WAKE FOREST, N.C. (ABP) — A second seminary president has endorsed Ronnie Floyd for Southern Baptist Convention president, despite an admonishment from the convention's chief executive, Morris Chapman.
In an email to students and others May 15, Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, described Floyd as a “godly man” who “would make a fine president if he is elected by our convention.”
Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark., is the presidential choice of the convention's inerrantist leaders, who have controlled the presidency for almost three decades, usually without opposition.
Earlier, Akin also announced he will nominate J. D. Greear, pastor of the Summit Church in Durham, N.C., as second vice president.
Akin's endorsement of Floyd came two days after Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee, warned in his blog: “Nominating or being nominated for an elected office of the SBC, or endorsing a nominee for an elected office, in my opinion, lessens the importance of the work to which the entity head has been called.”
Chapman said most SBC agency executives historically have avoided endorsing or nominating candidates for denominational office — or serving as an officer — because of potential conflicts. His comments were clearly directed at Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the only recent SBC president to serve simultaneously as an agency executive. Patterson endorsed Floyd May 12.
Unlike the recent past, this year's presidential election is expected to be hotly contested. A network of younger conservatives and others not involved in current convention leadership have called for more openness in SBC life and an end to the politics of “exclusion.”
Others have argued Floyd, one of the most visible SBC leaders of late, is poorly suited to be president because his church contributes less than 1 percent of its undesignated budget through the Cooperative Program, the central budget that funds state conventions and SBC agencies.
A special SBC panel studying sluggish Cooperative Program giving is encouraging the denomination to elect leaders from churches that give at least 10 percent.
Akin, in his endorsement memo, argued Floyd's Cooperative Program giving is better than it seems. During the past 20 years, he wrote, “First Baptist Church Springdale has been a leader in both the state of Arkansas and across our convention in Cooperative Program giving. During the time Dr. Floyd has been pastor of First Baptist Church Springdale, the church has given $5,988,114 to SBC causes. In 2005, the actual dollar amount given to SBC causes by First Baptist Church Springdale was $489,862.”
According to a church staff member, the Springdale congregation gave $32,000 in 2005 through the Cooperative Program — which includes both the state and national conventions — or 0.27 percent of undesignated receipts of $11,952,137. Another $189,000 — 1.8 percent — was sent to the national Cooperative Program but bypassed the state, while $489,862 was designated to undisclosed “SBC causes.”
Since Floyd became pastor in 1986 — including the years he was chairman of the Executive Committee, which sets and promotes the Cooperative Program — the church's CP giving has declined from 9.2 percent to the current level. The dollar amounts given increased in most of those years, but not at the eight-fold pace of receipts.
Akin suggested the church should be judged based on all its giving, not just CP. “I am grateful for a church that is this faithful and generous to our convention,” he wrote, “and I also honor and respect their local autonomy in determining what they believe is the wisest method of distributing those gifts.”
Concern over Floyd's lackluster denominational support has spurred the search for a second presidential candidate — so far without success.
Frank Page, a South Carolina pastor with a strong record of Cooperative Program support, told Associated Baptist Press May 16 he would not be a candidate.
“As of late yesterday, I decided I am not going to allow my nomination for president of the Southern Baptist Convention,” said Page, pastor of First Baptist Church of Taylors, S.C., which gave 12 percent of its undesignated receipts to the CP last year. “I did not have a peace about it, and I can't move forward if I don't have that.”
Earlier, another potential candidate — David Dockery, president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn. — confirmed he was asked to allow his nomination but decided against it. Asked if his decision was firm, he said May 10, “I can't see anything that would change my mind,” noting his duties at Union wouldn't allow him enough time to be SBC president.
Meanwhile, one oft-mentioned presidential prospect — Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson — kept his options open. Burleson, the International Mission Board trustee whose complaints about exclusionary IMB policies almost cost him his spot on the board, said earlier he would not be nominated if Page was — although he did not name the South Carolina pastor.
Burleson, conservative pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., has been calling for SBC leaders to abandon their cause of “convention conformity” and become more inclusive.
“Who will the other candidate be?” Burlseon asked in his blog May 16. “I'm not yet sure, but this one thing I know — there will be another one.”
Burleson repeated his call for “broadening the tent of service” in the SBC and involving younger leaders.
“We must stop narrowing the parameters of cooperation in the area of missions and evangelism,” he wrote. “We cannot, we must not, define Southern Baptists in more narrow terms than our Baptist Faith and Message [doctrinal statement] and, more importantly, we cannot disenfranchise committed, conservative Southern Baptists who hold to the integrity of the Scriptures but differ on the interpretations of minor doctrines of the sacred text.”
“The election this year for president will give the people of the SBC a choice,” he continued. “Ronnie [Floyd] has a vision for the future, and the other candidate will have one as well. It will be the decision of the body as to which vision is best.”
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