It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.
And the right thing was done Monday, May 1, with the decision by trustees of the Executive Board (EC) of the Southern Baptist Convention to not elect by a vote of 50-31 former EC board chair Jared Wellman as EC president/CEO.
Credit to the EC for taking a meaningful step toward restoring a measure of credibility to an entity that desperately needed to send a message to Southern Baptists that would bolster confidence in the entity. The EC members studied the issue, were encouraged to vote their conscience, prayed, and decided to stand on personal conviction regardless of consequences.
However, the lopsided vote should not be seen as a rejection of Wellman but rather a rejection of a process that created the perception that it lacked credibility. It raised numerous questions over the past three months yet offered no answers, and little to no information was shared that could have brought clarity to the person in the pew.
Southern Baptists are weary of the denomination’s business being done behind closed doors and under the blanket of executive sessions. From the smallest church to the largest, grassroots Southern Baptists foot the bill for the SBC ecosystem through their Cooperative Program and special offering giving, and they deserve respect and accountability from SBC entities. That should never be forgotten. Entities on every level — associational, state, national — exist to serve Southern Baptists and their churches. Period. Yes, confidentiality is important, but it is the duty of those serving as entity leaders and trustees to execute their responsibilities in such a way that Southern Baptists can understand the business in which their representatives are engaged and for which their sacrificial giving is being applied.
Executive Committee employees and board of trustee members have promised Southern Baptists transparency and restored credibility for a couple of years now, and Monday, when it mattered most, the EC board of trustees delivered.
So where to now?
Monday’s actions were a good first step, but a fundamental sense of organizational confidence is nested in an entity’s endless journey toward sustained credibility.
A new search committee was named and will begin again the process of searching for an EC president/CEO. Interim president Willie McLaurin should be allowed back in that process. He is qualified and has spent more than a year in the role successfully executing the responsibilities of the position.
Several questions lingered as to why and how McLaurin was disqualified from the process in the short timeframe between when he was affirmed as a viable candidate by the search committee chair at the February EC board meeting, and how a few weeks later Wellman went from ex officio voting member of the search committee to becoming the committee’s sole candidate. Surely this new search committee will apply lessons learned from the way that process was handled.
But McLaurin is not the only one who should be allowed back in the process. Any of the candidates who were considered over the past year and who were eventually passed over should be allowed to resubmit their application if they desire. And of course, the new committee launching a new search should allow new candidates who wish to apply.
It is reasonable for Southern Baptists to have at least two fundamental expectations of the members of both the full EC board and the members who comprise the search committee.
1. A clearly defined process free of outside influence by which the EC board will ensure transparency, provide informed updates through the convention’s news agency and to which the search committee will be held accountable.
2. The presentation of a candidate at the board’s regularly scheduled September 2023 meeting with the expectation that that person will be voted upon in that same meeting.
That’s five months. It is reasonable to expect this process to move more quickly and efficiently than the first pass. The first cut of applicants will happen quickly. The first round of resumes always does. The second cut is slightly more difficult but still should not take long. That would leave at least two or three months to examine the top three-to-four candidates.
The task isn’t easy. While Southern Baptists should expect transparency and integrity in the process, Southern Baptists should also support the EC board of trustees, its chairman and its presidential search committee in prayer, asking for God to grant wisdom and clarity.
And in the end, a transparent, focused, efficient, agenda-free, deadline-oriented search committee working together in prayer to bring forth a viable candidate in September would be another step in the journey toward restored credibility. B&R
