The SBC: Always the best show in town

I don't think our grand denominationcould stand something like the SBC annual meeting more than a couple of days each year.

A few observations:


Election of Fred Luter was an authentic, unadulterated, genuine moment. We SBCers deserve one of those occasionally.

The name change debate was a curiosity (I watched it live, in my basement of course). The SBC has always been a convention full of  parliamentarians. Barry McCarty is worth the big bucks we pay him.

Face time is always important to some obscure SBCers but we are all equal at the annual meeting and if you can grab a mic you have as much right to display your nonsense as anyone else.

The name non-change vote will be forthcoming but I suppose it will have passed comfortably but not overwhelmingly. Then 90% of us can forget about that and those who have been all exercised about it can find something else to get apoplectic about.

Bryant Wright has always seemed to hit the proper notes. He is easily the best presiding officer since Adrian Rogers.

We will see what Frank Page has in mind on a Calvinist/Traditionalist "panel." There are some traditionalists who are rather militant. I'm not sure where this is going.

While we are at it, I like Wright's gentle admonition of the Calvinists: To our Calvinist friends: A bit of humility would be most welcome. Wonder where he got the idea that such was lacking?

To be fair, Wright's admonition of Traditionalists: It is time to show some respect for those of differing views when it comes to election and when it comes to salvation." 

It will be interesting to see how many votes blogger Dave Miller can pull this morning. He is well known among the blogging tribe and not known as a heavily partisan figure, nor a bomb thrower or troublemaker. If I were present he would have my vote. I like him. He has a sense of humor and he needs encouraging after his beloved Yankees got beaten by the Atlanta Braves last night.

One notable, relevant thing about Fred Luter

Fred Luter (image from BP) is expected to be elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in just a few weeks in New Orleans. If I am there (and it's not looking like I will be) I would be unhesitant in casting my vote in his favor. His election will be notable because he will be the first black president of the SBC.

That's good.

But there is something more notable about Fred Luter that is acutely relevant to the SBC. He is a megachurch pastor and would be the latest in a long string of megapastor elected president of our convention. But he is a megachurch pastor whose church gives an above average percentage to the Cooperative Program. 

This is unusual as these things go.

Fred Luter's church gives about six percent, not a large percentage but quite healthy for a megachurch. His six percent is more than given by our current president, Bryant Wright, whose megachurch is in the 4% range. Previous megachurch pastors who were SBC presidents, Johnny Hunt, Jack Graham, and James Merritt were in the 2% range (although Hunt notably increased his church's CP giving in recent years).

Fred Luter will be the first megachurch SBC president whose CP giving is above the SBC average since Jim Henry back in the mid-1990s.

That is notable.

For all the laments about the decline of the Cooperative Program (we have gone from an average above 10% a generation ago to under 6%) when messengers meet in our annual session they rarely find a megachurch pastor that they are unwilling to elect as president, regardless of the low giving to the Cooperative Program.

Wright was easily elected in 2010 even though alternative candidates far surpassed him in their church's CP giving. That is the usual scenario. I can think of only one megachurch pastor, Ronnie Floyd, whose CP giving was so low (around 0.3%) that it cost him the election (he has since raised it to around 5% last time I checked).

If Southern Baptists are genuinely concerned about falling Cooperative Program giving, one of the ways we ought to express our concern is to consider unelectable any candidate for major denominational office whose church gives less than a threshold percentage. Five percent is a good number, though I made an exception for Bryant Wright who was a little under that.

One of the more ridiculous things regularly heard about the SBC is all the  complaining about megachurches having undue influence, when we regularly elect them to the top SBC office in spite of their low CP giving. 

I hope that Fred Luter's election establishes a precedent in ways other than related to his race. Such would be good for us all.