Flick on Oklahoma Baptists

This is Oklahoma's Centennial year. The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma celebrated it at their annual meeting. David Flick, former Director of Missions in Grady Association, wrote a series of three blogs documenting BGCO's Fundamentalist turn. Here are links to the first, second, and third blogs.

The third blog gives and extensive account of the way Oklahoma Baptists have ostracized moderate Baptists throughout the state. Here's an excerpt in which Flick talks about their treatment of Ann Graham Lotz, the daughter of evangelist Billy Graham:

Anne Graham Lotz Banned from at the Oklahoma State Evangelism Conference:

In 1993, Jerry Don Abernathy was the state evangelism director for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. As the director of evangelism in Oklahoma, he was the person who planned the program for the annual evangelism conference, held in January. Abernathy planned a program that included Ann Graham Lotz as one of the speakers. The program for the January evangelism conference began to be published in the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger in September.

Shortly after the conference program appeared in the Messenger, Wayne Keeley, pastor of a church in Claremore, began a crusade to have her removed from the program. He wrote numerous letters to the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger and gathered a number of vocal supporters. At the '93 annual BGCO convention in November, Keeley stood on the floor and made the motion to have Mrs. Lotz struck from the conference program. The motion passed and Mrs. Lotz was disinvited because she was a "woman preacher." Keeley let it be known that "Oklahoma Baptists do not approve of women preachers." Not a single voice spoke against his motion. Not one Oklahoma Baptist stood to speak on her behalf.

Keeley attempted to get Abernathy fired because he had invited a "woman preacher" to speak at the 1994 Oklahoma State Evangelism Conference. He was not fired. I don't know what happened, but he was gone from Oklahoma less than a year. Almighty God had nothing to do with banning Mrs. Lotz from preaching at the Oklahomna Evangelism Conference. Almighty God had nothing to do with the terrible treatment that Jerry Don Abernathy received for inviting her to Oklahoma. The controversy was a low point in Oklahoma Baptist history.

It should be noted that the Mainstream Baptist organization was not formed in Oklahoma until 1997. Moderate Baptists were boycotting the convention that year to protest the heavy-handed treatment they had been receiving and they were organizing the Cooperating Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma. Flick ably recounts that in the text that precedes this excerpt.