Southern Baptists hit the highways — again

June 14, 2006 By

dbc buses lineThe year was 1979, the place was the Astrodome in Houston and, for legions of Southern Baptists on the left side of the nation’s largest non-Catholic flock, what took place there forever changed how they looked at church buses.

Church buses? You know, those slow-moving vans and school buses that you pass on highways during the summer-choir-tour and youth-camp season that have church names hand-painted on their sides.

The old ruling elite of the Southern Baptist Convention was in firm control until church buses started rolling into the Astrodome parking lots packed with “messengers” — the convention does not have “delegates” — from churches that wanted to see their national boards and seminaries take a strong turn to the right. It was a landmark event in the history of American evangelicalism and the rise of what would soon be called the Religious Right. The buses were crucial, because they allowed thousands of Southern Baptists who had never played a role in convention politics to roll into the city on the day of the vote and swing the election. How many Baptists live within a six-hour drive of Houston? You don’t want to know.

I bring this up for a simple reasons. It appears that waves of church buses played a major role in the surprise election of the Rev. Frank S. Page of Taylors, S.C., as the new leader of the nation’s 16 million or so Southern Baptists during the current meetings in Greensboro, N.C. How many Southern Baptists are there in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia? You don’t want to know. It also pays to know that these states contain a high percentage of Southern Baptists who are conservative, but not as wedded to the new ruling elite that traces its reign to the events of 1979.

The New York Times sent reporter John DeSantis to cover the convention and, in a short report, he captured some of what went down. He also did a good job of avoiding the usual labels used in this kind of coverage — “moderate” and “fundamentalist.” Truth is, it appears that this election turned on factors other than the usual wars over the Bible and social issues. Here is the key section of that story:

… Page and his supporters said his election, on the first ballot on the first full day of the annual meeting of convention, did not mean that the nation’s largest Protestant denomination would change its views on social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion that the three candidates generally opposed. “I do not want anyone to think I am out to undo a conservative movement,” Dr. Page told reporters after his election. …

Page said although his election did not mean that the church was moderating, it certainly meant that change was in the wind. “I believe in the Word of God,” he said. “I am just not mad about it. Too long Baptists have been known for what we are against. Please let us tell you what we are for.”

The Times report also noted that Page drew stronger than suspected support — think church buses again — from people who have previously been on the fringes of the convention’s life.

bus mirrorThis is one of those cases where the nation’s newspaper of record simply could not offer the kind of nuanced reporting that readers would find in niche media. This is especially true for Southern Baptists, since this giant body is actually served by two wire services — Baptist Press (click here for a Page Q&A), representing the establishment, and Associated Baptist Press, which is operated by the progressives, “moderates” or, in some cases, true liberals who have been pushed to the margins since 1979.

The ABP report by veteran Greg Warner includes some fascinating details. The losing candidates, for example, had strong endorsements from the aging leaders of the 1979 movement. Is there division there now?

It is also crucial that only 11,346 messengers were registered at the time of the vote to elect the new president. This meant that voters in the region — driving in from nearby churches to vote for a South Carolinian — were in a position to swing the election.

And Warner also caught this crucial detail about the role of cyberspace:

Page agreed the bloggers, a new phenomenon in SBC politics, made a difference. While the bloggers are few in number, he said, “I think there are a large number of leaders who do read those blogs. I think they played a role beyond their number — perhaps an inordinant amount of influence given their number — but they are a growing phenomenon in Southern Baptist life.”

So two kinds of highways were crucial — concrete and digital. Outsiders have more clout when they have their own printing presses (so to speak).

This election was a blend of the past and the future. Stay tuned.

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Filed Under: Evangelicals, Godbeat, Journalism, Politics
About TMatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

  • Stephen A.

    I guess the phrase that jumped out at me was “although his election did not mean that the church was moderating” That would be “moderating” from WHAT, and TO what, I wonder? Was this a paraphrase, or the reporters’ interpretation of the election here?

    As for the buses, that shouldn’t be as sinister sounding as they first appear. Politics is all about getting your voters to the polls. That one candidate’s supporters did this effectively shouldn’t be a big surprise.

    I’m also puzzled a bit by the blogger comment. To hear some tell it, bloggers mostly tilt pretty far to the right. Why, then, would a “moderate” candidate have benefitted from a large blogging effort, rather than the presumably more conservative candidates?

    Did liberal baptist blogs cry out “We’ve got to elect a MODERATE so we can be more like the Mainline denominations!” and rally thousands to support a ‘moderate’ candidate? Could be, but I doubt it. Either there was a misquote here or a misattribution of the bloggers’ intent. Perhaps they actually failed miserably.

  • L.Jones

    Did the “messengers” ever consider 1 Corinthians 1:10?
    1 Corinthians 1:10 (King James Version)

    10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

  • Bill

    L.Jones: Perhaps the messengers would be well-advised to focus more on Matthew 25:31-46. Those who turn their back on the destitute are nothing more than pseudo-Christians.

  • Stephen A.

    Having done a bit of searching online, I see that the election may have had more to do with overthrowing the “good old boys’” candidate, clearing out alleged corruption in the higher echelons of the “elites” that run the SBC and an assault on the supposed over-emphasis on Calvinism by the previous president and others. At least that’s what *some* SBC bloggers are saying.

    As I suspected, the issues were a bit more complex than “moderate” vs conservative, which doesn’t appear to be at issue. All three candidates were quite conservative, apparently.

  • David L.

    It is the purpose of the convention to take a group of “brethren” and have them discuss issues in order to determine what they believe and agree upon, in order for them to (hopefully) have no divisions in practice or judgement (which also helps there to be fewer divisons in mind or word).

    The southern baptist association uses the money given by its constituant churches to fund missions at home and abroad to fullfill the great commission…..I hope no “denomination” ever turns their back on the destitute, because this would lead to the distancing of said denomination from the public and other denominations likely leading to its eventual collapse.

  • http://clientandserver.com dw

    As I suspected, the issues were a bit more complex than “moderate” vs conservative, which doesn’t appear to be at issue. All three candidates were quite conservative, apparently.

    Exactly. It’s not like they’re going to turn into the Episcopalians now.

    The way to frame it would be congregationists vs. pseudo-Calvinists. The problem is that it would take the Paper Of Record several pages to explain what that meant and what the history behind them was.

  • tmatt

    Stephen A:

    I didn’t say the buses were bad or frightening, I merely suggested that — WITH A LOW TURN OUT — the drive in factor from Carolinians backing their outsider candidate must have been huge.

    I also don’t think this was a “moderate” victory. It might be a victory for a younger crowd, a more independent evangelical crowd or, yes, the crowd spooked by Calvinism and the current establishment. I also think it would have been hard for the Times to get all of that into a short daily, without LOTS of prep work.

    Let’s see what the major papers publish NOW. Watch Atlanta and Dallas.

  • http://theaccidentalanglican.typepad.com Deborah

    Bill – Your perceptions of this denomination are shaped too much by media. Southern Baptists have been heavily involved with feeding destitute victims left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (http://tinyurl.com/nn2f2), and although I’m no longer Southern Baptist, I’m personally aware of several churches that have substantial ministries to the poor and homeless. It’s these kinds of battles for leadership positions, etc., that get press coverage.

  • Steve

    Bill,

    When you read Matthew 25:31-46, you’ll notice that those on the right didn’t know they were doing “good works” until the Son of Man told them. Remember, we are just the branches and Christ is the vine and without Him we can do nothing.

    When we get to heaven, I believe we will shocked on who’s there and who’s not.

  • Aaron Armitage

    All the Calvinist SB blogs I’ve read have been pleased by the election. So I don’t think it’s an anti-Calvinist choice.

  • http://www.brotherbobsblog.blogspot.com Brother Bob

    I am a Southern Baptist, a blogger, and a frequent reader of Baptist blogs. The comments above seem to be from non-Southern Baptists who do not understand what happened in Greensboro. All of the comments about buses was beside the point. Almost every Baptist church has a bus or two, and Baptists often attend conventions in church buses. That is nothing new and was not the point. Let me share what I see happening:
    1. The surprise election of Frank Page was a rebellion against control of the denomination by a few mega-church pastors and their kin; it was not a moderate vs. conservative battle, as all of the candidates are conservative (although Page is a different kind of conservative, see point #5 below).
    2. A key issue in Dr. Page’s election was that the chosen candidate of the mega-church elite was Ronnie Floyd. Southern Baptists respect Floyd as a preacher, but they resented the fact that his church only gives 0.27% of its budget to the Cooperative Program, our unified denominational budget. People expect somebody who is going to lead the denomination to support the denomination. Frank Page’s church gives 12% to the Cooperative Program.
    3. Baptist bloggers did have a big influence on the election. Most of the bloggers are young, often receptive to the “emerging church” movement, conservative, and tend to be Calvinist, although Calvinists are not a majority among Southern Baptists. (I’m a blogger but not young and not a Calvinist.) Blogging allowed Baptists of like-mind to gather a critical mass of enthusiasm (a “blog storm” as Hugh Hewitt would call it).
    4. Earlier this year, a Baptist blogger named Wade Burleson, who is a trustee with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, was reprimanded for blogging about the trustee meetings (nothing confidential, but discussing the issues.) The trustees tried to remove Burleson, which ignired a storm of controversy from Baptist bloggers that forced the IMB trustees to back down. Burleson is a conservative, but he disagrees with some of the extreme narrowness of the rest of the IMB trustee board.
    5. This leads to one other distinction about the Baptist blogging movement, which is that although they are conservative, they do not like the extreme narrowness of the SBC’s recent past. The statement by Frank Page, new SBC president, that he is conservative but “not mad about it” expresses their feelings well. Remember, many of these young Baptists are influenced by the emerging church and attempts to reach out to a postmodern culture.

    Important Southern Baptist blogs to watch include: http://www.sbcoutpost.com and http://www.arkansasrazorbaptist.blogspot.com