the space being allocated and normal costs covered if Uth amends the program.
The original deadline for Uth to report back to the EC was Feb. 24, but EC officers granted Uth an extension until March 30 at his request so the church can enter a period of 40 days of prayer and fasting before making the decision.
“I am not comfortable deciding something of this magnitude so quickly. Instead, I’m asking our church family to pray with me through this decision,” Uth said in a statement emailed to Baptist Press on Feb. 20.
EC chairman Mike Stone’s statement included a request for others to join in praying while also noting “our commitment is firm regarding use of the convention hall for the presently proposed program.”
ERLC study task force
The EC also voted to create a study task force to evaluate whether the activities of the ERLC have had an impact on Cooperative Program (CP) giving. The request for an inquiry came from the SBC CP committee.
The ERLC board of trustees responded with a Feb. 20 open letter calling the task force “unwarranted, divisive and disrespectful” and instructed the entity leaders “not to comply” with the inquiry.
The task force’s findings are due on or before the EC’s September meeting in Nashville.
(Compiled from reporting by TAB’s Jennifer Davis Rash and Baptist Press)
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