SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (ABP) — A crowded field of hopefuls for the Southern Baptist Convention presidency appears to be developing, with two high-profile candidates set to join three already-announced nominees.
Retired SBC International Mission Board executive Avery Willis and Atlanta-area pastor Johnny Hunt will reportedly be nominated for the denomination's top position. SBC messengers will elect a new president and conduct other business during the body's annual meeting, scheduled for June 10-11 in Indianapolis.
Willis will reportedly be nominated by John Marshall, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo. An Associated Baptist Press reporter, acting on tips from several sources, spoke to Marshall's assistant the evening of May 5. She said she could not confirm that he would nominate Willis, but would convey the request for confirmation to him.
Marshall had not returned the message as of midday May 6. But The Pathway, the in-house news organ of the conservative-dominated Missouri Baptist Convention, posted a notice on its website late the evening of May 5 that Marshall had “announced May 6” his intention to nominate Willis. It also said further details would be published May 7.
Hunt also did not respond to ABP's request for confirmation of tips that he would be nominated. But Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., confirmed via email May 6 that he would nominate Hunt.
“For 12 years, many in the SBC have wanted to have Johnny lead and serve our convention as president,” Traylor said. “His passion is to reach the nations. I know of no other pastor who has had a positive influence on more young pastors than Dr. Hunt. Our future as a convention requires that we connect with those young church leaders.”
Willis retired in 2004 as IMB's senior vice president for overseas operations. A former missionary to Indonesia, he is well known across the SBC as an expert on missiology and discipleship. He created the MasterLife discipleship series used by the SBC's publishing agency, now known as LifeWay Christian Resources. He now lives in Bella Vista, Ark., but continues to work with several initiatives that bring evangelical missions organizations together for joint evangelism strategies.
Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., was initially expected to be a candidate during the last contested SBC presidential election, in 2006. But he dropped out a month before the convention.
Although he was the first choice of the SBC's conservative leadership in 2006, Hunt was likely to face opposition from one or more other factions in the convention — most notably a loose-knit group of younger conservatives protesting what they called the leadership's narrow and exclusivistic track record.
Instead, Hunt nominated Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark., that year. But Floyd and another candidate with the support of some SBC power-brokers — Nashville, Tenn., pastor Jerry Sutton — both lost to an outsider candidate, South Carolina pastor Frank Page, who is completing his second one-year term next month. Presidents customarily are re-elected to a second term but cannot serve more than two consecutively.
Both Hunt and Floyd came under heavy criticism for their churches' weak records of giving to the Cooperative Program, the denomination's unified budget. Page, in contrast, had consistently led his church to give a relatively high percentage of its undesignated receipts to the denomination.
The presidency has been the key to gaining and retaining control of the 16 million-member denomination and its agencies. The SBC's inerrantist leaders have controlled the position for almost three decades, usually running unopposed. Since 1979, all SBC presidents have been inerrantists. But only two were elected without the approval of the small cadre of insiders who directed the denomination's rightward shift, which took place during the same period.
The 2008 SBC presidential election was thrown into disarray in February, after Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler dropped out of the race for health reasons. He was widely expected to be the establishment candidate for the position.
Three other candidates for the spot have already been announced. Frank Cox, pastor of the Atlanta-area North Metro First Baptist Church, has announced he will run. His large congregation also has a strong record of CP giving.
Two long-shot candidates from California have also announced their candidacies: former Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary professor Bill Wagner, and Orange County pastor and activist Wiley Drake.
Drake, who pastors the tiny First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., has for more than a decade been an SBC annual-meeting gadfly known for his folksy humor and frequent motions on behalf of ultraconservative causes, including a controversial boycott of Disney.