In a major populist upset, Frank Page of South Carolina was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) over two high-profile candidates.
Page, who described his election as a victory for grassroots Baptists, was elected with 50.48 percent of the vote on a first ballot against Arkansas pastor Ronnie Floyd and Tennessee pastor Jerry Sutton.
Sutton, pastor of Two Rivers Baptist Church, Nashville, received 2,168 votes, or 24.08 percent. Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church, Springdale, Ark., received 2,247 votes, or 24.95 percent. Page, pastor of First Baptist Church, Taylors, S.C., received 4,546 votes — just 65 more than necessary for a first-ballot victory.
The presidential election was the first highly contested presidential race at an SBC annual meeting since 1994 in Orlando, Fla., when Jim Henry, now retired as pastor of First Baptist Church there, defeated Alabama’s Fred Wolfe, now of Canton, Ga.
Page succeeds Alabama-native Bobby Welch, pastor of First Baptist Church, Daytona Beach, Fla., who served two terms as president.
Jimmy Jackson, pastor of Whitesburg Baptist Church, Huntsville, in Madison Baptist Association, won the election for first vice president in a runoff.
He received 51.44 percent (1,107 votes) of the vote, edging Mark Dever (47.86 percent, or 1,030 votes), pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington.
On the first ballot, Dever received a plurality of the votes, with 29.72 percent (1,090 votes) to Jackson’s 27.48 percent (1,008 votes). Convention rules state that the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff.
On the first ballot, Kelly J. Burris, senior pastor of Kempsville Baptist Church, Virginia Beach, Va., received 22.76 percent (835), while Keith Fordham, an evangelist from Fayetteville, Ga., and a member of Harp’s Crossing Baptist Church, Fayetteville, Ga., received 19.79 percent (726 votes).
Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church, Buena Park, Calif., was elected to the post of second vice president.
Drake received 50.37 percent of the vote (2,408 votes) on the first ballot over three other nominees — J.D. Greear (1,508 votes), pastor of The Summit Church, Durham, N.C.; Bob Bender (635 votes), pastor of First Baptist Church, Black Forest, in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Jay Adkins (207 votes), pastor of First Baptist Church, Westwego, La.
By acclamation, messengers re-elected John Yeats, director of communications for the Louisiana Baptist Convention and a member of Calvary Baptist Church, Alexandria, La., as recording secretary and Jim Wells, director of missions for Tri County Baptist Association in Nixa, Mo., as registration secretary.
After the election, Page, 53, said he would seek to create a more open SBC, but added: “I’m not trying to undo a conservative movement that I have supported all these years.”
He said he would continue the trend of appointing leaders who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible but who also have “a sweet spirit.”
“I’m an inerrantist. I believe in the Word of God. I’m just not mad about it,” Page said in a post-election news conference.
“I certainly did not expect to be here, so it is sort of a surreal moment for me,” Page, a self-described no-name pastor of a 4,000-member church, told reporters.
He said his election signals a victory for grassroots Baptists who have supported the SBC’s conservative movement but not been involved in leadership before.
“It means the Southern Baptist Convention belongs to the Lord and His people, … and we can do together a lot more and a lot better than we can do separately,” he said.
Page is a graduate of Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, including a doctorate. He grew up in Greensboro, N.C., site of the SBC annual meeting.
(Editors’ Network, BP)
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