Frank Page, a candidate nominated by a group of young SBC fundamentalists, has been elected President of the Southern Baptist Convention. He defeated Ronnie Floyd, a candidate endorsed by Paige Patterson and the old guard fundamentalist leaders of the SBC.
Page's election is a signal of the power of the internet and of bloggers to influence opinion and organize voters. It is also a victory for those who believe that demonstrable sacrificial giving to SBC causes is a necessary quality for leadership in the SBC. Old guard fundamentalists, like Floyd, typically give token support for SBC causes out of their mega-church budgets.
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The Assassination Bureau
50 minutes ago
3 comments:
The old guard is politically astute and knows the only means to political control of the SBC is the appointive powers of the presidency. They will always do everything they can to control it. They were simply caught off guard this time. Their first candidate bowed out and selected his own replacement. When Frank Page entered the race they got scared and decided they needed a stronger candidate. You don't think a well connected man like Jerry Sutton jumped in without counsel from the top. Impossible. Even though Sutton would split the old guard vote, they figured he would win on the second ballot. The surprise is that Page won on the first. The only reason he did is that the old guard didn't have enough time to paint him as a liberal, although a few of them tried. They'll do a better job next time. Believe me, Frank Page needs a lot of pray right now. He doesn't know what he got himself into.
If you will check your history, back in 1994 we elected Jim Henry from Orlando as president. The former presidents were supporting Fred Wolfe as the next president. We didn't listen and elected Henry who served honorably for two years. It did not signal any kind of change. Southern Baptists do have a mind of their own and they will not be told what to do. You moderates are making a mountain out of a molehill.
Jim,
I?ll grant you the average Southern Baptist has a mind of his or her own. Look how they responded to the almost unanimous request of the Executive Committee to ask the WMU to give up their independence. But there has been a political vacuum in the SBC which has allowed a very small number of backroom activists to control appointments to boards and for trustees for years. Other than for Jim Henry and now Frank Page, the SBC president has been selected basically by Pressler and Patterson. The SBC messengers can?t exercise a ?mind of their own? if only one person runs for president.
Frank Page does represent a change. If people like him are elected president for another 10 years, the SBC can began again to be a religious witness scientifically and culturally, instead of supporting a war in Iraq, Disney boycotts, anti-environmentalism, unscientific textbooks and a disregard for the Baptist world community. If we kick the Patterson/Pressler people off as seminary trustees who believe the David Barton version of American history, maybe we can rebuild credible academic institutions. Our numbers are declining because Americans don?t want to identify we people as stupid as we are, not because Jesus isn?t relevant to a 21st century world.
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