Political
Power and Payoffs
By Forrest Newton,
The Voice of Mainstream Louisiana Baptists
Shrewd politicians and power-hungry people
know: political power does not require a majority vote. Democratic
organizations are especially vulnerable to takeovers. Control
of a nation, or a denomination, can be grasped by power-hungry
people with the help of a small corps of followers. Look at the
history of the Southern Baptist Convention, for example.
The
SBC currently has twelve (12) boards of directors/trustees. Total
membership on those twelve boards is 623! A Committee on Nominations
has seventy (70) members. Additionally, the President of the SBC
appoints five (5) committees with a total membership of 129. One
of the committees, the Committee on Committees, has 70 members.
Total the numbers and it becomes clear that the president of the
SBC and 822 other persons have the power to control the total
life of the SBC!
Take
the analysis one step farther. The Committee on Committees (70
persons) is appointed by the president of the convention (1 person)
and nominates the Committee on Nominations (70 persons). The latter
committee, in turn, nominates persons for all vacancies on the
twelve boards of the directors/trustees!
Add
another factor into the equation. Attendance at the annual SBC
has taken a dive with the rise of Fundamentalist leadership. The
high attendance for an annual SBC convention was 45,519 in Dallas
in 1985. The lowest attendance for the SBC annual convention occurred
just three years later (1988) in Salt Lake City as the Fundamentalist
takeover neared completion. The registration total for that year
was 8,852. The numbers have yet to rebound. Figures for 1996 in
New Orleans were 13,700. Figures for 1997 in Dallas were 12,420.
Some reports for the recent 2000 SBC meeting in Orlando indicate
messenger registration totals as low as 10,000.
The
way the SBC operates makes matters worse. Items that deal with
the work of an agency or institution are referred, procedurally,
to the chief executive of that body and/or to its trustees for
consideration and reporting at the next annual convention. Thus,
the powers that control the SBC control the work of the individual
agencies and institutions.
In
a word, the system is closed!
What
happens when a group with a political agenda grabs control?
A
political spoils system and political patronage results! Those
who grab control believe that the offices and their benefits are
the sole property of their faction; and, they believe that those
positions are to be bestowed for their own advantage. They practice
political patronage. They control appointments and the election
process. They oust people who are their "enemies" from
office and replace them with "their own kind." They
use the patronage to put into place those who support their policies.
That
has happened in the Southern Baptist Convention and that is the
way business is conducted in the national body in AD 2000. Get
ready for the same system in Louisiana! Look at the evidence.
A
small group, composed primarily of preachers, decided to take
control of the SBC. The group included Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler,
Adrian Rogers, Charles Stanley, Jerry Vines, Jimmy Draper, Morris
Chapman, Bailey Smith, Ed Young, Richard Land, O. S. Hawkins,
and Tom Eliff and a group that likely totaled no more than eighty
(80) persons.
Look
at some of the results. One: nine of the preachers named
in the preceding paragraph were elected as president of the Southern
Baptist Convention!
Two:
Patterson, Draper, Land, Hawkins, and Chapman were rewarded with
high-paying denominational posts when their predecessors were
forced out, fired, or retired!
Three:
Rogers was named to the Southeastern Seminary board that elected
Patterson as president.
Four:
Rogers, Stanley, and Young were named to the SBC Peace Committee.
Rogers and Land were named to the Baptist Faith and Message "study
committee," with Rogers as its chair!
Five:
Pressler was named first to the Executive Committee of the SBC
and then to the Foreign Mission Board, with no lapse of time between
appointments. He has also been recently named as an SBC representative
to the Baptist World Alliance.
Six:
Richard Land was named to the 1997 Baptist Faith and Message Study
Committee that added a highly controversial and political article
to the 1963 document. See it for what it is and call it what it
is!
Add
another piece of information. The 1999 SBC Annual indicates that
the following persons are "SBC Members of the Baptist World
Alliance General Council" as "Members by Nomination
of the SBC"-Chapman, Draper, Hawkins, Land, and Patterson.
See it for what it is and call it what it is! Get ready for more
of the same in Louisiana.
The
preceding paragraphs report but a small part of the story. At
the SBC level, relatives of Paige Patterson have been named to
several posts: Chuck Kelley, Patterson's brother-in-law, to the
presidency of New Orleans Baptist Seminary, to the Resolutions
Committee, and to the Baptist Faith and Message study committee.
Charles S. Kelley, Patterson's father-in-law, to the Midwestern
Seminary Board; and Russell Kammerling, another brother-in-law
of Patterson, as a trustee with the International Mission Board.
Patterson's wife, Dorothy Patterson, was named to the 1997 Baptist
Faith and Message Study Committee that proposed an addition to
the 1963 document. See it for what it is and call it what it is!
What we have in the Southern Baptist Convention is a tightly run
political machine that, in recent years, has taken on the appearance
of a family business. A spoils system akin to those in the secular
political realm is firmly in place. Political patronage and blood
ties are the orders of the day! See it for what it is and call
it what it is!
The
political system at work in the Southern Baptist Convention is
exactly what the Fundamentalists have in mind for the Louisiana
Baptist Convention. Do we want a closed political system in the
LBC? "No!" a thousand times over! Do we want the LBC
to be a political province of the SBC Fundamentalists? "No!"
a thousand times over!
The
good news is this: we do not have to be pawns in the hands of
power-hungry Fundamentalists! We can stop the advance of the Louisiana
Inerrancy Fellowship and its political operatives. The Louisiana
Baptist Convention on November 13-14, 2000 is the place to shout
"No!" with the united voice of our ballots.
September
2000
|