BAPTIST PRESS REPORT OF WADE ELECTION 

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt form SBC's Baptist Press. Note how Wade is put in a negative light in relationship the SBC.

Wade was among the organizers of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a denomination-like organization formed in 1991 in protest of the Southern Baptist Convention's leadership, and was co-chairman of the steering committee for the CBF's 1992 general assembly, a member of the CBF's Coordinating Council from 1991-94 and a program leader at the 1999 CBF general assembly in Birmingham, Ala. In 1998, the year after he concluded his BGCT presidency, Wade was among the speakers in a series of CBF rallies across Texas led by CBF coordinator Daniel Vestal and joined by a number of CBF staff members and Texas Baptist pastors. The 37 rallies from April 20-24 were titled, "Celebrate the Spirit; Learn the Truth." Wade also has been an executive committee member of Texas Baptists Committed, an organization that has been strongly critical of the SBC. In the conservative-moderate campaign for the BGCT presidency in 1995, Wade told a rally at a Dallas church that if he, as the moderate nominee, was not elected, "It'll be a disaster for Texas," according to a report in the Dallas Morning News. In 1997, the Dallas Morning News reported that Wade had dismissed rumors that he might run for the SBC presidency.

"I don't feel a part of it anymore. It doesn't represent what matters to me," he told the paper. "I can remember when I almost thought the kingdom of God rose and fell on Southern Baptist borders. I'm better that I no longer think that."

October 1999