The SBC Establishment is sending a message to non-IMB missionaries from Southern Baptist churches. You aren’t qualified to lead the Pastors’ Conference because you don’t work for the SBC Bureaucracy.
Voddie Baucham will be nominated to lead the SBC Pastors’ Conference and the reaction of SBC Elites was typical. They hated the idea of a conservative Black Southern Baptist leading the Pastors’ Conference.
In fact, Grant Gaines, the SBC pastor who made a sexual abuse survivor feel like she was used as his political prop in Nashville, whined about the nomination of Voddie Baucham because Baucham does not work for the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Gaines said, “I would also like an SBC pastor’s conference president who is a member of a Southern Baptist Church, and if a missionary, one who works for the IMB.”
Rod Martin nicely responded, “Establishment to non-IMB missionaries: Drop dead! Also, I guess ‘Great Commission Giving’ is soooo 2010. Somebody better tell J.D.‘s church. And Bryant Wright’s. #ChangeTheDirection
Full disclosure: Grant Gaines called the Capstone Report the National Inquirer of the SBC.
Voddie Baucham is Southern Baptist. Dr. Baucham explained that he is a missionary sent by a Southern Baptist church in Texas. (A church that he started.) Baucham is also the Dean of Theology at African Christian University in Zambia.
Why would a missionary from a Southern Baptist church be unattractive to an SBC Establishment type like Gaines? Perhaps, Voddie Baucham is dangerous.
Baucham is independent. Baucham has a reputation for refusing to kowtow to the demands of SBC Elites.
In fact, that independent streak led Baucham to speak out against racial identity politics—something that cost him with SBC Elites who were busy promoting Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality.
So, SBC Elites are petrified of Voddie Baucham.
Perhaps, just like Lee Brand, Voddie Baucham is the wrong type of black man.