Welcome To The Baptist Truth Project
Get caught up on the cases and events that have led to this crucial moment in Baptist Life.
How Did We Get Here?
For generations, cooperating Baptist churches have donated missions funding through the North American Mission Board (NAMB), which then forwarded the money to various state conventions while respecting State Convention autonomy to spend these funds in keeping with their own mission principles, priorities, practices and staff. This was a true partnership with each side cooperating rather than dictating.
This historic practice and partnership began to change in 2010 as NAMB adopted new tactics to nationalize mission by moving away from true partnerships with local leaders. Now, for Baptist State Conventions to receive the funds Baptists churches and people entrusted to NAMB, the states were required to submit to certain directives and controls of NAMB. If the State leaders and Conventions had their own priorities or strategies for their mission field, if they did not affirm these new NAMB directives, or if they hoped to see their money, it was best to remain silent. NAMB even forced some State Conventions to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to secure their silence or from Baptist givers know what NAMB was doing as the “NAMB Knows Best” approach was failing.
Many State Convention leaders (in places like Maryland/Delaware, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Idaho, Alaska, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon) have been strongarmed in this very manner, while NAMB has bought significant influence in other State Conventions with missions money for the Executive Director and NAMB Ambassadors.
By threatening to cut off funding given by many Baptist churches and individuals, NAMB wrongfully influenced these autonomous State Convention boards to make the decision to terminate an employee or to implement a strategy that State Convention leaders personally opposed for the good of their own State mission and mission field.
In other words, NAMB has begun operating in the manner of a top-down or hierarchical denomination, which is a challenge and threat to historic Baptist autonomy. Such actions might make sense if one is part of a religious organization in which a pope or archbishop directs the affairs of the cardinals, vicars, or priests, dictating exactly how things must be done. However, this notion is foreign to time-honored Southern Baptist principles..
Never before have Southern Baptists embraced denominational hierarchy. In fact, local Baptist churches were created first, then those churches created Baptist Associations. Those churches then started Baptist State Conventions. Afterwards, those churches started the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. Finally, those churches voted during an SBC meeting to create the North American Mission Board in 1997. All these Baptist bodies are fully autonomous and separate organizations or corporations and prohibited by SBC Constitution with “never attempt to exercise any authority over any other Baptist body, whether church, auxiliary organizations, associations or convention.”
One important case has already made it all the way to the US Supreme Court. In 2015, NAMB notified the Baptist Convention of Maryland-Delaware (BCMD) that it was preparing to cut off one million dollars per year of joint funding given by generous Southern Baptists. These funds were matched by the BMCD to support 8 jointly funded staff missionaries and $500,000/yearr toward evangelism and church planting effortsthem. NAMB clearly made known to the BCMD Sstate Bboard via BCMD leaders its displeasure with their Executive Director, Dr. Will McRaney and falsely accused him of violating the Partnership Agreements and refusing to meet. Acting swiftly, the board terminated McRaney and then NAMB suddenly had a change of heart and reversed its decision to cut off the flow of missions money from Southern Baptists to this historic State Convention. In the business world, among completely autonomous organizations, this is a tort known as wrongful (illegal) interference. This matter is of vital importance to Southern Baptists because it frankly impacts whether we will cooperate in our historic Baptist tradition or join our Catholic and Methodist friends in a true hierarchy and it places Baptist ministers at risk without legal recourse from wrongful behaviors of the powerful in SBC leadership.
Where Are We Now?
True Baptist identity, autonomy, and related legal protections will be legally damaged and Baptist ministry, missions, and missionaries placed at great risk if a current case before the courts is not appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals after a bad decision based on deceptions is not challenged.
The wheels of justice turn slowly. If you have any experience with lawsuits, you know they typically drag on and on. In the case of McRaney v. NAMB, we are going on seven years. Dismissals. Appeals. Motions. Depositions. The process is both agonizing and expensive. But this battle to defend the Southern Baptist Convention and Baptist bodies (churches, Associations, State Conventions and SBC entities) from hierarchy has seen some unusual twists.
As hard as it is to believe, two Southern Baptist entities have actually filed papers in federal courts, related to this case, that blatantly misrepresent the nature of our non-hierarchical structure.
The first entity is the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which submitted an amicus brief in 2020 claiming the existence of just such a hierarchy. The second entity is the NAMB North American Mission Board itself, which submitted court documents in 2018 and 2023 claiming absolute rights and privileges to defame and illegally interfere with other Baptist leaders, and among other risks, inferring the right to supervise employees of "the Baptist Church" such as Dr. McRaney.
Of course, no such unified, hierarchical organization exists like "the Baptist Church,” and is contrary to historic Baptist polity and faith. ." Rather, we have a voluntary network of individual, separate, autonomous Baptist churches, along with entities and state conventions, each of which is operates independently from the others with their own governing boards, doctrine, and priorities. This independence matters, for it means that no organization in SBC life dictates the decisions, doctrine, polity, finances or anything over of another Baptist body or leader.
One might reasonably ask, "Why would two Southern Baptist entities argue in court against our historic time-honored denominational structure?" The claim that they simply made a mistake, along the lines of a clerical error, is far-fetched and stretches credulity. More likely, they have determined this approach to be their best (and perhaps only) defense against the allegations of wrongful interference by the North American Mission BoardNAMB against Dr. Will McRaney, an 11 year evangelism and church planting professor at NOBTS and 8-year leader in both Florida and the Maryland/Delaware Baptist conventions.
In order to defend itself against wrongful interference, NAMB has chosen to argue in court for the existence of a unified Southern Baptist hierarchy and rights over State Conventions and their leaders. The faulty underlying logic behind their defense is that if Will McRaney works for "the Baptist Church" then NAMB is in a position of authority over him, and they have every right to direct his work activities and mission, and even seek his termination by weaponizing mission funds for a historic Baptist partner in BCMD, formed in 1836.
Such a defense sacrifices Southern Baptist polity and truth on the altar of litigation. More importantly, the existence of a connectional denomination produces unintended legal consequences in the form of ascending and descending liability, capable of threatening our future existence as Southern Baptists and threaten legal protections of Baptist churches and ministers. As well, Baptist leaders will lose their right to seek legal protection from the US justice system should other powerful entity leaders choose to defame them or illegally interfere with their employment. The outcome of this one legal case offers truly staggering implications for our Convention. This trial is much more than one man's battle for justice, but for the preservation of Baptist polity and autonomy and protection for Baptist ministers in various Baptist churches and bodies.
What’s At Stake?
Southern Baptists are standing on the edge of a legal liability precipice that threatens to destroy us. For generations, our SBC and State Convention legal teams have successfully defended us from crippling financial liability. They have truthfully argued that since each SBC entity is autonomous, it cannot be held liable for the negligence of the other entities. Because "the Baptist Church" does not truly exist, no one can sue us in the same way they might sue the unified "Roman Catholic Church." As long as each entity, convention, church, university, or seminary remains completely separate, independent, and autonomous, we cannot be found mutually or collectively liable in the kind of legal proceeding that recently produced a $2.4 billion judgment against the Boy Scouts of America, a ruling that has created the largest sex abuse settlement fund in history.
The recent decision by District Judge Glen Davidson to dismiss this case on the grounds that "the Baptist Church" is handling its internal religious matters, and thus is protected by ecclesial exemption, establishes the very dangerous precedent that we are all one connected religious body, which exposes us to the same crippling legal settlements of hierarchical groups.
Catastrophic legal liability is not the only implication of this case. One must also consider the hard truth that if Kevin Ezell, the president of NAMB, can leverage its power to distribute missions funding to control the activities of our 42 state conventions, other SBC entities can also use pooled funds donated by Southern Baptists to dictate their wishes to lower bodies also. If the current court decision is allowed to stand and not challenged in the Circuit Court, like McRaney, Baptist leaders will lose their right to seek legal protections from the US justice system should other powerful leaders choose to defame them or illegally interfere with their employment and ministry.
What Can Be Done?
The great irony in all of this is that Baptists have been unwittingly paying Goliath to defeat David, paying Goliath to defeat David by means of dangerous deception in the courts. The generosity of Southern Baptist offering plates to the SBC has provided NAMB with hundreds of millions of dollars in reserves, allowing their legal team to spend an estimated $2.5 to three $3 million dollars opposing our historic Southern Baptist and SBC non-hierarchical polity. On the other hand, Southern Baptists have contributed almost nothing to Will McRaney in his defense of not only his claims, but more importantly Baptist autonomy, values, identify, and legal protections for ministers. .
Will McRaney is the only party in this case who has been truthful about the Southern Baptist and SBC way, fighting in favor of a respectful rather than coercive cooperation style. His financial cost is staggering as he fights this battle for all of us. Southern BaptistsBaptist people and bodies, it is time to prayerfully, publicly and financially support David rather than Goliath.
Join our efforts to bring truth to courts about Baptists.
1. Sign the Group Letter to the SBC Executive Committee.
2. Click the Give button and contribute any amount to our legal defense of Baptist efforts with the courts.
3. Pray for the McRaney's, NAMB and all Baptist leaders involved to stand in truth and repent of all deception and/or silence in the midst of the deception.
4. Share this information with your family, friends, and church.