Surely the SBC should in some way declare the church to no longer be a Southern Baptist church. What if they endorsed abortion?
re: “Surely the SBC should in some way declare the church to no longer be a Southern Baptist church. What if they endorsed abortion?”
There is no ministerial hierarchy in the SBC in the same sense as in more liturgical denominations. Individual Baptist churches cooperate voluntarily with the SBC. Therefore, the SBC cannot tell individual churches what they can or cannot do. Each individual SBC church finds/hires its own pastor and staff. Each SBC church determines its own budget, its own ministry goals and plans, its own calendar of events, etc.
The purpose of the national Southern Baptist Convention is to pool manpower and resources for national and world-wide evangelical efforts, for setting ministry emphasis, long range plans to meet the goals, the budget for seminary support, home and foreign mission work, etc.
The annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting is a big business meeting where cooperating churches hear reports on ministry goals and actions (as voted on by past conventions), and vote on future plans, budget, and goals, etc.
The annual conventions are attended by “messengers” from each individual Southern Baptist church. A duly elected “messenger” (voted on and selected by each individual church to represent that church at the national convention), may make a motion that the SBC not “seat” the messengers from a particular church and/or withdraw recognition and fellowship of a particular SB church because of perceived moral/theological infractions.
My understanding of what happens at that point is a bit fuzzy. I think that if the motion is seconded, there is discussion where evidence is given to justify such a motion. I think that sometimes there is an investigatory committee selected that will look into the matter to determine whether or not there is merit to the charges, give that church an opportunity to respond to the charges, then ultimately a report is made to the convention at the next annual meeting.
At that point, after the report is made at the next convention meeting, then it is possible that the committee will recommend either to go forward with withdrawing fellowship from that church, or, that the charges were false and to end the matter at that point.
It is rare that such a thing occurs, but it does happen from time to time. Even so, if the SBC withdraws fellowship with that church, it has no authority to remove pastors or personnel - only that that church may not attend SBC meetings at the local, state, or national level, and, that that church may not participate in any sponsored SBC efforts or events, until that church makes the appropriate changes to bring them into conformity with SBC theological and moral requirements. At least that’s my understanding of the process.