He backed the idea of a priority allocation to fund legal bills.
“They have to pay these expenses,” said Blalock, who served on the committee that oversaw the Guidepost investigation. “When the money runs out, it has to come from somewhere.”
Blalock said he’s heard critics blame the task force or past Executive Committees for the current budget shortfall. That’s misguided, he said.
“They are blaming the wrong people,” he said.
The budget shortfall, he said, was caused mainly by lawsuits from those named in the Guidepost report, and that’s where the blame should lie.
“The ideal solution would be for people to stop suing us,” he said, while not naming specific names.
Blalock also said he worries the lawsuits have slowed abuse reforms in the SBC, such as a proposed database that would name abusive pastors. Defending against lawsuits has dried up funds that could have been used for reforms — and made Baptist leaders wary of reforms, such as a database.
The Guidepost investigation was delayed in 2021 for weeks due to a heated debate over waiving attorney-client privilege — essentially giving investigators access to correspondence between SBC leaders and their lawyers. After a number of resignations, the committee waived privilege.
Some critics of waiving privilege claimed at the time that waiving privilege would lead to financial ruin for the SBC. Supporters of those critics now claim they were right. A spokesman for the Executive Committee said it was difficult to determine what one factor caused the rise in legal fees.
“The waiving of privilege was one of many critical decisions that have impacted the finances of the SBC Executive Committee,” Brandon Porter, the Executive Committee’s vice president for communications, said in an email. “While not individually quantifiable, those combined decisions have led to substantial and continued costs.”
Tapping Cooperative Program funds could come with some unintended consequences. During the Executive Committee’s meeting in February, Dani Bryson, a committee member from Tennessee, said doing so could jeopardize funds the SBC has long sought to protect in the event it ever loses a lawsuit.
