In a previous article, I argued the conflict among Texas Baptists reflects the emotional process of an anxious system responding to perceived threats. If that is true, what kind of leadership should Texas Baptists expect and call for?
Leaders needed for such a time as this
We do not need leaders who promise to remove everyone’s anxiety, preserve every existing relationship, or produce a perfect compromise. We need leaders who can remain connected while refusing to be governed by the system’s reactivity. They must be able to define themselves, make the decisions that belong to them, and allow others to take responsibility for their responses.
That kind of leadership does not avoid boundaries. No organization can remain indefinitely ambiguous about the terms of belonging.
Texas Baptists eventually must decide which differences our cooperation can contain and which differences change the nature of that cooperation. Leaders should not make those decisions reactively, but neither should they avoid them in the name of unity.
The New Testament uses vivid imagery in the analogies of the church as a body and a family. Similar processes are found in the body, the family, the church, and, I suggest, in the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
In the body, a healthy immune system distinguishes genuine danger from what is merely unfamiliar. When that process becomes disordered, the body may attack its own members while believing it is protecting itself. We see a similar dynamic in families and in churches when they are anxious.
Anxious organizations can interpret disagreement as disloyalty, difference as danger, and every challenge to established patterns as an existential threat. Leaders should help the organization interpret threats more accurately, respond proportionately, and determine its boundaries deliberately rather than reactively.
A test case
The debate over women serving as pastors provides a concrete test. Texas Baptists cannot preserve unity indefinitely by leaving everyone uncertain about what belonging means. The convention eventually must answer practical questions.
Can a church led by a woman pastor participate fully? Will its messengers be seated without the church’s legitimacy being continually contested? Can women pastors serve in convention leadership? Will BGCT leaders defend their recognized standing when others call them disobedient or unbiblical?
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May complementarian churches remain and advocate their convictions? Where is the line between expressing that conviction and attempting to deny the standing of churches the convention has said belong?
If churches with women pastors belong in the BGCT, leadership must say so clearly. It is not enough to declare the convention a broad tent and proclaim the autonomy of the local church while leaving those churches to absorb the emotional cost of continual challenges to their legitimacy.
Complementarian churches may be free to teach and advocate their convictions, but the convention must determine whether they may use convention processes to deny the recognized standing of other cooperating churches.
Differentiated leadership does not guarantee an outcome acceptable to everyone. It defines the terms of cooperation, explains the convictions behind them, applies them consistently, and accepts the losses those decisions may produce. It does so without portraying those who disagree or depart as enemies.
More about the leaders needed
Right now, Texas Baptists need leaders who state facts without catastrophizing and acknowledge real losses without promising everything can be preserved. We need leaders who refuse false binaries, allow disagreement without demanding immediate resolution, and resist pressure to identify villains.
They should distinguish conviction from anxiety-driven certainty, define their own positions without controlling everyone’s response, and sustain relationships across boundaries after decisions are made.
Some differences among Texas Baptists are substantial and may change the form of our cooperation. We should not pretend otherwise.
The goal should not necessarily be preventing every division. Sometimes differentiation produces separation. Some churches may no longer share enough purpose or trust to sustain the same institutional relationship.
A healthier process might result in a smaller BGCT, altered institutional relationships, or departing churches. But those outcomes should emerge from clearly stated convictions and honestly faced realities rather than panic or emotional cutoff.
Large meetings tend to amplify anxiety. Speeches, motions, and parliamentary deadlines reward certainty, coalition-building, and emotional intensity. Such meetings are necessary for some decisions, but they are poorly suited to the adaptive discernment that must precede those decisions.
A more promising way forward
BGCT Executive Director Julio Guarneri’s listening efforts and Pastor John Whitten’s emphasis on local relationships suggest a more promising way forward.
Texas Baptists need smaller, sustained relational settings: regional groups that meet repeatedly; diverse participants who learn one another’s stories; facilitators who can recognize emotional process; conversations that begin with perceived threats and anticipated losses; no requirement for immediate agreement; feedback flowing between local groups and institutional leaders; and room for multiple experiments rather than one universal answer.
Knowing one another does not remove disagreement. It does make it more difficult to turn differences into abstractions and people into caricatures. These conversations would not replace formal governance. They would improve the emotional and relational conditions in which governing decisions are made.
A caution about the way forward
The danger now is every group in Texas Baptist life may repeat historic, unhealthy patterns. Conservatives may seek safety through tighter doctrinal boundaries and enforcement. Moderates may seek safety by protecting existing institutions and excluding those they perceive as fundamentalists.
Institutional leaders may defend structures that provide identity and security. Exhausted pastors may seek safety through disengagement and indifference. These are different expressions of the same emotional process: control, preservation, and cutoff in response to threat.
Theological discernment always occurs inside an emotional system. Our convictions matter, and so does the emotional process through which we interpret, defend, and act upon them.
The future of the BGCT will emerge from the interactions already taking place among churches, pastors, institutions, and convention leaders. Leaders must make the decisions that belong to them. They must state what those decisions mean, protect those whom the convention says belong, and accept the consequences. What they cannot do is determine every consequence, preserve every relationship, or control everyone’s response.
Texas Baptists cannot guarantee what will emerge from these interactions. We can influence the emotional and relational conditions from which that future will come.
Differentiated leaders will not give us a predetermined destination. They will tell the truth, remain connected, resist the demand for enemies, and help us make the decisions that are ours to make.
The question is not whether a new future will emerge. It will. The question is whether it will emerge from faithful discernment or from another anxious search for safety.
Scott Jones is pastor of First Baptist Church in Rockport and a member of the Baptist Standard board of directors. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.
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