Polity schmolity

At a recent luncheon, Morris Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, urged Baptist leaders to promote “full cooperation.”

“Cooperation is foundational in everything we do jointly as believers,” he said.

Yeah, right. Everything except protecting kids and ridding the ranks of clergy predators. That’s what Chapman should have said.

After all, it’s pretty much what he’s said in the past.

Remember?

Morris Chapman is the same guy who said the reason the denomination could not create a database of admitted, convicted and credibly-accused clergy sex abusers was because of Baptists’ “belief in the autonomy of each local church.”

Morris Chapman is the same guy whose Executive Committee put out a 2008 report claiming that the Southern Baptist Convention cannot “bar known perpetrators from ministry or start an office to field abuse claims.”

Morris Chapman is the same guy who, from one side of his mouth, said Baptists must “do everything within our power” to stop clergy sex abuse, but from the other side of his mouth professed that this multi-million dollar denomination is powerless -- we have “no authority” he said.

Morris Chapman is the same guy who, speaking for the denomination, said “we shall not turn a blind eye” to clergy sex abuse, and at the same time, turned a denominational blind-eye by recommending against any system for tracking Baptist clergy sex abusers.

Now, in the face of all those past remarks, look at what he has to say when money is at stake.

At the luncheon, he was urging that a higher percentage of Baptists’ $500 million in annual Cooperative Program dollars should be directed toward the national organization. Why? Because, according to Chapman, Baptists should take “a holistic view of the convention’s ministries.”

Chapman also expressed concern about the trend toward churches’ support of independent mission projects while diminishing their contributions to the national organization through the Cooperative Program. This goes down the path toward “disorganization,” emphasized Chapman.

“We are all yoked together,” he said. “If the convention wishes to jettison central planning and strategically engineered ministry, it will…have to make that call. But doing either would be suicide. . . . “

So . . . when money is at stake, Morris Chapman is all for “central planning” and “full cooperation,” and he says not a word about local church autonomy.

In fact, isn’t it amazing how the national organization already has systems for tracking such extensive information about the giving records of the churches? In Nashville, the national organization has no difficulty in pulling up records on how much local churches give and how they allocate their giving. They can tell you about the dollars.

So, if the national organization can keep data on the dollars, why can’t they keep data on the clergy?

If they can tell you how much money a church gives within the denomination, why can’t they tell you how many abuse reports a minister has within the denomination?

And since Morris Chapman thinks “cooperation is foundational” for ministry efforts, why doesn’t he also think “cooperation is foundational” for protecting kids against clergy predators?

If local churches can cooperatively fund ‘central planning” for mission efforts, why can’t local churches cooperatively fund a centralized, professionally-staffed review board for the assessment of clergy abuse reports?

“The world may never understand our polity.” That’s what Morris Chapman said when he rejected the possibility of Baptists cooperating together for the creation of a denominational database to track admitted and credibly-accused clergy predators.

Polity schmolity.

The world can understand Baptist polity. That’s not the problem. What the world can’t understand is the inconsistency in how Baptists apply that polity in practice and in how they manipulate that polity to avoid clergy accountability.