SAN ANTONIO (ABP) — Although the Southern Baptists re-elected as their president a pastor supported by denominational reformers, they defeated the reformers' candidate for first vice president.
Messengers at the denomination's annual meeting re-elected South Carolina pastor Frank Page June 12 to a traditional second one-year term as SBC president. Page ran unopposed.
However, messengers also elected conservative leader Jim Richards, executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, as first vice president. He defeated David Rogers, a Southern Baptist missionary and son of late SBC hero Adrian Rogers. Richards received 2,177 votes to Rogers' 966 votes.
Richards had the support of the denomination's establishment, while many reform-minded younger pastors promoted Rogers' nomination.
Page's re-election ended speculation that he would encounter opposition for a second term. Page's election as president last year over Ronnie Floyd of Arkansas and Jerry Sutton of Tennessee was considered an upset in most SBC circles, since he was not the choice of key SBC leaders.
Last year's election was also considered a victory for supporters of the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists' unified plan of giving.
Page, pastor of First Baptist Church, Taylors, S.C., has been a leading advocate of the Cooperative Program. His church gave $629,505 or 12.5 percent of its undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program in 2006, according to the latest annual church profile.
Dale Morell, pastor of Maine Street Baptist Church in Brunswick, Maine, nominated Page for his second term, for which he thanked messengers.
“I will serve for yet another year so that somehow I might bring glory to our Lord, to lift high his name, to continue to attempt to bring us together for the task of world missions and evangelization,” Page told messengers. “I will not back up, back down, or back away from that which God has called and that in which we must be involved.”
During a press conference after his election, Page said he tried to hold true to his pledge last year to be more inclusive while at the same time hold to his conservative beliefs.
“I said last year that I am a conservative and that I am in no way trying to undo what some have called the conservative resurgence,” Page said. “However, I have tried to be irenic and to be kind, and I will continue to do that. I have said many times that I believe the Bible, I'm just not angry about it. I stand by that. Though there have been some who don't appreciate that comment, so be it.”
In response to a question as to whether his unopposed election was a sign of acceptance by SBC leaders who opposed him last year or an affirmation that he did a good job, Page acknowledged that some would have liked to run against him.
He noted, however, that it is a tradition that the incumbent stay for a second year, and those who wanted to oppose him probably saw that effort as fruitless.
“While I wish it was because I had just done a good job or they all loved me now, the truth is there was a calculated analysis and in that calculation it was decided best not to [oppose the election] this year,” Page said.
For the second vice president position, messengers chose Eric Redmond. He is the pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Temple Hills, Md., near Washington, D.C.
Two other officers were re-elected without opposition: John Yeats, interim pastor of Ridge Avenue Baptist Church in West Monroe, La., as recording secretary; and Jim Wells, director of missions for Tri-County Baptist Association in southwest Missouri, as registration secretary.
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