Twitter and the Southern Baptist Convention

The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention is wrapping up today. I was not able to attend, but thanks to the internet I hardly feel like I've missed it. This year's meeting will probably be remembered most for Tuesday night's landslide victory in favor of appointing a "Great Commission Resurgence Task Force", which was essentially a vote to implement the GCR Statement. But the second most significant aspect of the convention seems to have been the rise of Twitter in alerting the world to every ugly detail of the proceedings.

This year everyone and their mother brought their Twitter-activated cell phones into the convention hall, and people watching the live internet feed signed up for Twitter accounts as well. As thousands of "tweets" (I hate that word) went out yesterday with the hash tag #SBC2009, the whole world was watching. Unfortunately, the founders of the SBC did not have Twitter in mind in 1845, and the meeting is no more twit-friendly today than it was then.

I should explain something about the Southern Baptist Convention to those of you who are unfamiliar. Unlike many denominations who are ruled from the top down by appointed priests or elders, the SBC is ruled from the bottom up by its churches. Each church in the denomination can send a maximum of ten messengers (essentially delegates) to the annual meeting, and these messengers are the ones who have the power to vote, introduce motions, etc. This year there were nearly 9,000 registered messengers. Because the power is in the hands of the messengers, the churches are in charge of the bureaucracy and not the other way around. This democratic structure is what allowed the SBC to reverse its drift toward liberalism 30 years ago while many other denominations could not be rescued. It is a beautiful thing in my opinion.

Part of the beauty of our Baptist democracy is freedom of speech, in that any messenger can introduce any motion that they wish. When you put out open mics for a group of 9,000 people, it's impossible to avoid hearing some very strange and embarrassing statements coming through the loud speakers. As far as I know, someone has said something crazy every year since 1845. Usually the crazy motions contain a technical flaw related to the rules of order and are thrown out, and even if they manage to go to a vote they get dismissed by the other messengers.

But when the democratic proceedings of the SBC hit Twitter yesterday, the world did not understand. The vast majority of the tweets had to do with the off-the-wall motions that were brought up during the open mic time. Many of those watching from outside got the impression that if something was said at a microphone, then surely it must be the voice of the denomination. In addition to Twitter, videos of the open mic times have been posted to YouTube and promoted on a number of blogs. Thanks to these user generated media, rumors are spreading all over the internet that the Southern Baptist Convention is going to boycott Pepsi, ban Mark Driscoll's books from Lifeway stores, do other terrible things to Mark Driscoll, ban all secular music, and start using only the King James Version of the Bible. All of these were made as motions by who-knows-who, but none will happen.

As the tweets went out from the convention, outsiders' responses ranged from cries of sadness by members of other denominations to cries of "I told you so" by liberal critics. What none of them understood was that everything was proceeding as usual, that the strange motions are individual opinions, and that the denomination as a whole is as strong as ever. The truth finally came to light Tuesday night when the very forward-looking GCR Task Force (see first paragraph) was approved by a vote of 95% to 5%. Once that motion was approved the Twitterverse got quiet very quickly, as it tends to do when there is a lack of things to criticize.

This year's convention will bring changes to the denomination. The GCR Task Force will likely recommend some significant changes, some fresh new leaders will start taking the reigns (David Platt is the most obvious), and some of the old leaders may even step down as a result of their opposition to the will of the messengers. But one needed change that I doubt anyone foresaw is a shift toward a style of meeting that does not lend itself to the huge misperceptions that were broadcast this year on Twitter. I do not have any ideas of how to accomplish this, and it might not be possible at all if we're to preserve our democratic structure. Either way, next year the SBC will have no choice but to acknowledge that Twitter has power to change the world's perceptions about issues much bigger than what a celebrity had for breakfast.