(ABP) — If there’s one thing that the 2009 Internet statistics for Associated Baptist Press stories show, it’s that Wiley Drake knows how to draw media attention.
Wiley Drake
|
Three of the ten most-viewed articles on ABP’s website between Jan. 1 and Dec. 30, 2009, featured controversies surrounding the outspokenly conservative California pastor and former Southern Baptist Convention officer. But the other top stories — measured in terms of pageviews as compiled by Google Analytics — covered a broad array of issues. They ranged from tragedies such as a church-bus accident and the accidental death of a Georgia pastor at the hands of police to Baptist theological skirmishes over women in ministry and homosexuality.
The No. 1 story, “Drake, former SBC officer, said he’s praying for Obama to die,” June 3; the No. 3 story, “African-American pastor says SBC leaders should repudiate Drake,” June 4; and the No. 8 story, “Former SBC officer says Tiller murder answer to prayer,” June 2 were a trilogy of stories that, over the three successive days on which they were published, earned tens of thousands of pageviews from ABP readers. All three stemmed from comments that Drake made on a radio show in the wake of the May 31 murder of abortion provider George Tiller in the narthex of his Wichita, Kan., church.
Drake said that he did not condone the murder of the doctor — one of the nation’s last providers of a controversial late-term abortion procedure — but that he would be dishonest if he said he had not been praying for, or rejoicing about, Tiller’s death. A day later, interviewed about the subject on a national Fox News Radio program, Drake said he was also praying for President Obama’s death.
In response, several prominent Baptists, including African-American Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Dwight McKissic, called on SBC leaders to denounce Drake explicitly for his statements.
The No. 2 story, “Fear Not: What does virtual rumor-mongering say about Christians?” was published Oct. 19 as part of a feature-story package on Christians and truth-telling. Its popularity was boosted by several well-read blogs linking to it.
The No. 4 story, “SBC messengers sever ties with Texas church over gay members,” June 23, stemmed from a lengthy controversy at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth over its acceptance of openly gay people and couples as members in good standing. SBC officials warned Broadway last year that the church would have to prove its own innocence as to why it was not in violation of a convention rule that bans churches that endorse, condone or affirm homosexuality. Although leaders of the church — which historically was prominent in Southern Baptist life and was still the church home to a handful of professors at nearby Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary — attempted to convince the convention’s Executive Committee not to recommend Broadway’s ouster, they were unsuccessful.
The No. 5 story, “Episcopal presiding bishop terms individualistic salvation ‘heresy,’” was published July 9 and dealt with comments by the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA at the denomination’s triennial meeting. They caused a nationwide firestorm of controversy among Episcopalians and other Christians. Katharine Jefferts Schori had said one of the problems Episcopalians were facing was “the great Western heresy — that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.” After coming under heavy critical fire, she protested that her words were taken out of context and that she was merely warning Episcopalians not to over-emphasize the individual aspects of Christian salvation while discounting the corporate aspects of it.
Nora Lozano
|
The No. 6 most-read ABP story of 2009, “Scholar says Baptists neglect lessons from Virgin Mary,” June 30, also stemmed from controversy over remarks uttered to a denominational gathering by a theologian who said her critics had misunderstood her intent and taken her words out of context. Nora Lozano, a Mexican American who teaches at the Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio, presented a paper to colleagues during the Baptist World Alliance annual gathering in late July in the Netherlands. In her speech, she said that many Latino Baptists have, in overreaction to Catholicism’s cult of the Virgin Mary, virtually ignored the biblical character of Jesus’ mother. A re-examination of Mary’s role for Baptists was warranted, she said — and could serve as a bridge to Catholics.
The No. 7 story, “Pastor says National Guard saved lives following wreck of church bus,” July 13, was breaking-news coverage of a tragic church-bus accident that claimed the lives of two youths traveling to a Passport mission camp from the First Baptist Church of Shreveport, La.
The No. 9 story, “Georgia Baptist pastor killed in botched drug sting,” Sept. 3, was breaking-news coverage of another tragedy. Police shot into the fleeing automobile driven by pastor Jason Ayers, striking him and resulting in his death, Sept. 1. His family members and parishioners at Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Ga., demanded answers to why undercover police approached, and then shot into, a fleeing car when Ayers was not a suspect in any crime and was not armed. A grand jury was later appointed to investigate the case, but declined Dec. 18 to press charges against the officers involved.
Julie Pennington-Russell
|
The No. 10 story, “Georgia Baptists cut ties with church led by woman pastor,” was published Nov. 16 and involved a Georgia controversy of another sort. Messengers to the Georgia Baptist Convention drew nationwide attention when they voted — without apparent opposition — to withdraw fellowship from the First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga., just outside Atlanta, because it had a woman as its senior pastor. The 2,700-member church voted to call Julie Pennington-Russell in 2007, making it by far the largest church of Southern Baptist heritage to hire a female senior pastor.
The Georgia state convention is dominated by conservatives, the vast majority of whom oppose women in senior positions of church leadership. One of the many issues that divided moderate Baptists from the conservatives who took control of the SBC in the 1980s and 1990s, the controversy over women in ministry began trickling down to state conventions in more recent years.
-30-
Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.