ALEXANDRIA, La. (ABP) –Trustees of the Baptist Message of Louisiana, who last month were rebuffed in an effort to dissolve their independent board, unanimously elected conservative Oregon pastor Kelly Boggs as editor.
Boggs, 45, pastor of Valley Baptist Church in McMinnville, Ore., for the past six-and-a-half years, is also a newspaper columnist in Oregon and frequent commentator for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's official news service. He replaces Lynn Clayton, who is retiring.
Under a plan proposed by David Hankins, new executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, the 119-year-old newspaper would have been merged into the convention structure as part of a newly formed communications team. The paper's trustees initially rejected the idea but then approved it a few months later as part of a package deal that would have made new communications director John Yeats editor of the newspaper as well.
The plan to dissolve the board, which required a two-thirds vote by messengers at the Nov. 14-15 convention meeting, was defeated by an estimated two-to-one margin. Messengers who spoke against the move complained the newspaper would lose its journalistic freedom. The board has been independent of the convention since the 1960s.
The newspapers' trustees, who reportedly deadlocked earlier between Boggs and another candidate, then offered the job to Boggs.
“I'm excited about the prospect,” said Boggs, who will assume the position in mid-January. “You folks have been through a lot in this state.”
“God is doing exciting things here,” he continued. “That's a story that needs to be told not only in Louisiana, but outside, of the efforts of Southern Baptists. That excites me.”
Boggs is a Texas native married to the former Mindy Lee Slack. They have four children: Torrey Wynn, 15; Karis Leslie, 13; Hannah Lee, 11; and Parker Micah, 9.
In presenting Boggs to board members, Baptist Message chair Larry Thompson cited his experience presenting a Christian worldview through newspaper columns in one of the nation's less-evangelized areas.
“Kelly comes to us as one of the denomination's voices in a very strategic region of our nation,” emphasized Thompson, pastor at First Baptist Church of Westlake. “If you know Oregon, you know it is a very secular area. And Kelly's writings have been well known, especially for their Christian worldview.”
Boggs holds a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Prior to that, he earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas.
— This story includes information from the Baptist Message.