Approving the New Plan Unamended Will Erode Trust, Shrink Cooperative Program Giving, and Diminish Participation in the SBC
Twenty-five years ago, George Strait and Alan Jackson released their duet, Murder on Music Row, a soulful country ballad mourning the death of traditional country music at the hands of pop-infused profiteers. George Strait’s opening lines set the scene:
“Nobody saw him runnin’ from 16th avenue
They never found the fingerprint or the weapon that was used
But someone killed country music, cut out its heart and soul
They got away with murder down on Music Row”
Just blocks from 16th Avenue in Nashville stands the Southern Baptist Convention building, the site of another crime scene. This time, it’s not traditional country music lying in the chalk outline.
It’s the heart of the Southern Baptist Convention: our Cooperative Program.
Last February, the SBC Executive Committee voted to recommend a rewrite of the Business and Financial Plan for the Annual Meeting in Dallas. If messengers approve it with a two-thirds majority, the plan takes effect immediately.
Cleaning up the crime scene, however, may take much longer.
A Familiar Crime
Strait and Jackson’s song protested the music bureaucracy that killed country music’s tradition for the “almighty dollar and the lust for worldwide fame.” Record executives in offices in tall Nashville buildings traded steel guitars and fiddles for drums and rock ‘n’ roll guitars because they had conducted market research and determined they could pocket more money by swapping the raw sounds of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard for the polished pop of Shania Twain and Taylor Swift. Interestingly, the record executives won over a Swiftie fan at the SBC building.
The proposed rewrite of the Business and Financial Plan mirrors this betrayal. The denominational bureaucracy, cloistered in tall Nashville buildings, has done its market research and seen the dollar signs. A substantial amount of money can be gained by revising our governing documents. However, this plan dismantles key accountability measures, prioritizing financial considerations over Baptist polity.
Under the current plan, SBC entities are subject to strict fundraising rules: they cannot solicit funds directly from churches (except for the Cooperative Program, Lottie Moon, and Annie Armstrong offerings), must obtain approval from the Convention or Executive Committee for external fundraising, and are required to report those activities annually. The proposed plan obliterates these guardrails. Entities would still be barred from soliciting SBC churches, but they’d gain free rein to court non-SBC churches and accept contributions from foundations or organizations without Convention oversight, provided those funds don’t “compromise” the mission or reputation of the Convention or any entity. Yet, the plan includes no mechanism to enforce this vague standard.
Worse, while entities must affirm compliance with most requirements in their annual Accountability Letter, this obligation is conspicuously absent for outside contributions. In short, the Executive Committee seems more concerned with preventing entities from asking Southern Baptists for money than ensuring they don’t accept funds from questionable sources, like leftist foundations.
The proposed plan is also a shift away from messenger accountability. As I’ve argued before, “The new plan provides little to no new information, instead just repackaging old information and even that in a less transparent manner.” Instead of providing “enhanced transparency,” the new plan codifies obscurity and empowers entities to withhold information they are currently withholding in violation of the existing plan. It rewards bad behavior and threatens the Cooperative Program.
The current plan is not perfect, but it at least secures some messenger rights and includes a recognizable form of Baptist congregationalism. The current plan grants church members access to financial records from SBC entities, including income, expenditures, debts, reserves, operating balances, and salary structures.
The new plan replaces this transparency with a vague description of salary-setting processes and a perfunctory signature claiming all is well. This isn’t Baptist congregationalism, it’s practical Presbyterianism. It’s the “new SBC,” tightly managed from a Nashville building—at least until they sell the building.
Everything Old is New Again
Southern Baptists have seen this story before. When the Conservative Resurgence was not yet complete, state conventions lost control of the colleges and universities they founded. Take Furman University, just seven minutes from my church. Established by the South Carolina Baptist Convention and named for Baptist pastor Richard Furman, its motto remains “For Christ and Learning.”
Yet in 1990, Furman’s trustees, flush with outside funding and no longer reliant on Cooperative Program dollars, voted to sever ties with the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Two years later, Furman hired its first openly gay faculty member (1992). By 1998, a gay couple was teaching. Today, the university offers degrees in Sexuality Studies and has professors leading “Queer Histories” tours to San Francisco. Furman’s campus is stunning, its athletics thrive, and its academics shine. But it’s lost its heart and soul.
Jon Whitehead described the two-step process that Baptist colleges and hospitals did when leaving state conventions: “First, take lots of outside funding, then argue that Baptists shouldn’t elect 100% of a board if they don’t fund 100%.” In Dallas, Dr. Jef Iorg and the Executive Committee want us to codify this Texas Two-Step into our governing documents.
But I pass Furman’s chalk outline every week. Let’s not let the same fate befall Wake Forest or Alpharetta.
Messengers are Good, Actually
The SBC’s Annual Meeting isn’t perfect. A 12,000-person business meeting will always have its share of bad apples and oddballs. Some messengers lob tough, direct questions at entity heads; others toss slow-pitch softballs. I’ve heard it said that in any meeting that lasts longer than fifteen minutes, someone will suggest something that, if implemented, will ruin everything. I’ve found that to be true at the Annual Meeting. The waiver of attorney-client privilege a few years ago proves the point.
But misuse does not negate proper use.
Southern Baptists must not dismantle our messenger system by stripping away accountability. We shouldn’t fear sharing basic financial data with messengers. We must not abandon our Baptist congregationalism.
And we certainly shouldn’t gut the Cooperative Program because we think the broad evangelical pastures on the other side of the fence are greener because they have more dollar bills.
Stopping the Murder
Messengers to the Annual Meeting can turn this murder on Music Row into a mere attempt with three amendments.
1. Require 990-Level Transparency. Entities must provide churches and messengers with financial details matching the scope and quality of IRS Form 990 (without requiring IRS filing). This is the nonprofit industry’s baseline for disclosure. I plan to propose this amendment to the proposed plan.
2. Restore Fundraising Accountability. Amend the plan to: (a) prohibit entities from soliciting funds from any church, not just SBC churches; (b) require Convention approval for all outside fundraising, as stated in our current plan; and (c) mandate attestation in the Accountability Letter that no funds were solicited or received that compromise the SBC’s mission or reputation.
3. Reinstate Reserve Requirements. Restore language mandating contingency reserves, requiring entities to report reserve amounts, and setting a maximum limit—provisions included in the current plan but omitted from the new one
The Stakes in Dallas
Approving this plan unamended will erode trust, shrink Cooperative Program giving, and diminish participation in our Convention. Perhaps that’s what some SBC leaders want. Market research from tall Nashville buildings may say so. But it’s not what’s best for Southern Baptist churches and our shared mission.
In Murder on Music Row, Strait and Jackson sang that Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, and George Jones “wouldn’t have a chance on today’s radio.” One wonders how Adrian Rogers, W.A. Criswell, or Jerry Vines would fare in today’s new SBC.
We’ll find out in Dallas.
