"Alternate Candidate" Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church, Taylors, SC, was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention yesterday. He defeated Arkansas pastor Ronnie Floyd (the preliminarily expected appointee/winner) and Tennessee pastor Jerry Sutton.
Dr. Page believes in the inerrant word of God...this is good. He's a strong supporter of the SBC Cooperative Program...this is very good. He's a little less calvinistically inclined than I am, but I recognize the disparity of opinion on that issue and amn't going to fuss over that. Case in point, seminary brainiacs Mohler and Patterson gently sparred over the issue, to a SRO crowd.
So what's the big deal about this president-elect? My hunch is that it signals a sense of victory by emerging voices within the denomination who had felt like their ticket to the party wouldn't be honored by the bouncer/gatekeepers who have been controlling the direction for the past nearly-three decades.
Here's a pretty even-handed article in the Dallas Morning News about blogging & bloggers' influence upon the denomination. Marty Duren is quoted extensively. I met Marty during my time in Georgia, and I very much enjoyed his company. This is as close to name-dropping as I can get, and no offense to Marty, but it's just not that impressive in a town that is currently more interested in Mavericks basketball than in maverick pastors.
Here's my thing...as a blogger, as a denominationally loyal SBC dude, and as a biblically conservative minister. I'm as willing as anyone to submit that something significant may be taking place there. I suppose history will reveal whether or not that's the case. Regardless of whether or not a leadership pendulum is in full swing or just momentarily aflutter in the political breeze, a little perspective is helpful:
A "busy" SBC blog gets c. 1500 hits in a day, reporting on the approximately 12,000 messengers meeting in Greensboro. Fewer than 9,000 voted in the election. The 43,000ish churches of the SBC account 16.3 meeellion members. That means .05625% of the consituency (yes, that is five-and-a-little-more-than-one-half hundredths of one percent) voted for Dr. Page, carrying him to victory.
That's no indictment, just an observation. In the biggest attendance back in the 80s, convention attendance was four times as large, pushing the voting toward a quarter-of-one-percent (which, history has shown to have actually been significant as a marker of the battle for control). In two years, we'll see if this the beginning of a movement, or just a blip on the radar.
And while this interesting discussion goes on regarding the helming of SBC leadership, and while diligent stewards both relay and influence the conversation and the outcome, the rest of the vast majority of the other 99.94375% of the denomination's constituency will continue worshipping, serving, giving, and going. My prayer is that God will bless those efforts, regardless of what is stirred or settled at the annual gatherings. And may my place be by the sides of those on the front line of the spiritual warfare, and not in the cloistered halls of denominational politics.
June 14, 2006 3:13 AMI watched most of the convention via the streaming internet connection and wished they would allow messengers to vote via the internet. (Maybe next year I should make a motion to have that explored.)
I ordered the recording of the discussion between Patterson and Mohler. Looking forward to listening to that.
Posted by: Christopher at June 16, 2006 12:47 AM