Biennial Objection #3: We are not Hierarchical

The Executive Committee's third objection states, "Southern Baptists are not hierarchical and therefore need to meet annually to discern the will of the messengers through God's leading to effectively and efficiently facilitate our cooperative mission endeavors to reach a lost and dying world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

The Executive Committee is exactly right when they declare, "Southern Baptists are not hierarchical", but their objection quickly goes astray when they write, "and therefore need to meet annually to discern the will of the messengers. . . ."

We were not hierarchical when we met on a Triennial basis, a biennial basis, or, theoretically, now. While this objection may initially sound compelling, it actually represents a category shift in argumentation.

Hierarchy is a function of who has ultimate authority in making decisions and how decisions are made, but it is not a function of how often decisions are made.

For example, a church with congregational polity that moves from quarterly business meetings to semi-annual meetings is not automatically accepting a change that introduces hierarchy. The messengers to the Convention, like the members of a local church, establish the parameters for the administration of the Convention through the approval of budgets, policies, and etc.

As long as the messengers have the same level of control over the same things they control now, and as long as they have the opportunity to call an emergency meeting to address a legitimate crisis or breach of authority, a biennial meeting does not introduce hierarchy at all.

In the life of the SBC, a primary instrument that the messengers of the SBC use to govern the agencies we fund and cherish -- the convention allocation budget -- is already approved on a biennial basis.

If one follows the Executive Committee's argument to its logical end, the Southern Baptist Convention should meet every day, for this would be the only way to assure that we are not hierarchical.

The very existence of an Executive Committee recognizes there is a difference between governing the Convention through the approval of budgets and policies and administering the Convention's agencies during the time between Convention meetings.

If this distinction, that of governance and administration, is not maintained (and it is an appropriate distinction), it is difficult to understand how we can even have an Executive Committee or how the Convention could ever not be in session.

Hierarchy is introduced by reducing or eliminating the authority of the messengers to govern or by unnecessarily limiting the ability of messengers to address the Convention when the Convention meets. It is not introduced by adding 365 days between meetings.

As long as messengers to the Convention are truly able to govern, and the Executive Committee truly limits its activities to facilitating, administering, and otherwise carrying out the wishes of the Convention as expressed in their meetings and governing documents, no additional hierarchy is introduced by a return to biennial meetings.

Historic Baptist polity and lines of authority are not threatened by a return to biennial meetings.

**One bonus argument here. A move to a biennial meeting could actually improve the opportunity for Baptists to be involved in their Convention. In my own informal questioning of messengers at this year's SBC, I learned that many messengers are only able to attend intermittently because of cost. This change would enable smaller churches to save for two years to send their pastor to the convention. I will discuss this further in a concluding post on the topic, but, for now, I simply want to note that this change could actually increase attendance at meetings and allow a greater percentage of the churches of our Convention to participate.