Did Blogs Upend the Southern Baptist Convention?
In the wake of the triumphalism of YearlyKos for liberal bloggers, another blog revolution may have just happened. A longshot candidate for control of the Southern Baptist Convention, Frank Page, was elected president of the denomination, partly due to blogs apparently
Page said a new generation of blogging Baptists played a role in his selection. “I believe they played a role beyond their numbers,” he said. “I believe they are a growing force and phenomenon in denominational life. There are a relatively small number who write them, but I believe a large number of leaders read them.”
This article indicates that blogs did play a role in this change, as smaller churches networked through the Internet and challenged the old church establishment dominated by large megachurches. In fact, the issues involved in the battle seem to share less the political themes of the blogs than their reform impulse: demands for accountability, more aggressive fundraising, and stronger outreach. Interesting.
Great article Nathan.
Thanks for the link.
"The power of the press belongs to those who own one."
After reading this I'm wondering just how many SBC members are educators in the public school system and are being tacitly denounced by Shortt as godless heathens?
June 14, 2006 5:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me guess: "outreach" means a renewed comittment to compassion for the poor and turning the other cheek, combined with a nationwide initiative to mind the log in your own eye, right?
Or is it an invigorated campaign to punish women for sex?
Which form of outreach is more conducive to fundraising?
Will be still be treated to the annual ridiculousness about wives being submissive to their husbands or somesuch?
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-- All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. (John Kenneth Galbraith) --
June 14, 2006 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ahh, the increasingly powerless SBC. They need something to bring them into a new era, before they marginalize themselves out of existence.
You had to know it was the beginning of the end when Wake Forest, still ranked a consistently conservative school, shrugged off the threats and eventual seperation from the SBC in reponse to WFU let a divinity student use the chapel for a same-sex commitment ceremony. President Hearn's response: “For the Baptists it’s pretty terrible,” Hearn said. “[It is] something more disadvantageous for themselves rather than for us.”
Seperating themselves from the national university the SBC had helped build- just one step closer to madness.
June 14, 2006 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
This part made me think of Howard Dean's DNC campaign and his promise to carry out a 50 state strategy:
Many of the bloggers have criticized Floyd's weak support of the Cooperative Program, the SBC's unified budget for supporting denominational ministries at the national and state levels. An SBC panel recently called for officers and other convention leaders to come from churches that contribute at least 10 percent of their undesignated receipts to the program. In 2005, Floyd's church gave 0.27 percent of its $12 million in undesignated funds to the Cooperative Program.
June 14, 2006 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. This is "crashing the gate" in a different arena, but using the same tools and in some degree, confronting a similar power structure.
June 14, 2006 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink