12 Witnesses

I know some folks who will kill me for this, but I slept in. I had about 8 hours of sleep over three and a half days and just couldn’t get up. Frankly, I am still a little groggy. To top it off, the maids changed out my wife’s high thread count pillowcase that matches our sheets at home. It was an accident and they had set it aside - I got it back, honey - but I went looking for it last night.

Some people have said that what happened yesterday was a result of bloggers and we had turned the corner. This is giddy excitement, but I would add some perspective.

Bloggers have played an important role, no question, but the Convention leaders are the ones who have led the way behind the scenes, and they are the ones making the real strides.

The election of Frank Page was a sentiment that had been brewing in the SBC for years. Remember that a floor nomination to the office of President two years ago, fielded 30+% of the vote. We aligned with the convention, not the convention with us.

The election of Wiley Drake is in the same category.

The By-Laws changes were, perhaps, one area where our voices yielded some fruit. However, we must all understand that we did not accomplish the by-law changes. The Executive Committee bore the weight of leadership and did the work. These are our leaders and they deserve the credit. We could never have gotten this done from the floor. They did it for the sake of the SBC. We came alongside them.

Bobby Welch instructed the Committees on Committees and Nominations to bring back reports that were free from the charges of nepotism, cronyism and connectionalism. With only three names from all of those reports having served prior, they did a great work. We have come alongside those leaders, not them to us.

Anyone who thinks that it is all over, should now take note of this.

Ben Cole was told that he and Tom Ascol, both having submitted resolutions, would be happy with the report brought by the Committee on Resolutions. This morning, both of their resolutions were absent from the report. Dr. Ascol desired to ask the resolution be brought to the floor with a 2/3 vote. He was told he had to wait.

In the meantime, a resolution on consumption of alcohol, advocating abstinence, was brought to the floor. It was debated, with several speaking for and against. That would never have happened 10 years ago - no one would have spoken against this resolution. It was also amended to ban any Trustee of any institution from consuming alcohol. It was a resolution so it is not binding, but any observer with the smallest amount of sense would realize it was pointed directly at Wade Burleson. Burleson has said that the Bible does not forbid the consumption of alcohol. Rather, the Bible forbids drunkenness.

I want to clarify my personal position, here. I agree with Wade. I myself have a personal conviction that I do not drink, and I believe that is a Holy Spirit led conviction. However, you will not find a prohibition on alcohol in Scripture. Moving on…

After debate and amendment, the resolution passes and it comes back to Dr. Ascol, who is waiting at the mic.

Dr. Ascol gets to read his entire resolution to the convention - which is a good thing - and a member from the committee speaks to it. Although there were people at the mics, they took the vote on Tom’s motion without discussion.

I wise SBC leader said yesterday that change is incremental. He also said that when there is a push, there is a push back. Some within the convention were pushed hard yesterday, and today they pushed back.

What happens over the next ten years will determine whether or not we are the beginning of a movement for cooperation and “missional” thinking or we are a footnote in Southern Baptist History.

Here are some predictions:

The Inner Circle now has a much clearer view of its influence, or lack thereof. They really believed that they had much more sway than they did, and they were shocked.

As a result, the splits and fractures will be quickly mended and old partnerships will resume in order to push back into the positions of influence they once held.

The next year will be one of positioning, although, the positions of nepotism, cronyism and connectionalism have been hindered considerably. The IMB will have a year of scrutiny and the future there is up in the air.

Frank Page will appoint conservatives with similar instructions as Bobby Welch and this will further weaken those positions.

Next year’s convention is in San Antonio. The BGCT, although they are able to send messengers will not likely do so. They have been ignored and closed out for years and, frankly, they have given up on us. The SBT, however, will come in droves and it will be a bigger convention than this by far. We can expect a large “push back” then.

I would go so far as to say that Dr. Page might even receive a challenge to his second term as President, which has become traditionally accepted as a given. Even the challenge will hurt those who promote it, but if they win, it will be the same situation, escalated further, in Louisville the next year.

There is great joy and hope here today. However, there is much work to be done and we must pray diligently. We should not pray that we will “win,” but that God’s will is paramount to all of us and that it will be done in the SBC.

Bobby Welch led us again today. During a time when they were trying to work something out, Dr Welch began to speak to the convention. He said that we are not each other’s enemies, but that Satan is our enemy. We need to act accordingly. I come alongside him here.

In my last post concerning the amendment of SBC by-law 15, I said the SBC was “hoodwinked.” In my immediate absence (I went to visit with some of the folks from today and just finished at just after 1:00 am Eastern) several good questions were raised about this.

The Executive Committee showed fortitude in dealing with a difficult situation about which I have often written. In section F, the committee was asking the SBC to amend the by law to exclude from service to boards people who were formerly employed by the entity on whose board they might otherwise serve.

The specific instance at hand is the new chairman of the Board of Trustees of the IMB. Dr. John Floyd is a former missionary and it is widely reported that he has issues with certain staff at the IMB. He now serves as their supervisor, in a sense.

As a missionary, I readily concede that his insight would be valuable to us, but to have him serve at an agency where the friction of daily stressful work with personalities creates problems, such a role reversal is a huge conflict of interest.

If he were to be nominated to serve on the North American Mission Board, no such conflict would exist.

The Executive Committee exercised the responsibility of leadership and dealt with a very touchy situation that would have removed Floyd next year after his term ran out because he would have been ineligible for appointment to yet another term (this is his umpteenth).

The implication that this by law amendment’s primary effect would be to limit seminary students is misdirection of its real intent.

Unfortunately, the Ex. Com. was not ready for the argument and did not defend it well. It would have required carefully chosen words to relate the substance of the article without calling Dr. Floyd into question. I would have done it, to the best of my ability (having advocated this exact policy numerous times) but I was sandwiched in a crowd between mics and unable to get near one within at least 90 seconds. That is an eternity in this situation. Secondly, the chair called the question on the Sanderson amendment without it being asked for and without discussion - which are both out of order. I earnestly believe that this - taking the vote with no “call” and no discussion - was not deliberate. The leaders of the Convention believed in this ammendment and wanted it to pass as originally presented.

The SBC was “hoodwinked” because it was made to believe that the amendment was a poorly thought out article that hurt Seminary students.

If all things were able to be replayed, I would move to table the Exec. Comm. amendment until such time as the Committee on Order of Business could reschedule it during this convention. This would give the EC time enough to reword the amendment and report it in a new way. The EC could have withdrawn its original motion, making the Sanderson motion moot. It could then have submitted a new motion to amend and published the new, more precise, wording.

It is now a done deal and will not be revisited this year.

Right now they are going through a host of Ex. Comm. recommendations.

Trustee qualifications is up. This will rip the heart out of the nepotism, connectionalism, etc. problems with entity Trustees.

Bill Sanderson is speaking against the change that would disqualify those who have been employed by and entity saying that Seminary students who work for the seminary would never be available.

The committee is offering to put the word “full-time” in front of the word “employee.” That was rejected and we will vote to pull the restriction.

The restriction is pulled and the convention has no idea that they have been hoodwinked.

The thinking currently is that Wade will endorse the referral. If we attempt to reverse this, and lose, we lose everything.

As it is, the SBC would take the unprecidented step of asking the IMB BOT answer specific charges.

Frankly, the motion was so complex that it could have been ruled out of order. Instead, a compromise giving both grace to the Messenger, Wade Burleson, and the Trustee system.

Wade is speaking now.

He has endorsed the referral with the suggestion that the selection of the ad hoc committee and is giving background to what brought us here. Bob Clevland is speaking against the referral.

[update]

They called the question before I could speak to it.

Oh well, it was referred.

[/update]

I’m going to speak for it.

Jimmy Jackson is elected as 1VP.

Akin is nominating JD Greear. It is a good nomination speech. No innuendo as to ties to anybody, but a solid referral.

Co. state exec. is nominating Dr. Bender from Co. Springs. Strong CP support language.

Joe Ed Rice is nominating Jay Adkins of New Orleans. Mainly talking about his strong efforts after Katrina.

Bill Dodson is making a hilarious nomination speech for Wiley Drake. You have to watch this at sbc.net. Still, it is powerful and he has my vote, for sure! Like Ben Cole once said, “Wiley was missional before missional was cool.”

I don’t know that Wiley could accurately define “missional,” but he lvies it accurately every day.

The convention defeated a move by the Executive Committee to “invite” them to affirm their SBC loyalties by becoming an SBC entity.

In effect, the Convention stopped the move to put the WMU in a place where they had to reject the SBC. Of course they couldn’t do that, so they would have been under extreme pressure to become an SBC agency and allow the SBC to begin to assert a level of control over it.

This motion was defeated which is an affirmation of the WMU’s status as an Auxilary.

Bobby Welch, after Frank Page was announced, said to Dr. Page, into the mic, that 50.48 percent was not mandate, and Dr. Page was president of whole SBC.

I like Bobby, but that was not his finest moment.

When asked, Frank told me and some of my friends that he was not moderate. Someone asked if he would be bringing in CBF guys as officers and said he would not and wanted to know where that came from.

Of course, no one knew.

They started the press conference early and I missed it, but I hope to catch the Pres. later.

Gene Mims, as he was addressing the convention, said that “there is too much bloggin’ and communicatin’ goin’ on out there.”

If you want the convention to be uninformed and for about 35 men to control the SBC, then I suppose that is true.

If you want a well informed convention, that elects men that reflect the breadth of the SBC, then we may need a few more.

I just sat down next to a messenger from Texas who asked if I was the Art Rogers from the blog. When I told him I was, he thanked me for the information.

No. He is not a Younger Leader.

Presidential press conference at 5:25 pm Eastern. Thanks to my handy dandy Press Pass, I’ll be there.

Floyd 2,247 - 24.95 percent

Sutton 2,168 - 24.05 percent

President Frank Page 4,546 - 50.4 percent

Johnny Hunt nominated Ronnie Floyd laced with phrases like, “He’s one of us.”

Jerry Sutton is nominated with the same phrase, but not the same rhetoric throughout.

Both indicated ties to the establishment.

Frank Page is nominated with calls for unity and CP giving.

All talked about the CP, but Johnny rang very hollow.

When we voted the sound of chads being punched out was audible when the number of the chad was announced if we were voting for Frank Page.

I don’t even think there will be a runoff.