Report From Greensboro

What a day for the Southern Baptist Convention!

The big news, of course, is that the non-establishment candidate, Frank Page (50.4%), also described as the "outsider", soundly defeated Ronnie Floyd (24.95%) and Jerry Sutton (24.05%) for the Presidency.

Page joins Orlando's Jim Henry as the only men to win the office over the favored candidate of the "establishment." I consider the establishment as the major figures of the conservative resurgence, including men like Paige Patterson, Jerry Vines, etc. In this case, 3 seminary presidents (Patterson, Mohler, and Akin) publicly supported Floyd, as well as Johnny Hunt (who nominated Floyd) and Jerry Vines. Interestingly, Page would not even be considered the 2nd choice of the establishment in this 3 man race. Jerry Sutton had the support of Judge Pressler, was sitting First Vice President, and was considered by many to be a more palatable choice (than Floyd) because of a more respectable CP record.

I can think of five factors that contributed to votes for Frank Page...
...1 - $CP Giving$ - the grassroots churches that make up the heart of the SBC are generally very generous to undesignated CP giving, and the messengers from these churches are increasingly dissatisfied with megachurches giving so little proportionally. Case in point: our church plant (www.pogc.net) has grown to 150 but still gave only $12,000 less to the CP than Ronnie Floyd's megachurch.
...2 - Broad Tent - Page promised to involve more people in SBC leadership; he also described a willingness to cooperate with those he theologically or methodologically disagrees with (e.g. Calvinists). Many SBC pastors feel like their views are being marginalized. Page represents those who want to continue to have a seat at the table but feel increasingly ostracized or isolated from SBC influence/participation.
Jerry Sutton did himself no favors by suggesting that the BF&M should perhaps address the glossolia issue. I know very few Southern Baptists who are ready to start getting that narrow with our confession. It also makes people wonder, who is next? Calvinists? Postmillienialists? Contemporaries?
...3 - Outsider - Playing a card that has helped thrust many Governors ("Washington Outsiders") into the White House, Page's supporters described him as outside the "good old boy" network. The word "Kingmakers" has bounced around the blogosphere to describe the tight group of successful megachurch pastors who supposedly meet together at airports to determine the policy and officers of the SBC. Being for and identifying with the underdog is almost as American as baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie.
...4 - IMB controversy/Wade Burleson - A trustee thinks that Southern Baptists need to be aware that the parameters are narrowing for SBC candidates for missionaries and soon finds himself very unwelcome at the trustee meetings. A whole lot of Southern Baptists got very ticked about this, secured their reservations for Greensboro and asked Wade for guidance. Wade responded: "Vote for Page." They did.
...5 - BLOGs - It was hard to find support on the internet for Floyd. Sutton came in too late. Frank Page won the Presidency on the blogosphere. The question was whether that would be an accurate reflection of the Convention as a whole. I had my doubts when I saw the less than impressive turnout for the Young Leaders summit and identified five prominent bloggers in attendance. Turns out they may have had more influence than anyone expected.

The other surprise development of the day was the overwhelming rejection of the WMU becoming an agency of the SBC instead of an auxilary. Here appears to be an example of the establishment saying, "Do this..." and the people saying..."We don't think so..."

There is much more to write about, but for this post, let me say I was both pleased with and frustrated with Bobby Welch's presiding over the business. He had a good stage presence and handled many incidents very well, but he is clearly a passionate man who had a hard time remaining neutral.

Hopefully, I'll post more within a couple of days...