NAMB is so corrupt it should be broken up by the RICO statute…JD Hall, 2013
A District Judge is allowing a lawsuit to proceed from a former North American Mission Board (NAMB) regional president against NAMB by essentially blackmailing state officials (which are supposed to be an autonomous entity from NAMB) by withholding funds, by covering that blackmail up, and then acting vindictively and punitively against him afterward.
NAMB is an entity that – in theory – works for local churches. In reality, NAMB exercises micro-managing control over much of the Southern Baptist Convention (particularly over those states or regions outside of the Bible Belt) and controls churches top-down instead of churches controlling the denomination. NAMB, like Lifeway and the ERLC, are “runaway entities” that receive money from local SBC churches, but other than hand-selected trustees, have very little oversight or accountability.
Baptist News Global writes…
A federal judge in Mississippi has turned down a request to dismiss a lawsuit against the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention on religious liberty grounds.
Senior U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson ruled Jan. 18 that claims by a former Baptist state convention executive that leaders of the mission agency orchestrated his firing and tried to interfere with other business arrangements can move forward.
Will McRaney
NAMB lawyers had argued the dispute with former Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware Executive Director Will McRaney was over internal workings of a religious organization and not subject to judgment by a secular court.
The judge disagreed, however, finding that a First Amendment doctrine that limits civil courts from resolving disputes about ecclesiastical polity applies only to employer/employee relationships.
Because the 560-church two-state convention is a separate organization from NAMB, the judge said the “ministerial exception” does not come into play.
It’s worth noting that NAMB’s argument is that McRaney can’t sue them because it’s an ecclesiastical (that which belongs to a church) matter. However, NAMB is not a church. NAMB repeatedly says it’s not a church and does not replace the church and to say that NAMB is a church to the court is to say the opposite of that which NAMB says to Southern Baptists.
[Editor’s Note: You can read more at Baptist News Global]
