Imagine, for a moment, an old and well-established organization that has been run by the same crowd for decades. This crowd has set the rules for who gains entry to the corridors of power and who has a say in setting policy.
But lately things have been going downhill for this organization. The numbers are down all across the board -- people, contributions, etc. The establishment's answer is to do more of the same.
Grumbling and dissent spread. A community of bloggers springs up. Connected like never before, this band of disaffected outsiders rises up and puts its muscle behind a candidate who promises to open the organization up to grassroots involvement while reasserting the organization's bedrock principles.
Sound familiar?
Yes, I am speaking of the Southern Baptist Convention -- where the recent election of Frank Page had them dancing in the aisles.
Well, OK, not dancing. But there is a breeze of change blowing through the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
Some in the fledgling Baptist blogging community -- which has gained prominence in the last year -- have felt there has been a narrowing focus on nonessential aspects of doctrine within Baptist ranks.
On the eve of this year's annual meeting of Southern Baptists, Micah Fries said that as a 27-year-old pastor in St. Joseph, Missouri, he often feels left out of influential SBC events.
But with the June 14 election in Greensboro, North Carolina, of Page, a self-described "normal" pastor, Fries and other young pastors and bloggers say they have greater hopes for inclusion. "It's a whole new world," said Fries. "There's no small circle of leadership. There's no attempt to divide and conquer. He wants others to get involved."
Sounds all vaguely familiar to me. A "focus on nonessential aspects" and a policy of "divide and conquer."
Loyal supporters feeling left out of the decision-making process.
And when the hammer came down, it was a shocker as the Rev. Ronnie Floyd of Arkansas was defeated:
Associated Baptist Press said Page's election signaled a defeat for the SBC's conservative powerbrokers, who have hand-picked all but one president since 1979. Only Orlando pastor Jim Henry, elected in 1994 and 1995, lacked the endorsement of the SBC's conservative leaders.
No word yet on whether Rev. Floyd intends to run again as a petitioning Baptist.
And the Baptist bloggers did it in a lot less time than it took for Bush to screw up the country:
Southern Baptist-focused blogs began popping up about a year ago, when a group of younger (under 40) Baptists frustrated at the inaccessibility of the levers of power began meeting to discuss their concerns. Suddenly about a dozen blogs bloomed, perhaps the most influential being sbcoutpost.com, run by Rev. Marty Duren, a younger Georgia pastor. Last year they publicized a gathering that eventually put together a manifesto called the Memphis Declaration, which consisted of a list of Public Repentences, many of them for the SBC's arrogance within and outside its organization, and even included a repentance for "having condemned those without Christ before we have loved them."
This week's winner, Page, could hardly be called a young Turk, at age 53. Yet the Declaration signers clearly saw him as the most attractive candidate, and the blogs posted positively. Says Bob Allen, a veteran Baptist journalist and now the managing editor of Ethicsdaily.com, part of a more moderate Baptist group that pays close attention to the SBC, scene, "Without the bloggers Page wouldn't have been elected. He was a relative unknown, and the bloggers really have created the whole conversation. It's very much a generation shift."
Heck, the Baptist bloggers even have attitude and a disdain for the Baptist MSM:
While at the convention, a state baptist newspaper editor, speaking with DOM Paul Fries, made this observation: "Blogs are internet graffiti."
Pardon me while I grab another can of Krylon...
You can see what's coming though, can't you? The crusty old Baptist powerbrokers are not going to take this lying down. Pretty soon the knives will come out for this band of Baptist bloggers.
Who do they think they are anyway -- acting like a bunch of Holy Lambs!
So what does all this mean? Is the Southern Baptist Convention lurching to the left? Is Frank Page a Baptist Howard Dean?
Umm ... no.
Page, as E. J. Dionne noted, represents the victory of the right over the far right.
No, this is not some liberal victory. Indeed, the Baptist Press reported Page as going out of his way to tell reporters that he was not elected "to somehow undo the conservative resurgence" in the convention. But he also signaled that the spirit he hopes to embody is quite different from that of the angry, right-wing, politicized preacher who has been a stock figure in American life for more than two decades.
"I believe in the word of God," Page said. "I'm just not mad about it."
Call it the kinder, gentler Southern Baptist Convention.
Yes, the convention gathering in Greensboro, N.C., was still a bastion of Republican fervor. Condi Rice got a standing ovation when she talked about the necessity of the war in Iraq. But they did shoot down a proposed "exit strategy" from the public schools.
That's what passes as progressivism in the SBC today. But who knows -- maybe one day someone will start a new blog called The Dancing Baptist. And the next thing you know ....
p.s. Gotta end this diary with my favorite Baptist joke:
Q: Why do Baptists not approve of premarital sex?
A: Because it leads to dancing.