There is a question that all of us need to ask. How we respond makes all the difference in what type of life we lead and what type of world we make. That question is: Does an action feel good or do good?
—Dennis Prager—
[T]he sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do….
—1 Chronicles 12:32—
Key point: Well-meaning Christians would be a great deal more effective for the kingdom of God if they were as shrewd as they are well-meaning.
An expanded version of this article is available here.
In the 1977 made-for-television movie The Death of Richie, Robby Benson plays teenager Richie Werner, a young man who, unfortunately, has been taken captive by drug abuse. His parents try to help him on their own, but the whole family actually needs help. The father, George, refuses professional counseling. Eventually, the difficulties surrounding Richie’s addictions and the emotional storms they generate work to destroy any hope of healthy relationships between parents and son — and any hope of getting the wayward youth to take and travel a path out of his plight. Emotions run hot and get out of hand. Richie’s parents watch their son descend into an abyss they know will either permanently ruin his life — or put an end to it.
George loves his son, but he’s also angry with him. As Richie’s situation continues to unravel, George becomes desperate. Wanting and willing to do anything he can to help his son but unable to think clearly because his strong feelings and the family’s circumstances have overwhelmed him, George reports his son to the police.
The movie’s climax comes when…Richie confronts his father in a drug-induced rage…threatening him with an awl. George retreats to the basement in the family’s home, where Richie follows him. George retrieves a revolver from his toolbox and aims it at Richie, but does not fire it, cocking the hammer back in an attempt to convince his son that he is not bluffing. Richie screams repeatedly for his father to shoot him. George manages to overpower Richie by knocking the awl from his hand, but Richie retreats upstairs and returns to the basement with a pair of scissors and taunts his father over and over again, daring him to shoot him, approaching him closer, thinking that George doesn’t have the nerve to do it.
With a steady hand, George pulls the trigger. A blinding flash from the gun’s barrel then morphs into a bouquet of flowers on a mahogany casket in the cemetery
viewers saw in the early moments of the movie. Standing by Richie’s casket, the minister reads the twenty-third psalm. Sadly, The Death of Richie is a true story.
Shoot me! Shoot me!
—Richie Werner to his father just before the tragic end to the movie The Death of Richie—
An Important Takeaway
The main takeaway I’d like to offer my readers with this illustration is that out-of-control emotions can utterly destroy. They can destroy people, and plans, and goals, and entities, and organizations. They can destroy cooperative efforts, even noble ones. In the heat and passion of a moment, or a movement, recommended actions can seem right but be thoroughly wrong. Of all people, Christians should be able to look beyond emotions and appearances. The Bible tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”
Scripture also says, “The first one to plead his cause seems right, Until his neighbor comes and examines him.” Let’s suppose, though, that the members of a jury allow themselves to get carried away in the emotional fervor of the first presenter’s arguments, so much so that they turn deaf ears to the one who makes the counter-presentation. What then? True justice is less likely to prevail. Certainly emotional arguments can be made on the right side of a dispute, but such arguments often are manipulative and deceptive. For justice to prevail, reason and objectivity must remain at the forefront.
Emotions do not constitute a reliable path to justice.
While emotions should be acknowledged because they are present and real, they do not constitute a reliable path to justice. As we learn from The Death of Richie, intense emotions can compel people to reach conclusions and to take actions they sooner or later come to regret. And realize this: It isn’t just emotions like anger, desperation, and intense frustration that can lead to avoidable tragedies. Powerful feelings like compassion, sorrow, sensitivity, and concern do as well. Moreover, feelings of guilt and responsibility readily can take their toll and obscure reason and objectivity, two necessary ingredients in the formula for arriving at authentic justice.
It isn’t just emotions like anger, desperation, and intense frustration that can lead to avoidable tragedies. Powerful feelings like compassion, sorrow, sensitivity, and concern do as well. Moreover, feelings of guilt and responsibility readily can take their toll and obscure reason and objectivity, two necessary ingredients in the formula for arriving at authentic justice.
The Death of the Southern Baptist Convention
After attending the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville in 2021, I published a list of ten items I considered to be cringeworthy. Today, a year later, I could make minor adjustments to only a few of them and repost all ten as a list of elements that distressed me about the 2022 meeting of the SBC in Anaheim. Here I’m posting items 2, 3, and 4 without adjustment. What I wrote last year about the convention in Nashville describes perfectly elements that were present and operative at the just-completed SBC meeting in Anaheim. Although I didn’t attend the convention in person, I saw enough to realize that nothing has changed. The following items concern me greatly.
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- The raw and blatant attempts of leaders to manipulate messengers with emotional rhetoric.
- The bandwagon mentality shown by both leaders and messengers to support popular and even legitimate causes (opposing sexual abuse and opposing racism are two excellent examples) without weighing carefully the consequences of the specific approaches recommended or taken to address these issues.
- The applause in response to leaders’ manipulative rhetoric. Discernment was in short supply.
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These elements highlight intense emotions; emotions that, I believe,
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- can lead to,
- are leading to, or even
- already have led to
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the death of the Southern Baptist Convention. Yet I want to be very clear. I’m not calling out emotions alone, but also deceptive, manipulative, and coercive tactics on the part of leaders to herd messengers and other Southern Baptists in ways reminiscent of the way the Pied Piper directed the children of Hamelin to a place from which their families never heard from them again.
Sexual Abuse Is Neither Systemic Nor Widespread in the SBC
Southern Baptists need to realize that, despite all the rhetoric we’ve heard to the contrary, the Guidepost report on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention actually demonstrates that abuse in the convention not only is not systemic or widespread; rather, it is quite rare (even though any incident of abuse is troubling and must be addressed). In an article about the report appearing at the Daily Wire, Megan Basham writes,
Lyman Stone, demographer at the Institute for Family Studies, told me the actual data contained in the abuse report, the result of an eight-month investigation by Guidepost Solutions, does not come close to meriting the hyperbolic terms that are peppering coverage in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN.
“Statistically speaking,” he said, “there were not that many cases. This is not actually that common of a problem in this church body.”…
“If you wanted to argue that based on this report, executives of the SBC mismanaged the cases that were brought to them, then fine,” Stone said. “But if you want to say this shows that [the SBC] is corrupt, hypocritical, and rife with sexual abuse — the report doesn’t demonstrate that.”
Am I saying those who approach church leaders with stories of abuse should be ignored? Quite the opposite! They must be respected and carefully heard, and their stories must be investigated. While the Caring Well Initiative and its curriculum say Believe women, a more biblical approach, at least initially, is Don’t disbelieve women! Actually, leaders shouldn’t initially disbelieve any accuser, whether male or female. Investigate their stories, gather evidence, and let the evidence guide you to reasonable conclusions. Use your head! Contact local authorities. An article at The Stream titled “Five Key Points for the Southern Baptist Convention Vote on Sexual Abuse Response” by Tom Gilson offers excellent insights and advice on dealing with sexual abuse in the local church. Although it was written before the SBC meeting in Anaheim and messengers didn’t heed everything Gilson advised, readers still can benefit from his wisdom; it will help them steer clear of mistakes in dealing with sexual abuse when this issue arises in their churches or in other immediate settings.
Blood in the Water
Take a minute to recall the tragic story of Richie Werner as presented in The Death of Richie. Richie was shot to death by his own father. Both Richie and his dad were being carried away by intense emotions; and, in the heat of the moment, when Richie yelled out to his dad, “Shoot me! Shoot me!” George did, killing his own son.
Surveying the landscape surrounding the SBC and the decisions made at the convention on how to deal with sexual abuse (including the passage of Resolution 6 and two motions made by the Sexual Abuse Task Force), any clear-thinking observer will recognize that SBC leaders have effectively caused the convention to say to, and even to beg, any and all interested parties, “Sue me! Sue me!” This is utter folly. I assure you, they will. And they won’t stop. There won’t ever be enough money to cover the damages, either.
Sue me! Sue me!
—the Southern Baptist Convention to crooked lawyers and other nefarious players in 2022—
There’s more! I fear that through Resolution 6, which passed overwhelmingly in Anaheim, the SBC already has admitted its own guilt — and in practical terms has embraced its own liability — even for sexual abuse cases for which it holds absolutely no responsibility (see Whereases, numbers 9 and 10, and Resolveds, numbers 3, 4, and 5). Will this be the end of the Southern Baptist Convention?
What would you do if you were part of a church that hadn’t seen one sexual abuse case? In years past, you’d given money to the Cooperative Program as a worthy missions cause, but the CP now is being used to pay damages being awarded to accusers who win lawsuits or even reach settlements, which, though less costly than litigation, also can be extremely expensive. This hasn’t happened yet, but it is a very plausible and even likely scenario given the path we’re on. The question is not whether real victims should be recompensed, but who should pay damages and the other costs involved. Will you and your church continue to give money to the CP to pay for someone else’s sins and crimes? This is a far cry from justice if there ever were one!
Corporate guilt is a tenet of critical theory and social justice. Biblical justice, on the other hand, opposes the idea of corporate guilt. It instead acts with impartiality and proportionality to render to everyone what he or she deserves according to the rightness of God’s perfect law.
LAWSUIT ADS.pptx from RickPatrick9
Dr. John Maxwell, a Christian leader and an expert in leadership training, has said, “Pride deafens us to the advice or warnings of those around us.” Southern Baptists who opposed going down the “Me Too” path (a path that, as we have indicated, includes two recommendations from the Sexual Abuse Task Force that messengers approved resoundingly in Anaheim) warned the convention about the dangers. Sadly, they have been ridiculed as insensitive to and dismissive of abuse, and up to this point, their wisdom has gone unheeded.
The Southern Baptist Convention is in big trouble. The answer to the question Is the SBC on its deathbed? will depend on
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- whether or not enough Southern Baptists will listen to and heed those giving warnings, on
- whether or not it is too late to heed them, and on
- whether or not God will, in His great mercy and grace, perform a miracle that will bring the SBC back to life and health.
Now is certainly a good time to pray for a miracle.
Copyright © 2022 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
top image credit: Photo by Jonnica Hill on Unsplash
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.