About thirty years ago a few ultra conservative Southern Baptists and independent Baptists decided to gain control of the Southern Baptist Convention and make it over in their own image.  They crisscrossed the nation holding rallies and motivating messengers and succeeded.  Since then a small group has been in control.  This small group of insiders may legitimately be referred to as the rulers, for indeed this is how they function.  The rulers have decided among themselves who would be elected each year as president of the convention, who would head the various seminaries and mission boards and who would serve as trustees of these institutions.  Only those completely loyal to the rulers were selected to serve.  Within the deliberations of the boards and committees, it was denominational suicide, (i.e. career ruining for pastors) to openly challenge the rulers.  Dissent was quickly squashed.

            During the past couple of years something happened over which the rulers have no control.  Personal weblogs appeared.  A weblog, which is usually shortened to “blog,” is an Internet website created by an individual where regular entries are made (such as in a journal or diary) which are presented in reverse chronological order, that is the most recent entry appears first. Anyone may access the blog and respond to it. 

Bob Allen in an article posted on Ethics.Daily.com  (July 17) says, “There has always been a grapevine in Baptist life, but with implementation of the blogosphere information once privy only to insider elites can now be readily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.”  Some of the younger pastors and leaders began discussing Convention matters on their blogs.  Concern was expressed over further narrowing the parameter of acceptable doctrine and, thereby, the continued narrowing of the conventions constituency. 

            The rulers attempted to squelch such discussions of Convention related matters, but failed.  The blogs have sparked a call for greater diversity in the Convention, and diversity in leadership.  At the annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Greensboro this June, for the first time in years, more than one candidate was nominated for president, and the winner, pastor Frank Page of First Baptist in Taylors, S.C., was not the choice of the rulers.

            Does this signal a change in the direction of the Convention toward more openness and diversity?  Only time will tell.  Granted, the SBC will never again be as open and diverse as in the 60’s and 70’s, but hopefully this is the beginning of a movement back toward the center where most of the people in the pew are.

But don’t expect the rulers to lay aside their control easily.  Instead, they are more likely to revive their political machine and begin recruiting messengers who will return absolute control to them.  Having seen their zeal and competence in political campaigning  a couple of decades ago, they will most likely succeed.