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JAMES A SMITH SR.
Executive Editor
Frank Page is my president.
I don’t mean that I personally supported his candidacy. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even vote for president of the Southern Baptist Convention this year — or any office or any matter put to a vote at the annual meeting. Indeed, I haven’t voted once — nor have been a messenger — at the Southern Baptist Convention since I became executive editor of Florida Baptist Witness in 2001. I don’t plan on changing this practice, either.
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| THE PAGE PRESIDENCY |
Not all Baptist state editors have taken this approach, but it seems best to me that since I will personally have to report on actions, developments and elections at the SBC that I not be a personal participant in the matters about which I will report. Others see this differently, and I can respect that.
And I certainly don’t mean that I’m totally disengaged from Southern Baptist life. After all, I currently serve on a SBC agency board and I’m actively involved in Southern Baptist life through my local church and the Florida Baptist State Convention (where I also don’t participate as a messenger). Further, as is demonstrated in this column from time to time, I also clearly have my own views about issues in SBC life.
No, what I mean is that Frank Page was duly elected by the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro and since I’m a loyal Southern Baptist, he’s my president. (This is no less true of other elected officers, even those whom I may find the need to criticize.)
Page deserves the respect and support of all Southern Baptists — including those who supported one of the other two candidates for president.
One of the tangible ways that those who supported a different candidate in Greensboro can demonstrate their support of Page today is stand down now from any political organizing and seeking to run an opponent to Page at next year’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in San Antonio. Shouldn’t he at least have a chance to prove himself before folks attempt to deny him a second term, a tradition granted to most Southern Baptist Convention presidents even during most of the heated years of the conservative resurgence (with some exceptions)?
It didn’t take long after Page’s surprising victory was announced to hear talk that there would “definitely” be an opposition candidate next year. No doubt, Page’s election shook to the core certain Southern Baptist leaders, since he was not the chosen candidate of them — and, to be fair, because he was largely an unknown commodity.
I certainly agree with those who are concerned that the hard-fought and won advances of the conservative resurgence of the last three decades are not lost. So, at least it seems for now, does Page.
This issue of the Witness includes three articles resulting from an afternoon with Page July 12 at his church in Taylors, S.C. Page is not from Florida and because of that it may seem odd that the Florida paper editor would take such an interest in him. I thought that Florida Baptists should hear from Page directly what he thinks about his election and current issues of debate in SBC life.
I found Page quite longsuffering and irenic, just as advertised. Any person would have to be to put up with a three-hour interview with the likes of me — even in his car to and from a local television station to do a taped interview with a national news talk show!
In the interview — and elsewhere — Page has repeatedly asserted his affirmation of the Baptist Faith and Message, as well as his support for the conservative resurgence that reversed Southern Baptists’ drift toward liberalism.
The fact that Page argued strongly for unlimited roles for women in ministry, including the pastorate, in his doctoral dissertation in 1980 may seem like old news. It’s not. As Page admitted to me, it’s reasonable that Southern Baptists would be interested to know what he thinks today and has done as a pastor about an issue which has been the source of much controversy in the intervening years since his dissertation was written.
Page affirms the well-crafted position affirmed by the vast majority of Southern Baptists as expressed in the Baptist Faith and Message. It was the position he says he came to long before Southern Baptists officially went on the record in 2000.
Incredibly, some are even questioning whether Page is “soft on alcohol,” it seems because several prominent critics of the alcohol resolution this year were also well-known supporters of Page’s candidacy — never minding the fact that Page was on the Resolutions Committee that produced the now infamous (in the minds of a loud few) resolution calling for “total abstinence.”
Clearly, an afternoon with a man who I have had virtually no interaction with before Greensboro (and quite limited there) is not enough to really know him. But I do think it’s enough to know that Page indeed does have the best interests of the Southern Baptist Convention at heart and will seek to serve Southern Baptists well as their president.
It’s no less clear, however, that Page must prove himself to certain leaders in Southern Baptist life — and to the rest of us, for that matter. There will be plenty of time to do that in the coming months as he begins to exercise his duties as SBC president.
When I asked Page about the talk of a possible opponent in San Antonio, he told me, “If people want to run someone, they’re fine.” Although he believes its healthy for Southern Baptists to have multiple choices when a president can’t or won’t succeed himself, Page told me, “If a president has stated his desire to run a second year, I would hope that there would be no other candidates because of the precedent” of permitting an elected president to have his second term.
After all, Page isn’t even certain at this point that he will run for a constitutionally permissible second term. With a wry grin he told me, “I may have enough blessing after one year.”
Let’s see what God can do through Frank Page to lead Southern Baptists to where He wants us to go before deciding who the next president ought to be.
I guess all I am saying is — give Page a chance.