In May 2024, Pastor H. Edwin “Ed” Young told his congregation that he was resigning from his leadership post at Second Baptist in Houston, ending his 46-year tenure as one of America’s most influential and charismatic pastors.
The pastor, then 87 years old, named his son Ben Young as his successor.
Nearly a year later, a group of current and former Second Baptist members say the father and son, associate pastor Lee H. Maxcy and attorney Dennis Brewer (together dubbed “the Young Group”), abolished the right of church members to vote for their next pastor and installed Ben Young as an act of self-interest to “takeover” the church. Earlier this month, members of the congregation filed a suit in Harris County District Court.
The case against Second Baptist is led by a newly formed, Houston-based nonprofit called the Jeremiah Counsel Corporation that says its purpose is to “promote, protect and restore integrity, accountable governance and donor protection for churches” in Texas.
In a statement Friday, the Jeremiah Counsel alleged that the Young Group “deceived and manipulated” the Second Baptist’s 90,000 members by amending the church bylaws to deny them their right to vote for a new pastor. It claimed church members never received copies of the proposed bylaws, and the Young Group now controls over $1 billion in assets.
“The church membership and the assets have been put at great risk because of the deceitful and deceptive practices of the church leadership, including the Senior Pastor, collectively ‘the Young Group,’ which has stripped all church members of the voting rights they have had since the church was founded nearly 100 years ago,” the Jeremiah Counsel said.
In recent years, church members and former deacon officers have tried to share their concerns with Ben Young and the church, but he allegedly told them he has no interest in changing the governance model, the statement reads. Church members now warn that without a vote or an elected board of trustees, Ben Young now has the ability to sell or merge Second Baptist; close, sell or increase tuition at the church’s school; raise salaries for himself and other leadership; and appoint the next senior pastor without a search process or approval by an independent board.
“The choice became to walk away, and hand everything over to one person, or take action to project this incredible church for generations to come,” the statement reads.
The plaintiffs are seeking a declaratory relief from the court to restore the rights of members in Second Baptist’s governance process and its management. They also want an injunction against the church’s financial management and reimbursement of legal fees, per initial reporting from Baptist News Global. They filed the suit just weeks before the two-year statute of limitations window for such legal claims closes at the end of May.
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The suit has the potential to put another dent in Ed Young’s already controversial career as a Southern Baptist pastor.
While he’s certainly expanded his congregation and, to many, served Houston well during Hurricane Harvey and other disasters, he’s also become more polarizing in his older years because of his anti-immigration, anti-transgender, anti-Democrat rhetoric.
Over the years, Ed Young has been criticized for his leadership amid alleged widespread sexual abuse throughout the SBC ranks, and for Second Baptist’s handling of sex abuse crimes. The church settled multiple lawsuits in the mid-2010s filed against a former youth pastor.
Months before his resignation, Ed Young made Chron headlines in February 2024 for demonizing migrants as “undesirables” and “garbage” and for referring to President Biden as “godless” in several politicized sermons. Houston advocacy groups and area politicians called for Young’s resignation due to his “misuse of influence and power.”
There’s plenty more about the suit and the state of Second Baptist in the intervening paragraphs, so click over and read more if you’re interested. There’s some Succession crossed with The Righteous Gemstones and a bit of Billions, except without any of the sympathetic characters or snappy dialog. But the potential is there to provide some lowbrow entertainment, and that’s what I’m rooting for.