At their annual denomination meeting this week the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. elected the Reverend Julius R. Scruggs to be the next president of the largest religious body of African Americans in the nation. Rev. Scruggs’s victory came as little surprise to those who have been following this year’s presidential race. The Alabama pastor and former convention vice president soundly defeated his opponent 4,076 votes to 924 as expected. Yet persons unfamiliar with this particular body of Baptists may just be amazed to discover that Rev. Scruggs’ defeated opponent was Rev. Henry J. Lyons, past president of the NBC who was imprisoned earlier this decade for stealing millions from the denomination.
Some may recall that Lyons’s corrupt dealing as convention president were exposed in 1997 after his then wife discovered and set ablaze a $700,000 Florida home that he owned with his mistress. The arson set off a full-scale financial investigation revealing that Lyons had used his position to bilk major corporations and charities out of over $5 million. Lyons subsequently pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft and tax evasion.
It seems to me, then, that the major story out of Memphis this week is not that Rev. Scruggs secured the presidency. How was Rev. Lyons even eligible to have his name on the ballot? I understand that the loosely organized and non-hierarchical denominational networks of the Baptist faith have always afforded male members the opportunity to cast themselves out upon the sea of leadership with little more than the sails of their own charisma and rudders of local support. And Afro-Protestantism has a long history of, and deep commitment to, radical forgiveness and compassionate inclusion where black heterosexual men are concerned. But one would think that this particular case exceeds the boundaries of love and reconciliation into the treacherous waters of impetuous pursuits of power and unprincipled politics.
First, the imprints of Lyons’s handcuffs had hardly receded before he tried to reassume denominational control. In 2007, he sought the presidency of the Florida General Baptist Convention while still on probation. When defeated he and his supporters organized their own convention. Second, he brokered a deal with another viable candidate this year to replace the latter’s name on the ballot and garner support. And once he saw this political ploy as less than viable in terms of securing the required votes, he filed suit in federal court this week to delay the election on the grounds that new convention by-laws violate the NBC’s constitution. Fortunately, the judge tossed the frivolous lawsuit aside.
Of course there are those who argue that Rev. Lyons paid his debt to society and as Christians members are required to forgive. Let’s be real. The man still owes almost $4 million in restitution that the court ordered he personally pay back as part of his sentencing. What’s more, trust and leadership go together like a hand and glove. When the former is absent, the latter is irrelevant. No matter how much one’s faith may lead NBC members to forgive Rev. Lyons, common sense cannot allow persons to forget or turn a blind eye to his unethical behavior in the past or his outstanding financial obligations in the present.
In some ways it is tragically poetic that this year’s annual meeting was held in the very city former NBC dissenter Martin Luther King, Jr. was violently gunned down. Because this week the NBC was struck by a bullet shot from the weapon of their own organizational failure and gender biases. Despite the outcome of the election, Rev. Lyons’s very candidacy shows that the denomination is still dominated by the same sorts of unbridled pursuits of power and unethical behavior that drove King and others away in 1961. Not to mention that it’s a sin before God that a convicted male felon has a better chance of leading this denomination than any one of the thousands of faithful, educated and upstanding women who represent the majority of the denomination. Let’s pray Rev. Scruggs will have the vision and foresight to displace NBC’s love affair with charismatic personalities, denominational politics and penises. The life of the denomination depends on it.
