Emergent Calvinist SBC President, J.D. Greear, Will Remain 1 More Year Due to Coronavirus

By Philip Gray

According to a Christian Post article, “Southern Baptist Convention Cancels Annual Meeting Amid COVID-19 Outbreak,” emergent Calvinist SBC president, J.D. Greear, will remain as president one more year:

Messengers at the SBC’s Annual Meeting this year were scheduled to vote for a new president to replace pastor J.D. Greear, who has served since 2018. Terms for SBC president are one year and the most anyone can serve is two consecutive terms. A vote is required to reelect a president and Greear was reelected at last year’s meeting. Due to this year’s cancellation, Greear will remain president for an additional year.

It is unfortunate that SBC leadership did not decide to hold a mail-in or online vote to bring in a new president because J.D. Greear has welcomed emergent “progressive” ideologies while president of the denomination.

For example, as Lighthouse Trails reported in December of 2019, Greear has been a strong advocate for bringing what is called “Critical Race Theory” into SBC. As stated in that report, “Southern Baptist Convention Adopts ‘Critical Race Theory’—A Dangerous Marxist ‘Solution’ That Will Not Work,” critical race theory is a Marxist-influenced view that will actually accentuate racism rather than help alleviate it.

According to one report, Greear has also exhibited a softening view toward the practice of the homosexual lifestyle. One article, from January 2019, titled “Cultural Seduction and the Demise of the Southern Baptist Convention” states:

Feminism, Marxism, Black Liberation Theology, LGBT rights. Cultural seduction has taken over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), unquestionably–at least by any rationally thinking Bible-believing Christian. The SBC for many years was revered for its conservative stance on both social and theological issues, but those days seem to be over. . . . The push for LGBT inclusiveness began when Russell Moore, JD Greear, and other SBC leaders were noted at NPR for their “softening tone” on homosexuality. . . .

JD Greear . . [is] preaching an LGBT inclusive gospel wanting us to believe that men sodomizing other men is morally equivalent to boasting and calls on Christians to stand up for the rights of LGBT people, because “they are no different than us.” Now he’s joining hands with Black Liberation Theologians . . . to preach to the church about what it means for conservative Christians to be reconciled with people who support the expansion of abortion and promote “white guilt” reparations theology.

Lighthouse Trails posted another example of Greear’s emergent left-leaning actions in a March 2020 post titled, “Concerned About ‘Neighborly Faith’—a ‘Third Way’ to Befriend Muslims,” which stated:

[W]e came across Christian radio host Janet Mefferd’s Twitter comments about Southern Baptist Convention president J.D. Greear’s involvement with a “Neighborly Faith” event on March 5th [2020] titled “Hope in the Current Age: A Conversation on Christianity and Islam.” Mefferd stated, “Before Greear’s interfaith dialogue, 64% of Christian attendees felt “positive” about Islam. After, 76% of Christians “said their attitude toward Islam was more positive than before!” Way to go, SBC. Is this what it means to be “missional?” Mefferd asks the question, “Southern Baptist pastors and laymen: Is it OK w/you that all these SBC leaders are pushing Christian-Muslim interfaith dialogue?”

In an April 2019 Lighthouse Trails letter to the editor, titled, “Southern Baptist Convention Leaders Taking SBC Far From Its Biblical Moorings,” a Lighthouse Trails reader, who is also a Southern Baptist, stated:

I believe most Southern Baptists are oblivious to duplicity in the denomination and in the “Christian” world because pastors are silent. Until pastors begin warning their sheep, I don’t see a resurgence of biblical understanding and action. In the Book of Hosea, priests had led the people away from the knowledge of God. Hosea prophesied that unless the Northern Kingdom repented, God would destroy it and allow the people to be taken into captivity. This was a popular message before the conservative resurgence in the 1980s. We should take heed for the sake of our Christian witness and for our children and grandchildren. Pray God will awaken us and raise up leaders to the message of Hosea.

As for the SBC’s decision to keep J.D. Greear one more year, radio broadcaster Janet Mefferd had a good suggestion:

I get cancelling the meeting [because of coronavirus], but how can the SBC unilaterally broaden this “emergency situation” way out into the future – when no one knows how long this pandemic will last – to extend officer terms in violation of the constitution? Time for some gospel-centered online voting.