AMARILLO, Texas (ABP) — Messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting narrowly elected the state body's first female president and continued a two-decade string of officers endorsed by the moderate Texas Baptists Committed organization.
Joy Fenner, a former missionary to Japan, executive director emerita of Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, and incumbent BGCT first vice president, was elected over pastor David Lowrie. Fenner received 900 votes to Lowrie's 840 votes.
Fenner's election marked another in a series of presidential elections demonstrating an increasing amount of diversity within the state convention. In recent years, the group has elected its first Hispanic president and its first African-American president.
Many convention messengers attributed the close margin of Fenner's election less to her gender and more to dissatisfaction with current BGCT leadership, as well Lowrie's West Texas ties. The convention was held in Amarillo.
Lowrie — whose father also served as a BGCT president and who would have been the first second-generation BGCT president — had been endorsed by several Baptist bloggers who called for an end to what they saw as the Texas Baptists Committed organization's control over the BGCT.
They also called for change in BGCT leadership in light of a church-starting fund scandal in the Rio Grande Valley, a recent round of layoffs in Dallas, and a ruling by the presiding officer at the 2006 BGCT annual meeting that essentially allowed the Executive Board to trump the decision-making authority of convention messengers.
-30-