Elder to Retire
by T. C. Pinckney Vol. IV, No. 2, March 1991
Lloyd Elder, president of the Baptist Sunday School Board, has agreed to retire amid accusations of financial mismanagement, editorial bias, and unethical taping of phone conversations. Dr. Elder's proposal to retire and the Sunday School Board's acceptance came during a special SSB meeting 17 January in Nashville.
Dr. Elder was elected SSB president in 1983. His sympathies during the denominational controversy have clearly been with moderates, but denominational politics do not appear to have been a major issue in his retirement decision.
The immediate chain of events seems to have begun at the 13 December meeting of the SSB evaluation workgroup. At that meeting there was extensive discussion of Elder's performance with particular focus on events surrounding withdrawal of the McBeth centennial history of the SSB. It was charged that the president had exceeded his authority in making available to McBeth files of sensitive and confidential personnel litigation that could expose the Board to possible legal liability. Also, internal memoranda which Elder released in December at the insistence of the trustees revealed that during the editing process a number of SSB editors shared such concerns as early as September 1989. However, during deliberations on the manuscript the president failed to disclose to the Board the internal memoranda conveying those concerns. For example, one editor, Vicki Crumpton, advised Elder, "It is our general opinion that Dr. McBeth has not provided us with a publishable manuscript."
An October 13, 1989 memo by Elder to General Publishing Vice President Johnnie Godwin noted that questions had been raised about author Leon McBeth's "freedom to interpret events in the Southern Baptist Convention." Robert Thomas, the SSB's outside (he is not a Southern Baptist) legal counsel for 16 years, is quoted as having written Elder, "I have grave concerns not only about the 14 pages referred to me for legal opinion, but about the general anti-conservative bias of this book."
The workgroup also charged that Elder had (1) "knowingly and willfully" withheld information from trustees and (2) had made irreconcilable statements such as telling the trustee publishing committee that the book was at the printer's and telling press that the book was "not yet ready for publication" when it was stopped by the trustees.
An entirely separate area of concern was managerial. Dan Collins cited three SSB business ventures which have recorded net losses totalling between $20 and $25 million. Internal memoranda demonstrate that the president was warned repeatedly about declining trends in the business of the Board. Taking six representative years, real sales (growth adjusted for price changes) declined 11.4% in bookstore operations, 6.7% in church literature, 8.3% at Broadman Press, and 25.5% at Convention Press.
The third concern pertains to taping telephone conversations. Elder denied any taping took place except during conference calls with the knowledge of all participants. However, the SSB had received sworn affidavits "that the president was involved in taping conversations with the chairman of the Board and SSB outside counsel without their knowledge."
The second major organizational step leading to the retirement was a 4 January meeting of the SSB general administration committee which continued from 8:30 am until 1:00 A.M. the next morning. That meeting included a comprehensive review of the McBeth manuscript events, an examination of the president's entire seven year tenure, and consideration of numerous options for solving the impasse of SSB leadership. At this time Dr. Elder was opposed to leaving quietly. As late as 10 January Elder wrote members of the general administration committee saying, "After earnest prayer and searching for the will of the Lord to be found and done, I cannot accept the option of committing my intention to resign quietly within the next 12 to 18 months."
On the morning of 11 January Elder met with SSB chairman, William E. Anderson, a Florida pastor; Dan A. Collins, South Carolina layman and chairman of the general administration committee; and Don R. Mathis, pastor and trustee from Kentucky. These three apparently apprised Elder of the general administration committee's suggestion that he retire quietly, which Elder rejected.
On 17 January Elder's attorneys presented the general administration committee with his retirement proposal. It provides an effective date of 31 January 1992 or 30 days after his successor is appointed, whichever is earlier; states that the retirement results from "honest differences" of "management style, philosophy, and performance" and is not based on political or theological differences; allows Elder to serve as a consultant at full salary of $135,800 with no requirement to report to office except at reasonable times until he reaches retirement age of 60 in April 1993; upon retirement his salary will be reduced to $67,900; his other activities are not restricted; he will not engage in business competitive to the SSB; a breech of the agreement forfeits all payments to Elder; during the period he is receiving compensation he will not make any statement or take any action not in the best interest of the Board; he will be reimbursed up to $10,000 for lawyer fees; he will receive the automobile and office furniture he has been using. The GAC unanimously recommended approval of this package to the SSB.
The full Board met beginning at 7:00 pm 17 January and after lengthy discussion of an amendment proposing to place Elder in consultant status immediately, voted 41-31 against the amendment. The original proposal was then approved with only two dissenting votes.
Surely efforts are underway to identify possible replacements, but The Banner has not heard of any names yet.
[The above is based upon accounts in the 18 January Nashville-Tennessean, the Religious Herald, the Indiana Baptist, the Missouri Word and Way, the Florida Baptist Witness, Baptist Press releases and personal contacts with SSB members.]