I rarely write about Southern Baptist affairs unless one of their annual conventions is at hand, but I can’t resist commenting on a fascinating sideshow happening between the highly symbolic Merritt family and their fellow conservatives.
Jonathan Merritt is the openly gay (and I assume celibate, based on previous comments) son of the Rev. James Merritt, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s been a tough ride for the past 10 years as the younger Merritt has tried to reconcile his sexuality with his faith, while working as a news- columnist. His father has been under immense pressure as well.
The latest fracas, with a hat tip to JulieRoys.com, has to do with the elder Merritt walking away from his position as a visiting professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. The whole affair has gone unnoticed by many newsrooms, even though this is a topic that is newsworthy for a variety of reasons. Here is what Roys wrote:
Former Southern Baptist Convention President James Merritt resigned last week as a visiting professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary over controversy sparked by Merritt’s decision to share a sermon online by his son who’s gay. …
The decision came after Merritt, who’s also pastor of Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Georgia, tweeted a link to a sermon by his son, Jonathan Merritt. The younger Merritt is a graduate of Southeastern Baptist and an author, journalist, and popular speaker. In August, Jonathan Merritt announced on Instagram that he’s gay.
“I don’t agree with my loved son @JonathanMerritt on everything to be sure,” James Merritt tweeted November 22. “But I encourage you to listen to his message on Mark 13. It is both brilliant and faithful to the gospel and the coming of Jesus!”
After that, things got really interesting. Here is the chronology:
Nov. 22 — James Merritt publishes his tweet.
Nov. 23 — The Conservative Baptist Network, a group of some 6,000 members based in Memphis, issues a statement with the headline: “Promoting homosexual preachers is not loving, biblical or Baptist.” The elder Merritt responds that same day.
Nov. 24 — James Merritt sarcastically tweets that while no one endorses sexual sin, it’s curious how some people trash homosexuality while looking the other way at former President Donald Trump’s adulteries. The Capstone Report (a former Alabama college football blog that took on a life of its own as an acerbic commentary on Baptist life; it, along with Reformation Charlotte and Pulpit & Pen blogs, lob criticism at liberal influences) didn’t think much of this response.
That same day, Jonathan Merritt tweeted:
This provocative statement was, eventually, followed by this tweet from his father:
At that point, the SBC mud started to fly.
Why is this important? It isn’t news when the parent of a gay child steps in to defend his or her offspring. But when the parent is an important leader within the SBC and the pastor of an influential church in the Bible Belt, it’s important we know who’s conspiring to take this man down. It’s also crucial that a seminary is involved in the story.
Merritt’s Achilles heel is Jonathan, the middle of his three sons. I’ve only interviewed James Merritt once and I don’t believe I’ve ever met Jonathan Merritt. If you wish to know more, read this summation by Jonathan Poletti on Medium.com: “Are Evangelicals ready for a gay celebrity? The outing of Jonathan Merritt.” Poletti wrote:
On August 4th, evangelical star Jonathan Merritt came out of the closet. Was there a bit of déjà vu? He was outed back in 2012.
Back then, he explained that he’d been molested as a boy, and held himself out as ‘broken’. Now he’s saying he’s just gay — positioning him as the first openly gay Evangelical to be widely seen as religiously acceptable. This would be a historic status.
Yes, it would, although Jonathan Merritt has been working up to this point for years. As a hip spokesman for millennials (and –- at one time -- a national spokesman for the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative), he was writing guest editorials for USA Today at the age of 26. (When I was 26, I was writing for a smallish Scripps Howard daily in Florida, back in an era when no one cared what 20-somethings thought. Much has changed.)
After the “outing” in 2012, Poletti writes,
He became more politically progressive, more interesting to mainstream media, all while remaining minimally acceptable to Evangelicals. As I read the religion, this owed largely to his father continuing to support him.
Merritt became a contributing writer for The Atlantic at the age of 33, after joining Religion News Service as a columnist at the age of 30 (I am estimating at his ages via his Linked-In bio) This happened at a time when the evangelical left began to be more fashionable and Merritt was a perfect fit for both outlets. A quick glance at his Atlantic bylines shows a mix of Southern Baptist critiques, news about gay religious personalities, anti-Trump material, skeptical takes on conservative theology and a lot of calling out of evangelicals for their alleged hypocrisy on just about everything.
As Trump came into power, Merritt’s insider knowledge of evangelicalism and its secrets concerning gays. won him a hearing on major opinion pages as well, as in this Washington Post essay: “The ex-gay Christianity movement is making a quiet comeback. The effects on LGBTQ youth could be devastating.”
I can kind of understand how the elder Merritt’s defense of his son sticks in the craw of some folks who note that the younger Merritt undermines mainstream evangelicalism every chance he gets.
The whole thing is like a family quarrel, or maybe an attempt to overthrow one of the dynasties of Southern Baptist life.
For journalists, it’s crucial that this nasty fight is an example of online SBC warfare that is becoming more and more common and this trend is affecting major institutions and their leaders. Thus, if you wish to understand where the SBC is headed, you need to follow both sides of this argument.
The big question: Is Jonathan Merritt typical of the progressive side of evangelism or has he sold out to the spirit of the age? Journalists — even those who are BFFs of the well-connected Jonathan — will need to cover this story.
Either way, it’s an online sword fight over what constitutes “Baptist,” “evangelical” and “Christian” and believe me, that debate has only just begun. This is news.
FIRST IMAGE: Screenshot of Jonathan Merritt taken from the YouTube post of the Good Shepherd Church service — circulated by Justin Peters Ministries — containing the Merritt sermon at the heart of the current controversy.