Did NAMB president give short shrift to the welfare of his church's children?

Refuse to testify and fail to warn your church's members about a sexual predator in their midst.

That was newly elected Southern Baptist North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell's reaction when in 2004 as pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, he learned that a volunteer at his church who had also taught at a school operated by his church [see addendum] was accused of sex crimes. And Ezell was himself subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.

Christa Brown at Stop Baptist Predators writes:

When prosecutors subpoenaed pastor Ezell to testify before the grand jury, Ezell invoked the clergy-penitent privilege. In other words, Ezell claimed that he couldn’t be required to testify under oath (i.e., under penalty of perjury) because he claimed that, as pastor, he was entitled to keep secret whatever Bill Maggard had told him.

...

Furthermore, as reported in the Courier-Journal, “Ezell said he did not expect the church would announce Maggard's arrest to the congregation.”

In many states, Ezell would not have had recourse to clergy-penitent privilege and could have had difficulties himself if found to have failed to report "known or suspected instances of child abuse or neglect." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare Information Gateway explains:

In approximately 18 States and Puerto Rico, any person who suspects child abuse or neglect is required to report.3 This inclusive language appears to include clergy but may be interpreted otherwise.

...

As a doctrine of some faiths, clergy must maintain the confidentiality of pastoral communications. Mandatory reporting statutes in some States specify the circumstances under which a communication is "privileged" or allowed to remain confidential. Privileged communications may be exempt from the requirement to report suspected abuse or neglect. The privilege of maintaining this confidentiality under State law must be provided by statute. Most States do provide the privilege, typically in rules of evidence or civil procedure.4 If the issue of privilege is not addressed in the reporting laws, it does not mean that privilege is not granted; it may be granted in other parts of State statutes.

This privilege, however, is not absolute. While clergy-penitent privilege is frequently recognized within the reporting laws, it is typically interpreted narrowly in the context of child abuse or neglect. The circumstances under which it is allowed vary from State to State, and in some States it is denied altogether. For example, among the States that list clergy as mandated reporters, New Hampshire and West Virginia deny the clergy-penitent privilege in cases of child abuse or neglect. Four of the States that enumerate "any person" as a mandated reporter (North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas) also deny clergy-penitent privilege in child abuse cases.

States which require reporting without regard to clergy-penitent privilege simply place the welfare of vulnerable children first.

Ezell could have put the children first but, judging from available accounts, simply did not do that.

Addendum:

On March 19, 2004, the Associated Press reported:

Maggard, 56, was indicted in December on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He is accused of molesting seven boys between 1973 and 1975, when he was a fifth-grade teacher at Schaffner Elementary School.

The new indictment says Maggard molested the boys either at school or at his home.

Maggard was initially indicted Dec. 17. He pleaded not guilty at his Dec. 22 arraignment and later posted a $5,000 bond.

Maggard taught 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church, where he also volunteered in Sunday school and choir programs until recently.

The 6,000-member church is one of the state's largest Southern Baptist congregations.

On August 3, 2004, WLKY.com reported:

A former teacher pleaded guilty to sexually abusing seven boys in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The deal calls for Bill Maggard Jr., 57, to spend up to 10 years in prison, WLKY NewsChannel 32 reported Tuesday.

. . .

Maggard taught for 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools, and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church.

The church has said it has no claims of abuse

At sentencing time, Maggard made the kind of plea for clemency that is eerily predictable for church-going predators. On October 01, 2004, Jason Riley of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote:

"I'm sorry for my actions many years ago," he said during his sentencing hearing in Jefferson Circuit Court, adding that he sought treatment in the early 1980s and would be willing to do so again. "I faced my sin, sought forgiveness, sought help and God kept His promise."

What of his victims? The burden of warning them appears to have fallen to the press and an alert member of Ezell's congregation. As Christa explains:

And thank God for a member of Ezell’s congregation who saw what was happening in her church and worried about the safety of the kids. As reported in the Courier-Journal, a member of Highview knew about prior allegations of abuse by Maggard, and she was concerned about his being in contact with children in the church. So, she contacted the victims and encouraged them to go to police.

Did Maggard seek out his victims and provide treatment to them?

Were those seeking clemency for Maggard at least similarly concerned about finding and helping all of his victims? You know: The suffering children.

From housecoats to statesmanship at the NAMB?

Kevin Ezell, who was on Sept. 14 appointed president of the Southern Baptist Convention's troubled North American Mission Board, along the way blasted bloggers who were critical of his selection:

Typically those are bloggers who live with their mother and wear a housecoat during the day. Just ignore them, but I apologize if you are hurt by anything that they might say about me or indirectly about you.

Enid, Oklahoma, pastor Wade Burleson, well known for his blogging, responded calmly:

One of the things that turns leaders into statesmen is the ability to be gracious to all, even those who criticize. Regardless of whether or not the proposed NAMB President has the temperament to handle the criticism that will come his way, it would be helpful for him to be gently reminded that it is both inconsistent and illogical to call his critics "bloggers who live with their mother and wear housecoats" and then "apologize for the hurt" those bloggers cause. Criticism from respected leaders hurts. To publicly disrespect the character of one's critics and then turn around and acknowledge their criticism hurts is a fallacy. It's best to either remain silent in the face of criticism or answer the criticism while displaying respect for the critics.

Leaders who turn into statesmen learn this lesson quickly. I am hopeful Dr. Ezell learns this lesson quicker than most.

Others were also unimpressed. Even infuriatedbemused.

Ezell appears to be somehow new to the Southern Baptist blogosphere. He really must adapt. It can get rough. He ain't seen nothin' yet.

[H/T to Burleson for the House photo pun.]

Cross-posted from WordPress.

Farewell NAMB/IMB merger

Merger of the big, troubled North American Mission Board (NAMB) with the big, troubled International Mission Board (IMB) is apparently off the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) drawing boards.

Thus spake the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) Chairman Ronnie Floyd in a speech Monday at a Florida pastor's conference. Although SBC President Johnny Hunt once called stories reporting the possibility of such a merger "ludicrous," Floyd confessed:

There was great, great, great discussion studying, planning and even to the point of having strategic formation of the possibility of the other. But we just really sensed in our heart that wasn’t right at this time.

"Sensed" presumably means heard the uproar set off by the GCRTF's fog-enshrouded considerations of merger and objection by SBC elder statesman Duke K. McCall and others to the further concentration of SBC executive authority such a merger would entail.

Church planting: Waste or salvation?

Church planting has become a main branch of the Southern Baptist Convention evangelism strategy, but a North Carolina pastor who ran for SBC president last year has raised serious questions about whether it should be.

Les Puryear, pastor of Lewisville Baptist Church, using statistics compiled by the SBC's North American Mission Board, says that the convention spends about $100,000 over the first four years of a "planted" church's life, yet 32 percent of new churches don't survive for four years.

As a result:

If $1 million is invested to plant 10 new churches, $320,000 of that investment will not result in a viable, healthy church.

Without citing a source Using statistics from from the SBC Annual 2008 Book of Reports (p. 123), Puryear cities an NAMB church planting budget for 2008-2009 of about $22.85 million (a graphic on this page of the NAMB web site shows the 2008 budgeted expenses for church planting to be $24.4 million). Puryear calculated that about $7.31 million is being spent on churches that won't exist after four years.

The new churches that survive for four years average 85 in attendance and have baptized 48 people.

Puryear compares that to his first four years at Lewisville, when 51 people were baptized.

"Thus, my 127-year-old 'traditional' Southern Baptist church has a higher average baptisms per year than does the average new church plant. I provide these stats not to glorify my church but to demonstrate that established, traditional Southern Baptist churches can be viable places of reaching the lost."

SBC records show that in 2008, the convention's 44,848 churches (newly 'planted,' dying, thriving, etc ...) baptized 342,198 people, an average of 7.63 per church.

Ed Stetzer, who is now president of LifeWay Research, cited similar figures in a 2003 article called "The Most Effective Evangelistic Strategy Under Heaven." The article, which was adapted from Stetzer's book, "Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age," quotes noted church growth author C. Peter Wagner as calling church planting "the single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven."

Stetzer goes on to cite research that new churches average about 14.4 baptisms per year for every 100 people in regular attendance in worship while churches that are 16 years old or more baptize about 7.3 persons per year for every 100 people in attendance. He calls new churches "a gift of evangelism."

"Without church planting, our denomination will decline; but more importantly, the number of Christians in North America will continue to decline. If we love God's Kingdom, we must love church planting."

Church planting has been emphasized in the SBC since well before Stetzer's article. Although the strategy has on occasion been problematic.

The Overseas Leadership Team for the SBC's International Mission Board adopted a vision statement in 1998 to guide the IMB's missionary force.

"We will facilitate the lost coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ by beginning and nurturing Church Planting Movements among all peoples."

The IMB defines a church planting movement as "a rapid and multiplicative increase of indigenous churches planting churches within a given people group or population segment."

By 2000, the IMB was discouraging volunteers from constructing church buildings overseas and instead moving them toward church planting efforts.

The IMB claims that its missionaries were responsible for more than 25,000 church starts in 2007, but the board's numbers are thought to be inflated and in some cases fabricated.

The SBC's North American Mission Board see its role as helping Southern Baptists fulfill the Great Commission "through a North American strategy for sharing Christ, starting churches and sending missionaries."

NAMB even has a web site it calls a "one-stop shop for church planting."

The SBC's seminaries emphasize church planting. The Nehemiah Project, which put a professor of church planting on each Southern Baptist seminary campus, started in 1998, according to this time line.

Members of the convention's Great Commission Task Force, which is studying ways the SBC can better accomplish the Great Commission, have talked about the importance of church planting. Danny Akin, the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a driving force behind the task force, has called for a church planting strategy "that assaults the major population centers of North America."

"Why we plant more churches in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee than we do in New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington and California is absolutely incomprehensible to me."

The Great Commission Resurgence Declaration calls for "new churches in unevangelized areas of North America, especially the great urban centers," and for the revitalization of existing congregations.

"We long to see a Convention where every church is a church planting church in its unique Jerusalem, its Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth."

Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the task force, said at a recent question and answer session that the group's report "will ring the bell for church planting."

I believe charging out of the gate of our report will be a real commitment to Gospel churches planting Gospel churches planting Gospel churches.

In his blog post, Puryear says he is "not anti-church planting."

"And so, is church planting the best way to reach the lost? I'm not certain that church planting is the 'best' way, but it is one effective, though expensive way."

In addition to church planting, Puryear said he'd like to see NAMB emphasize helping existing churches.

"Pursuant to such a goal, I would like to see NAMB establish seminars, conferences, study courses, etc., to help the local church learn how to develop strategies for reaching the lost. I hear many missionaries talking about outreach strategy, but I never see anyone teaching pastors and leaders of the local churches how to develop outreach strategies. If NAMB or someone else would develop such training, I would be the first in line to attend. Also, I would happily pay for such training. We train missionaries how to develop strategy. Why cannot we train our pastors?"

Fundamentalist vs. even-more-fundamentalist [Addendum]

John Pierce of Baptists Today grieves the wrestling among fundamentalists for spoils set off by announced retirement of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)'s besieged International Mission Board chairman, Jerry Rankin.

When Rankin leaves next year there will be vacancies at the top of both the IMB and the scandal-plagued, resignation-rocked, domestically focused North American Mission Board (NAMB). Of that Pierce writes:

The top leadership vacancies at the two SBC mission boards will have the boys who run the denominational show now wrestling to (1) perhaps combine the two boards and (2) get a person(s) into the top post(s) who reflect their side's political bent. That's a battle between the Fundamentalists and the even-more Fundamentalists. . . . the ever-narrowing, suspicious, fear-based nature of Fundamentalism has played out as it always does: turning inward to find enemies.

Pierce does not touch upon the inflated and some say fabricated IMB statistics, focusing instead on the effect of "doctrinal restrictions on SBC missionaries." Private prayer languages were a key issue. They were barred. This for missionaries some of whom had just a few years earlier had to sign the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 or be fired.

The conflicts driving those restrictions are also evident in divinity school inquisitions, sometimes acrimonious public debate among Batholics and Cathists and the online equivalent of rock-throwing which is part of discussion among Southern Baptist luminaries.

All of which is, Wade Burleson predicted after June SBC Convention, getting worse. Michael Spencer developed a list of factors driving the SBC as younger inerrantists make themselves felt. Further repression was implied by SBC President Johnny D. Hunt's recent quiet indication that already retreating Baptist state newspaper editors pull their journalistic horns in even more.

Part of the prescribed cure for SBC maladies is the Great Commission Resurgence approved at this year’s annual meeting of the SBC, whose complex paper trail Timmy Briester has mapped.

The resurgence governing group meets behind closed doors, however. Some of the questions directed at SBC President Hunt about where it is actually going, however, were answered with questions and mockery recently.

Closed doors and anger about unwelcome reports? The resulting message may be heard from distant seats in uncushioned pews as, "Trust us. We've been fighting continuously among ourselves as the SBC imploded. We've led you into a morass each time we promised renewal. We know what we're doing."

Addendum:

Wade Burleson captures the flavor of the SBC political struggle in his Sept. 16 post when he writes:

I found myself in 2008, at times, questioning whether or not the Christ I follow is actually represented by the Convention with which we choose to affiliate. I recently spoke with J.C. Watts, former United States Congressman from Oklahoma and a life-long Southern Baptist, about our mutual affiliation and affection for the SBC. He said that politics in Washington D.C. is rough and tumble, but he has never seen anything as vicious as Southern Baptist politics. Though I have no experience with D.C. politics, I can echo similar sentiments regarding the SBC and the utter lack of civility among some.

Read the entire post here.

Baptists worry if enough spent on evangelism

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

Geoff Hammond, head of the denomination’s North American Mission Board, based in Alpharetta, told Southern Baptists at its national convention last summer of the launch of a long-range evangelism program with $1 million in initial funding, according to a Baptist Press report. But the budget presented in late 2008 showed zero dollars for that program.

A national missions committee leader resigned his chairmanship in protest over the new budget, and the mission board scrambled to say it was all a misunderstanding.

The Baptists will spend $750,000 on the program in 2009 on training and advertising in five states, including Georgia, mission board spokesman Brandon Pickett said. The money was not on the budget because it is left over from a 2006 program.

Still, that is less than the $1 million announced by Hammond, and some Southern Baptists think they see less emphasis on the evangelism that helped them add members and grow churches for decades.

We recommend the entire story [Here].