Saturday, April 26, 2025

The Nashville Tennessean

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About that Southern Baptist 'binder' story: What do Black biblical 'inerrantists' say about CRT?

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About that Southern Baptist 'binder' story: What do Black biblical 'inerrantists' say about CRT?

Reporters receive all kinds of bizarre things in the mail (analog or digital). Religion-beat reporters have been known to have some really, really bizarre items come out of nowhere.

My all-time “favorite” (I am using that term loosely) was a 35-page, handwritten manifesto detailing why — using lots of biblical references — Barbra Streisand was the Antichrist. I filed that one away. That wasn’t the case, however, with the typed, unsigned note in a plain white envelope that pointed to public documents detailing the arrest of a prominent clergyman for a sex crime committed in a public bathroom.

Journalists offered hot documents have to ask two questions:

(1) Can this information be verified as accurate?

(2) What are the motives of the person sharing the information? That question leads to another: How can those motives be explained to readers without identifying the person who provided the documents?

It goes without saying that documents from an on-the-record source will be trusted — by informed readers and “stockholders” in the story — more than those from a source demanding anonymity. The key is to give as much information as possible about the source of the information as possible, including why anonymity was acceptable in this case.

This leads us to the Nashville Tennessean story that rocked the world of Southern Baptist Convention social media, the one with this headline: “Inside the Southern Baptist Convention's battle over race and what it says about the denomination.”

The entire story pivots on documents linked to a former SBC president, the Rev. James Merritt, and the Rev. J.D. Greear, the convention’s leader at the time of the events described in the story. It also helps to know that Merritt was the chair of the national convention resolutions committee in 2021.

All of this focuses on efforts to pass a 2021 SBC resolution that condemned “critical race theory” outright — by name and with no qualifications, as desired by leaders of the SBC’s most conservative churches. Here is a key passage:


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New podcast: Left, right, middle? Two giant U.S. seminaries are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate

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New podcast: Left, right, middle? Two giant U.S. seminaries are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate

Let’s do a COVID-19 religion-news flashback, looking at a storyline or two near the start of the pandemic.

I’m doing this in order to analyze how the press is framing a major new development — the federal-court lawsuit filed by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Asbury Seminary challenging the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate. These are, by the way, two of the largest seminaries in the United States and, while other seminaries are collapsing, these two are growing.

Coverage of this lawsuit was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. (CLICK HERE to tune that in.)

So now the flashback. Remember when I was writing — at GetReligion and in my national “On Religion” column for the Universal syndicate — about the vast majority of American religious groups who were caught in the middle of the “shelter in place” and lockdown wars linked to COVID-19?

Remember the Catholic priests in Texas who were trying to hear confessions out in the open air (in a big field and parking lot), while following guidelines for social distancing? Or how about the churches that were under attack for holding services in drive-in movie theaters, with the faithful in cars, while it was OK for folks to be in parking-lot scrums at liquor stores and big box super-marts? Then you had the whole casinos are “essential services” while religious congregations were not “essential.”

I argued, at that time, that this was way more complicated than religious people who cooperated with the government and those who didn’t. This was not a simple left vs. right, good vs. bad situation. In fact, there were at least FIVE different groups to cover in these newsy debates:

They are (1) the 99% of religious leaders who cooperated and took worship online, (2) some religious leaders who (think drive-in worship or drive-thru confessions) who tried to create activities that followed social-distancing standards, (3) a few preachers who rebelled, period, (4) lots of government leaders who established logical laws and tried to be consistent with sacred and secular activities and (5) some politicians who seemed to think drive-in religious events were more dangerous than their secular counterparts.

That’s complicated stuff.

The problem is that, in the world of American politics, things have to be crushed down into left and right templates or even, there for a few years, into pro-Donald Trump and the anti-Donald Trump. I’m sure we’re past that last part. Right?


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It's hard to write SBC news reports when key players keep hanging up their phones

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It's hard to write SBC news reports when key players keep hanging up their phones

What are reporters supposed to do when key actors on one side of a controversy in a major religious group keep refusing to respond to calls and other contacts seeking their input and information?

I ask this because of the challenges that reporter Liam Adams is facing as (welcome to the religion-news beat) he tries to cover the legal questions and accusations swirling around the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention — America’s largest non-Catholic flock.

I can imagine a scenario in which some readers read this recent Nashville Tennessean story — “Resignations follow Baptist vote on privilege” (text is behind a high paywall) — and asked themselves: Hey, where are the quotes from people on the more conservative (if that’s the right word in battles over sexual abuse) side of this story? And why are there so many quotes from someone like Ed Stetzer, a hero of the current SBC leadership?

This story is so complex that it’s hard to pull out individual chunks of material, but lets try this long passage::

After two failed attempts at meetings on Sept. 21 and 28, the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee met for a third time Oct. 5 and voted to waive privilege. The committee acts on behalf of the convention when it is not in session.

In response, at least 10 executive committee members resigned either just before vote or shortly after — including some who are supporters of the Conservative Baptist Network. …

Conservative Baptist Network’s supporters on the executive committee all voted against allowing third-party investigators access to privileged files.

“It’s hard to see the correlation between the CBN and the objection to the waiver of privilege,” said Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. 'But there is clearly a correlation.'

In a news release last week, the Conservative Baptist Network said the group desired '“ruth and integrity.”


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Southern Baptist sexual-abuse puzzle: Can Executive Committee act on its own legal authority?

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Southern Baptist sexual-abuse puzzle: Can Executive Committee act on its own legal authority?

I do not envy the journalists who are attempting to cover the current meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee.

The financial and moral stakes are huge. Many of the questions being debated have, from a congregational polity point of view, theological as well as legal implications. You have some activists who want the SBC to take steps that, under its system of governance, it can’t really take. You also have SBC leaders who don’t appear willing to take the actions that they can take, in order to be transparent on sexual-abuse cases.

This may sound strange, but I think it may help to look at the top of the Baptist Press report covering the opening day of the meetings in Nashville. Yes, Baptist Press is an SBC operation and its leaders report directly to the Executive Committee. That makes one statement here even more important:

NASHVILLE (BP) — In its first meeting since messengers to the June 2021 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting called for an independent, third-party review of the SBC Executive Committee, the EC responded to several routine motions and moved to fund the independent review but declined to waive attorney-client privilege for the time being.

After a three-hour extra session Tuesday afternoon, the Executive Committee ultimately rejected a proposal from its officers and instead adopted a temporary measure to move the sexual abuse review forward leaving the details to be hashed out between the officers and the Sex Abuse Task Force within seven days. One of the most significant undecided details was whether or not the EC will agree to waive attorney-client privilege as Guidepost Solutions, the independent firm chosen by the task force to conduct the review, has requested. In the motion passed SBC messengers in June, the EC was instructed to abide by the recommendations of the third-party firm, up to and including the waiver of attorney-client privilege.

Did you catch that last sentence? That’s one of the most important facts in this standoff. The Executive Committee is charged with carrying on the work of the SBC when the national convention is not in session. However, in terms of authority, the EC’s powers come from the local church “messengers” attending the annual SBC national convention.

It appears that a majority of the Executive Committee think they get to debate whether or not to approve the waiver of attorney-client privilege as part of a third-party investigation of how the EC, or some of its leaders, handled accusations of sexual abuse. However, “messengers” at the national convention already voted to approve that step.


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Which issue drew more ink? SBC on Trump-era rifts, race, #ChurchToo abuse, gay marriage

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Which issue drew more ink? SBC on Trump-era rifts, race, #ChurchToo abuse, gay marriage

Here’s a question for GetReligion readers, including journalists: Are you surprised that the Southern Baptist Convention still believes sex outside of marriage is sin and, yes, that marriage is defined — by two millennia of Christian teaching — as the union of man and woman?

All of you who are surprised, please raise your hands.

There shouldn’t be many hands in the air on that one.

Now, would you say that SBC action on that question is, well, sexier than the decision by the national convention’s executive committee to oust two congregations for violating guidelines on sexual abuse, following in the wake of many #ChurchTwo revelations (especially in major Texas newspapers)?

Meanwhile, SBC President J.D. Greear offered up a blistering speech to the executive committee in which he addressed what he called demonic attacks on SBC unity, attacks centering on two hot-button topics — racism and (to be blunt) Donald Trump-era politics.

Of these four issues, want to guess which drew mainstream-press headlines? That’s the question that host Todd Wilken and I discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here to tune that in or head over to iTunes to subscribe.

According to the Associated Press, the biggest news was that totally predictable decision linked to marriage and sex. Meanwhile, I am happy to report that The New York Times produced a story that, while the headline was predictable (“Southern Baptists Expel 2 Churches Over Sex Abuse and 2 for L.G.B.T.Q. Inclusion”), was updated to become a solid look at the tensions surrounding Greear and some of these issues. We will come back to both of those stories.

But first, I think GetReligion readers need to read a large chunk of the (edited) text from the Greear broadside. (Click here for Baptist Press coverage and, most of all, here for a file that includes the full video.)

The key: Greear sets out to affirm the 1980s SBC move to the right on issues of biblical authority, while repudiating what he calls the “leaven of the Pharisees” emerging on the SBC’s right flank. The following is long, I know, but essential to understanding what is happening right now in America’s largest Protestant flock:


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Talkin' Charlie Daniels 2.0: Country music is a mix of Sunday morning and Saturday night

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There’s this old saying here in Tennessee: When you’re talking about country music, you have to deal with stuff that happens on Saturday night and on Sunday morning.

The first person I heard say that was Naomi Judd and, well, she would know a thing or two about that. However, I don’t think that soundbite of wisdom originated with her. That would, for example, help explain the music of Hank Williams. Ditto for Willie Nelson. How about Dolly Parton?

You can put Charlie Daniels in there, as well. This leads me to the podcast conversation I had this week with Eric Metaxas, who has been a friend for 20 years or so. Please note that this goes way back before Donald Trump decided to enter politics.

Metaxas and I agree on many things and we disagree on a few things, too. But we care deeply about what happens when religious issues collide with the news. Eric tends to focus on the end product, while — as someone who has worked in newsrooms — tend to focus on the process.

You see, in the newsrooms I have worked in there have been lots of people who “get” Saturday night, by which I mean the rough-and-tumble topics (including politics) that folks hash out in honky-tonks. There are also a few newsroom pros who “get” what happens on Sunday morning, as in the world of religion.

When it comes time to write about the life of a person like country-rock superstar Charlie Daniels, what ends up in print largely depends on who is assigned to cover the story. That usually offers a window into the worldview of newsroom managers, just as much as it does reporters.

I was stunned when the Nashville Tennessean obit for Daniels viewed his life through the lens of politics and the Trump era (oh, and music). This affected what many news consumers read all over Tennessee, since Gannett now runs this state’s dominant newspapers (including my local paper in Knoxville).

My concern about that obit led to this post: “There was more to Charlie Daniels than politics and even his music (hint: 'I'll Fly Away').” This part of the piece jumped out at me:

… Daniels undoubtedly had many other passions. A staunch supporter of U.S. troops and veterans, he spent much of his career traveling overseas to play for service members in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. …

For the last four years, hardly a day went by without Daniels sharing this message on his Twitter account: “22 VETERANS COMMIT SUICIDE EVERY DAY!!”

On the platform, the man who sang 1980's confrontational "In America" solidified his reputation as one of the most outspoken figures in country music. In daily posts, he would decry abortion as “murder,” ask fans to “pray for the blue,” and declare that “Benghazi ain’t going away.”


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There was more to Charlie Daniels than politics and even his music (hint: 'I'll Fly Away')

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Here in the Volunteer State, lots of Tennesseans are grieving the loss of a crucial figure in the history of that unique brand of Southern rock that gave American the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band and lots of other fiery folks.

Charlie Daniels mixed rock, blues, country, bluegrass, folk, Texas swing, gospel and every other stream of music that flows through Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and everywhere else in the Cumberland and Great Smoky Mountains. You heard his music in bars and you also heard it revival meetings in evangelical and Pentecostal churches.

At a crucial moment in music history, Daniels was Bob Dylan’s favorite Nashville guitar player. He also was known to do at bit of testifying at Billy Graham crusades. In a way, those two facts don’t clash all that much. President Jimmy Carter was a fan, too.

As you would expect, this music legend’s sudden death — his final tweets gave no hint of the stroke and collapse to come — received quite a bit of attention in The Nashville Tennessean and the other Gannett newspapers that dominate this state. Here’s the headline on the main Tennessean story: “Charlie Daniels, 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' singer, famed fiddler and outspoken star, dies at 83.”

In social media, the tributes to Daniels — by music stars and ordinary fans — almost all stress his Christian faith. You can see that in this collection of tweets that were part of the online Tennessean package.

But if you dig a bit deeper into the comments on these tributes, it’s easy to see that quite a few other people hated Daniels because of his conservative Christian convictions.

Consider, for example, the hurricane of hate and bile running through many of the comments following the typically sweet tribute tweets that came from Dolly Parton. (Make sure you read her second tweet and the comments connected to it.)

I would argue that it’s impossible to understand the “outspoken” side of this man’s life — that word shows up over and over in coverage of his death — without understanding his faith. So what made it into the main Tennessean obit?


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Strange Nashville media storm: What to do when a 'prophet' advertises in your newspaper

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Residents of Nashville, Tennessee — the ones who still read a printed Sunday newspaper — received quite a shock when opening the June 21 edition of The Tennessean, a Gannett Co. newspaper not generally known for tabloid-style contents.

A full-page advertisement from a little-known outfit, “Future For America,” was clearly designed to stun readers.

“Dear Citizen of Nashville,” the ad’s text read. “We are under conviction to not only tell you but provide evidence that on July 18, 2020, Islam is going to detonate a nuclear device in Nashville, Tennessee.” The text went on to make a range of bizarre predictions, including an assertion that Donald Trump would be the “last” President of the United States.

Surprisingly — to this observer at least — the ensuing media coverage was, by and large, accurate, explanatory and helpful to readers. Journalists quickly put the fringe group in its context, and even though the advertisement mentioned the Seventh-day Adventist Church (a denomination of 21.4 million worldwide, whose membership includes this writer), the church was not associated with either the group or Jeff Pippenger, its “speaker.”

That’s largely because Pippenger had been disfellowshipped — expelled from Adventist membership — in 2015. The North American Division of the church disavowed the group, though not naming the individual in their statement.

“[T]here is no connection between the Seventh-day Adventist Church and this group and their teachings,” the statement read.

Also, the ad referred to “the backslidden Seventh-day Adventist Church,” which signals — to say the least — a kind of distancing from that larger faith community.

There was what had to be a mad scramble at The Tennessean to do damage control. Media reports indicated the switchboard lit up with subscription cancellations, and online comments on Facebook and Twitter were not positive.

The paper’s initial story spelled out the details:


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Happy July 4th! Now for an update on Tennesseans arguing about 'online' ministers

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Happy July 4th, everybody. This is certainly a day to celebrate the various forms of freedom that Americans cherish — including some that are pretty confusing, when push comes to shove.

I am thinking, in particular, about the First Amendment and the edgy legal battle that is unfolding here in Tennessee about the state’s ability to enforce a law setting some standards about who is an ordained minister and who is not. If you want to catch up on press coverage of this battle, click here for my first post and then here for the podcast discussing this topic: “This is not funny: Does the state have the right to call some faiths 'real' and others 'fakes'?”

It’s time for an update, since the status of click-that-mouse ministers with the Universal Life Church ended up in front of a federal judge yesterday. The Nashville Tennessean team produced a story for Gannett newspapers — which now dominate the volunteer state — that ran with this headline: “Judge questions 'rational basis' of state law blocking ministers ordained online from performing marriages.”

The bottom line: Gannett is covering this case as a battle about LGBTQ rights, since many same-sex couples choose nontraditional ministers to perform their marriage rites. There is little or no evidence that pros at The Tennessean realize that this case will pivot on the U.S. government’s attempts — think Internal Revenue Service — to establish some guidelines to help officials determine when religious institutions exist primarily for the purpose of profit or fraud. Here’s the overture:

A federal judge on Wednesday repeatedly pressed state lawyers to explain a "rational basis" for a new Tennessee law that bans ministers ordained online from performing marriages — and he didn't seem to get an answer that satisfied him.

Chief District Judge Waverly Crenshaw said a lawsuit challenging the law raised "serious constitutional issues" that should be considered at trial by the end of the year. Until then, Crenshaw said, ministers ordained online could continue to perform legal marriages.

The Universal Life Church Monastery, a ministry that ordains ministers online, sued Tennessee over the law last month, saying it violated religious protections of the First Amendment among other things.

Yes, there certainly are “serious constitutional issues” at stake here. I think any serious church-state activist — left or right — would agree with that statement and with the judge’s decision that fights over this Tennessee law deserve a serious day in court.

So what are Tennessee lawmaker’s worried about? We will get to that.


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