According to this story from the Associated Baptist Press, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention–one of America’s most conservative religious groups–is an outsider who owes his election in part to the influence of young Southern Baptist bloggers who have been pushing for more greater transparency and accountability in the church and attacking some extravagant spending scandals. Frank Page of South Carolina beat two higher-profile leaders that had the endorsement of the SBC’s power structure. Here’s an excerpt of the story:
Page’s supporters said their candidate benefited from the participation of many messengers previously uninvolved in convention life. “This election is about the people being heard,” said Wade Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor instrumental in Page’s election. “Every Baptist counts.”
Burleson said the election signaled “a turning point” in Southern Baptist life — “not theological by any means,” but a change in methodology, toward more openness and inclusiveness.
“It’s no longer kingmakers; it’s the people,” said Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla. “I am more excited about the Southern Baptist Convention today than I have ever been in my life,” he said.
Burleson, a trustee of the International Mission Board who has argued against exclusivistic tactics of that agency, was himself considered a possible candidate for president. But his influence, plus that of young Southern Baptist bloggers, was credited with energizing support for Page and for a broadening of SBC leadership.
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.”
Last week, the Dallas Morning News had a good curtain-raiser on this phenomenon:
Conservative Southern Baptists used to be more or less an amen corner, cheering one another on as they battled denomination moderates over such issues as women in the pulpit and whether the Bible must be taken as literally true.But a generation after conservatives began to control the Southern Baptist Convention, they are finding it harder and harder to stick together. Disputes over doctrine and power-sharing have come to the fore.
And bringing them there – with a flourish – have been a handful of youngish conservative pastors employing blogs.
Baptist bloggers have become a force in the last year, generating large numbers of hits on their Web sites as they post comments – some would say, as they air dirty laundry – about the SBC, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, with 16.3 million members.
The bloggers’ rise coincides with the first seriously contested election for the SBC presidency in more than decade. Three candidates have announced, and more could emerge before next week’s annual gathering of delegates (“messengers,” Baptists call them) in Greensboro, N.C.
“Not to be presumptuous, but I think we have helped shape the debate,” said Marty Duren, a Buford, Ga., pastor and blogger. “Issues that we began discussing as far back as last summer are now part of interviews with candidates.”
Benjamin Cole, a 30-year-old pastor at Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, is even more of a true believer. He calls Internet communication the “Gutenberg press of the new Reformation.”
Shades of Hugh Hewitt, who used that exact analogy in his book on blogging. Cole is a firebrand who recently wrote a long post comparing the SBC’s conservative leadership to the FBI under the dictatorial rule of J. Edgar Hoover.
More from the Morning News story:
Across denominations, bloggers are having an effect, said Quentin Schultze, a professor of communication at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“The good news is that blogging is getting more people interested in denominational processes and issues,” Dr. Schultze said. “The bad news is that denominationally oriented blogging tends to gravitate toward unkind language, unsupported accusations and nasty threats.”
Most pastors, he said, are as wary of generating controversy through blogs as they are of offending worshippers from the pulpit. For those relatively few willing to speak out – usually not part of the denominational leadership – blogs can be “almost like a kind of catharsis,” Dr. Schultze said.
He added that conservative Southern Baptist bloggers are, for the most part, civil and serious. They generally avoid what he considers the offensive practice of posting anonymously. What’s more, Dr. Schultze thinks Baptist bloggers are breaking ground.
“The SBC has become the first denomination to shift institutional politics significantly from letter-writing, phone calls and conventions to the public Internet. … Those who hold denominational power have got to be concerned.”
Talk about “crashing the gate”! I don’t know a thing about the internal politics or theology of the Souther Baptist Convention, but I think this story is fresh evidence of a recurring pattern: new communications tools like blogs are shifting power away from the center and toward the edges of organizations, and forcing closed institutions to open themselves up to greater scrutiny and participation. This is a non-partisan phenomenon…though if you are someone who believes, as I do, that in general the more that people have a say in the decisions that affect their lives, and the ability to get and share information with each other openly, the more they will, over time, make better decisions.
[Thanks Anna Topia, for the tip.]