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Big Baptist Blowout! Little Press.
13 June 2008Big, big story missed by the press: Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting, held in Indianapolis, rejected the relatively moderate vision of outgoing SBC president Frank Page by electing -- with big numbers -- Johnny Hunt, an Atlanta megachurch pastor associated with the "fundamentalist" wing of the denomination. That in itself is news -- the SBC is the largest single Protestant denomination in the U.S. -- but there are plenty more stories here, ranging from the general -- what effect will this fundamentalist resurgence have on the SBC's role in national politics? -- to the particular -- Hunt's a crusader against Calvinism. Calvinism? Indeed -- a growing influence in the SBC, according to Christianity Today's always-reliable Ted Olsen. Meanwhile, SBC numbers are declining -- a fact pointed to by those who say fundamentalism is a waning force -- but the denomination is responding. Last but not least, there's the fact that Hunt is a Lumbee Indian. Significant in a major denomination that's never been even remotely progressive about race? Who knows? No major national media offered any in-depth reporting.
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