June 14, 2006

Blogging Baptists Update

The Wednesday Tennessean notes the role of blogs in electing the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention...

Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., said yesterday his selection represented a "new day" for the Nashville-based denomination - which remains united in its conservatism on social issues and the belief that the Bible is the literal word of God - but divided in recent months over management and other doctrinal issues. ...

[Oklahoma pastor Wade] Burleson, among the best-known Internet bloggers who have criticized the current Southern Baptist leadership, said the computer bloggers were key to Page's selection. "Page may have started out as the underdog," Burleson said. "But I attribute the fact (he won) to young men and women on blogs."

Burleson said the fact that Page had edged out more established conservative leaders marked a turning point at the convention, where there have been few contested elections since conservatives took over the denomination in the 1970s and 1980s, forcing out more moderate Baptists.

"I believe it's a turning point," Burleson said. "But it's not a theological turning point. Baptists should go away saying that every Baptist counts. It's no longer kingmakers. It's people at the grassroots."

When Frank's election was announced I was walking around the arena and just happened to be stopped by a reporter in the undergound hallway. He wanted my reaction. Soon other reporters stopped and by the time all was said and done probably over 25 media persons from around the nation stood four deep and asked questions for forty minutes. One of the questions that kept being repeated over and over again is whether or not I believed blogs played a role in this election. I said, "Absolutely." Baptist bloggers in 2006 may well go down in history as the first time bloggers actually determined the outcome of a national religious/political election.

Why? When all three candidates were being nominated my wife leaned over to me and said, "I feel like I know all three men because of the blogs."

Micah Fries and John Stickley over at Friesville will be posting interviews with key people at the SBC.

These men interviewed me this morning as we sat in a cafe in the Courtyard of the Sheraton Four Seasons with thousands of messengers attending the break out sessions at the hotel. Micah asked some excellent questions and hopes to have his interview with me and others up by later this afternoon.

Check it out! This is another example of the way the information age is changing the face of our convention.

Update: Well, not really an update, but the Associated Baptist Press ran a story on June 5 saying blogs were making the upcoming SBC meeting controversial.

Blogs have already revolutionized secular politics, and whether a subset of them have revolutionized Baptist politics will be seen at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting June 13-14 in North Carolina.

The meeting, in Greensboro, will feature the first seriously contested SBC presidential election in a decade and several other controversial business items. The combination will likely produce the most contentious convention meeting since 1991, when moderates left after an epic struggle with fundamentalists over control of the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

But this time, the struggle is between fellow conservatives. Internal tensions have been thrust into the SBC spotlight mainly by bloggers -- the ever-expanding network of ideological entrepreneurs who analyze and pontificate on their own websites.

In the year since the SBC last met, reform-minded bloggers in the denomination have begun to form their own community on the Internet...

I'm more interested in this story because of the impact of blogs, not the religious/theological issues. I find it fascinating to watch, and wonder if the old-guard leadership of the SBC really understands what just happened, what changes the blogs hath wrought, and what bigger changes are ahead, thanks to the democratization of information publishing enabled by blogs, cheap digital video and related technologies ...