{"id":828,"date":"2010-09-28T05:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=828"},"modified":"2010-09-28T05:00:53","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T11:00:53","slug":"speaking-truth-to-power-in-the-sbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=828","title":{"rendered":"Speaking Truth To Power In The SBC!"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Speaking truth to power.”\u00a0 <\/em>Used by liberals ad nauseum during President George W. Bush’s eight years in office,\u00a0this pithy saying,\u00a0although not\u00a0in the Bible, certainly was embodied in the life and teachings\u00a0of Jesus Christ, Paul, Peter, John and others\u00a0in the New Testament era and by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others in the Old Testament era.\u00a0 To speak truth to those in power is not an easy thing to do, whether those in positions of power are in government or in America’s largest Protestant body.\u00a0 Because so few people have\u00a0the courage to\u00a0challenge those in power, when it happens, it\u00a0becomes all the more\u00a0noticeable.<\/p>\n

Such was the case in Greensboro, NC at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in June 2006.\u00a0 In one of the boldest examples of truth-telling to those in power that I have had the privilege to witness in person, (the late) Forrest Pollock, Senior Pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida, placed Frank Page’s name in nomination for President of the SBC.\u00a0 Ending his rousing\u00a0nomination speech,\u00a0Pollock\u00a0uttered these simple, yet profound words:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“My granddaddy didn\u2019t have a seminary degree but even he understood you can\u2019t even spell SBC president without a C and a P.”\u00a0 <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Taking on the establishment and their candidates — Ronnie Floyd and Jerry Sutton — Frank Page garnered 50.48% of the vote, securing a first-ballot victory that sent shock waves throughout the Convention.\u00a0 So dumbfounded were some\u00a0prominent members of\u00a0the ruling class that they walked out of the Convention hall after the results were announced, wondering\u00a0aloud exactly what had just\u00a0happened.\u00a0\u00a0What had happened was that rank and file Southern Baptists, at least on this one day in Greensboro, said\u00a0NO to\u00a0the establishment!\u00a0 These humble servants, not liking it when anyone tells them no, vowed\u00a0that “this” would never happen again.\u00a0\u00a0Never again would their candidate lose an election for President of the SBC.\u00a0 With the elections of Johnny Hunt and Bryant Wright (although Ted\u00a0Traylor would have fit the bill), the establishment has been true to their word.\u00a0 But, just like with the election of Frank Page, grass-roots Southern Baptists will rally behind irenic and humble\u00a0cooperating conservatives who stand in stark contrast to the all too common celebrity pastors that dot the Southern Baptist landscape.<\/p>\n

Following his election,\u00a0Frank Page was quoted as saying:<\/p>\n

I think it is a turning point.\u00a0 And\u00a0I do think a different tone will come forth from this convention.\u00a0 And that tone will indeed echo some deep appreciation of the past in the sacrifices men and women have made.\u00a0 But I think it also will show, in the future (that) the landscape has changed — that\u00a0there is a deep\u00a0need to involve a much larger constituency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think by “larger” that Dr. Page meant broader, in the sense that a greater variety of Southern Baptists would be included\u00a0on the trustee boards and other leadership positions\u00a0within the agencies and entities of the SBC.\u00a0 Apparently, the establishment didn’t understand it that way.\u00a0 To them, a “larger constituency” means a mega constituency that they naturally confused for their own “large” churches.\u00a0 If the 2010 nominations for the 63 new trustees of the SBC’s agencies and entities\u00a0are any indication, then smaller churches, which make up the majority of churches within the Southern Baptist Convention, are still inequitably represented.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unless more people like Frank Page are elected to serve as President of our Convention, then we can expect that the inequity will continue.\u00a0 How can we ensure ALL of our churches are fairly represented?\u00a0 When grass-roots Southern Baptists begin to understand that not just the Cooperative Program, but the very nature of cooperation is at stake.\u00a0 When rank and file pastors and members of small and medium-sized Southern Baptist churches stop following the establishment in their radical redefinition of our Convention.\u00a0 And, when SBC statesmen and pastors\u00a0(or former pastors)\u00a0of larger cooperating churches, like the late Forrest Pollock and others (calling Pastor Bobby), speak truth to power before it is too late!\u00a0 Grass-roots Southern Baptists are waiting.\u00a0 And I promise you, we will notice when you speak!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Speaking truth to power.”\u00a0 Used by liberals ad nauseum during President George W. Bush’s eight years in office,\u00a0this pithy saying,\u00a0although not\u00a0in the Bible, certainly was embodied in the life and teachings\u00a0of Jesus Christ, Paul, Peter, John and others\u00a0in the New Testament era and by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others in the Old Testament era.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,37],"tags":[136,172,3372,260,398,403,3392,3393,926],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooperative-program","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-bell-shoals-baptist-church","tag-bobby-welch","tag-cooperative-program","tag-cp","tag-forrest-pollock","tag-frank-page","tag-religion","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-speak-truth-to-power"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-dm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}