12 Witnesses

Having sufficiently avoided the SBC as a regular topic of my blog for the last year, I think it is relatively safe to give you a few thoughts on the Presidential election happening about 2:45 pm today in Indianapolis.  That’s Central Time, if you didn’t know.

It fascinates me that there are six known candidates and more possibly on the way.  After the last two years, who knows?  We could end up with a baker’s dozen after it is done.

Not knowing the total nominees, I would have no real idea how to predict the vote fallout.  Even if I did, predicting these things has become somewhat less certain than it once was, which is a good thing.

Therefore, I will simply give a couple of thoughts about the overall situation and very weak predictions.

I suspect that Frank Cox or Johnny Hunt will win in a runoff.  They represent the status quo crowd and they are more the “typical” nominee:  Mega Church, the SBC is greater than ever and let’s get out there and win them lost folks by working harder at the same things we’ve been doing.  Curious to me is the fact that Johnny Hunt is running at all.

Johnny has been buffaloed out twice:  once by Bobby Welch and the other by the SBC blogosphere questioning his church’s Cooperative Program giving.  It seemed to most, and certainly to me, that he didn’t want to divide the convention and wanted no part of a “fight” for the presidency.  Now, however, with Cox apparently anointed by the status quo crowd, Hunt jumps in to give those voters a couple of options.

This was somewhat precarious two years ago, with that group of voters divided, allowing Frank Page to win on the first ballot.  I pointed out, at the time, that Page received more votes than both men combined (hence the first ballot win), it showed a vulnerability when running multiple candidates.

I wonder, with them both being from Georgia, how well they know each other and if there is a degree to which Johnny thinks that he’s better for the job.  Who knows?  Not I.

Nevertheless, odd as it may be, they are still both better known than almost everyone else combined.  I suppose that you could lump the other four known candidates into the “reformer” category, though their respective ideas of reform are not all the same.

I’ll not try to give a synopsis for each one, but suffice it to say that Wiley Drake’s ideas of reform are surely different than all the rest.

Les Puryear is to be nominated by the very passionate and well spoken Dwight McKissic.  Let us not forget that Forrest Pollock did more to win Frank Page the election 2 years ago than anyone else, so don’t underplay the nominator.  Let us also not forget that Junior Hill will also be on the stage.  He’s good, and people know him better, which gives Cox an edge.

Les is a small church pastor and has been celebrated this year with the small church conference created by him and hosted at his church with many of the luminaries from the SBC as well as partnerships from Lifeway and the IMB.  That’s tall cotton.  For a small church pastor.

Unfortunately, Johnny Hunt preaches to thousands of SBC pastors every year in various venues and was in his traditional post at the Pastor’s conference this year.  It is a machine, of sorts, and hard to conquer.

Les does have the fact that he represents the average voter in the hall this afternoon.  Going against Les is the reality that most of those guys don’t celebrate the small church the way Les does.  They really want to be Johnny Hunt.  Or Frank Cox.  Or any Mega Church pastor.  Or even a larger than their church pastor.

Which brings us, finally, to the Missionaries.  Bill Wagner seems like a nice enough guy, but he is not well known.  Those that know him are not all convinced, either, so I doubt that he will pull many votes int he first round.  I do admire the straightforward attitude he brought to the campaign, though.  There was no dream/vision, etc.  He simply thought he would be good for the SBC.  I like it.

Avery Willis, though, is the only reformer that I think stands a chance.  Primarily because people know him better than the others and if reformers show up, they will likely do so on behalf of the IMB and its ongoing struggles with the “guidelines” restricting missionary candidates.  I recently read in the Florida Baptist Witness (online) that the “guidelines” were a settled issue and that they weren’t going to be dealt with by the BOT anytime in the near future.  It may well be that the power structure of the BOT considers them settled, but it is clear that the SBC does not.

If enough of those SBC pastors show up at convention, Avery stands a chance, albeit a slim one.

Posts with related content

• June 24, 2008 -- Founders Conference Preview (4)
• June 23, 2008 -- June Wrap (1)
• June 9, 2008 -- The SBC this week (1)
• May 13, 2008 -- Forrest Pollock is gone (7)
• April 22, 2008 -- Doing missions via the Cooperative Program (7)

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