{"id":2942,"date":"2012-02-07T04:00:59","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2942"},"modified":"2012-02-06T23:57:26","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T06:57:26","slug":"the-proliferation-of-yes-men-in-the-sbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2942","title":{"rendered":"The Proliferation of “Yes Men” in the SBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes Man:<\/strong> a person who agrees with everything that is said; especially<\/em>:<\/strong> one who endorses or supports without criticism every opinion or proposal of an associate or superior (Merriam-Webster Dictionary<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Throughout recorded history, we have always had “yes men”<\/em> (and women too), those people who simply refused to ask\u00a0any questions — much less the hard questions — of those in leadership.\u00a0\u00a0Given\u00a0our human nature, that is completely understandable.\u00a0 After all, who wants to be seen as “difficult”<\/em> or “divisive?”\u00a0<\/em> Those who dare to ask any questions often find themselves not only with less benefits, but also on the outside looking in.\u00a0 Not an enviable position to be in, to be sure.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because of my legal background but, more likely because of my personal upbringing, I have never been accused of being a “yes man.”\u00a0<\/em> My dad, who served on the town council and as mayor of my hometown, Lake Placid, FL, always distrusted \u201cyes men.\u201d<\/em> He saw his fair share in the political arena, but, unfortunately, he also ran across a good number of “yes men”<\/em> within the church.\u00a0 These “yes men,”<\/em> whether or not they held formal positions of power within the church, were good at protecting the pastor from the slightest criticism or questioning.\u00a0 No one in leadership, even pastors, likes to be criticized.\u00a0 However, when we surround ourselves with “yes men,”<\/em> we often end up making unwise decisions because we did not allow the hard\u00a0questions to be asked, which\u00a0in hindsight, might have saved us much grief and heartache.<\/p>\n

There will always be a long line of “yes men”<\/em> who will gladly agree with and never question the opinions, beliefs, and even actions of their leaders.\u00a0 That is simply a reality.\u00a0 However, every leader — from pastors of churches of all sizes to CEOs of Corporations to Presidents of SBC Entities — can either encourage or discourage the “yes men”<\/em>\u00a0mentality.\u00a0 Unfortunately, our culture,\u00a0including the culture within the Southern Baptist Convention, seems to be encouraging, rather than discouraging, “yes men.”\u00a0 <\/em>Why should this be the case, particularly within a religious organization of churches such as the SBC?<\/p>\n

Could the answer to that question lie somewhere in the fact that\u00a0the Southern Baptist Convention has\u00a0morphed\u00a0from a servant-leader\u00a0model of ministry to a CEO-leader model of ministry?\u00a0 And, when I say CEO, I’m not talking “Chief Encouragement Officer.”\u00a0<\/em> It seems that more and more pastors — regardless\u00a0of the actual size of their congregations — are “running”<\/em> their churches more like a business than the body of Christ.\u00a0 These leaders surround themselves with “yes\u00a0men”<\/em> and\u00a0even a few “yes women.”\u00a0 <\/em>If you want to stay in the inner circle, you give unquestioning loyalty to the pastor.\u00a0 (I’ve even known of a few churches\u00a0who require some sort of written loyalty oath<\/del>\u00a0pledge of allegiance to\u00a0pastoral authority in order to be eligible to serve\u00a0in any\u00a0position within the church.)\u00a0 If and when you begin to question, your time on the inside (and perhaps even the church — see here<\/a>)\u00a0will quickly come to an end.<\/p>\n

What’s wrong with this picture?\u00a0 Quite simply, our unquestioning loyalty should be to Jesus Christ and to the protection and safeguarding of\u00a0His church, not to a particular person, not even the pastor.\u00a0 Scripture is\u00a0clear that we should submit to our leaders and should not bring any “accusation”<\/em>\u00a0against the pastors\/elders without at least two or three witnesses.\u00a0 However, we cannot\u00a0misuse and contort that Biblical principle to mean that any questions — even hard questions — are off-limits.\u00a0 Leaders, particularly in the GCR-era of “transparency”<\/em> (the real kind as opposed to what has been\u00a0practiced by the\u00a0SBC establishment — here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>), should\u00a0not hide from questions, but rather should welcome a wide latitude of questions.\u00a0\u00a0After all, leaders who have nothing to hide should not only practice transparency, but should live above reproach.<\/p>\n

These same principles should apply to the entities\u00a0of the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0\u00a0The Trustees of each of our entities\u00a0should not serve out of unquestioning loyalty to the Presidents\u00a0of these institutions, but rather should serve with unquestioning loyalty to Jesus Christ and to the protection and safeguarding of the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0\u00a0The title “Trustee”<\/em>\u00a0carries with it a sacred obligation to serve the interests of the churches of the Convention, not the interests\u00a0of the\u00a0President of a particular\u00a0entity, be it the oldest seminary or the youngest seminary.\u00a0 In fact, Trustees are nominated with this very principle in mind:<\/p>\n

“The (Nominating) committee shall recognize the principle that the persons it recommends shall represent the constituency of the Convention, rather than the staff of the entity.” (SBC ByLaws, Section 15E<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our Trustees would do well to remember that their constituency is the churches\u00a0that comprise the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0\u00a0Churches of all sizes.\u00a0 Churches with celebrity pastors and churches with pastors that\u00a0no one really knows.\u00a0 Churches that send ten messengers to the Annual Convention and churches who don’t send any\u00a0messengers to the Annual Convention.\u00a0\u00a0Traditional churches and contemporary churches.\u00a0\u00a0Older churches and new church plants.<\/p>\n

There was a time in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention when the Trustees of the various\u00a0entities ignored the will of the majority of churches.\u00a0 Instead of\u00a0representing\u00a0the majority constituency, these Trustees, particularly at our seminaries, acted on behalf of an elite\u00a0minority of the churches.\u00a0 When this abuse of power continued unabated, the Conservative Resurgence was born and accountability was eventually restored\u00a0via the\u00a0grassroots\u00a0churches of the Convention.\u00a0\u00a0If the SBC’s\u00a0leaders — and their “yes\u00a0men”<\/em> enablers —\u00a0continue to act on behalf of an elite minority, don’t be surprised when a second Conservative Resurgence (and the GCR wasn’t it)\u00a0— led by\u00a0grassroots pastors and lay folk — emerges to restore accountability to the entities that are supposed to SERVE the churches of the SBC!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes Man: a person who agrees with everything that is said; especially: one who endorses or supports without criticism every opinion or proposal of an associate or superior (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Throughout recorded history, we have always had “yes men” (and women too), those people who simply refused to ask\u00a0any questions — much less the hard…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,35,37],"tags":[1558,249,345,1557,599,761,1561,868,1559,893,3393,1560,1057],"class_list":["post-2942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-religion","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-ceo","tag-conservative-resurgence","tag-elites","tag-leaders","tag-leadership","tag-pastors","tag-sacred-trust","tag-sbc","tag-sbc-seminary","tag-servant-leader","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-trustees","tag-yes-men"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-Ls","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2942"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2949,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions\/2949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}