Joy Fenner Elected President of BGCT

Joy Fenner was just elected President of BGCT making her the first female in Texas Baptist history to hold this position.

The total vote was:

Joy Fenner: 900 votes
David Lowrie: 840 votes

The Baptist Standard story is here.

Read here for background.

Disgruntled dissenter David Montoya is not unexpectedl disturbed at today's historic outcome. Over at his blog Spiritual Samurai, Montoya writes:

The shadow convention is alive and well in the BGCT. It is a good day because Joy is a wonderful person, it is bad because Texas Baptists will continue to get more of the same.

Charles Wade has won the day. Rejoice Otto. Rejoice Jon Becker. I will spend the rest of the convention in mourning.David Lowrie: 840 (48.5%)

Joy's election is good because she is wonderful but the outcome is bad because the "status quo" has prevailed? Montoya is making little sense these days. A majority of messengers to annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas cast their ballots for Joy Fenner and he whines about a "shadow convention." Blame your fellow messengers sitting among you, David.

Straw men are cheap and dishonest.

Amarillo - A Texas Baptist Recipe For Disaster

Texas Baptists will converge in Amarillo next Monday and Tuesday for the Annual Meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. This years Annual Meeting will feature Purpose-Driven Pastor Rick Warren and a contentious election between the potential first female BGCT President, Joy Fenner, and West Texas pastor David Lowrie.

Fenner is running on a platform that would continue to emphasize missions and ministry.

Lowrie's platform is to bring the BGCT "back to the middle."

And now we meet Rick Davis.

Rick Davis is the pastor First Baptist Church, Brownwood, Texas. Rick is also a blogger. Some describe Rick as a "man of integrity." I've heard others use the word "disgruntled." I don't know Rick personally (though he's always been quite cordial to me) but whatever the case may be, Rick's blog is read by many Baptists across the great state of Texas.

Judging a persons influence is a tricky task. In terms of influence, a large readership may not mean much or it may mean everything. Who knows? But Rick Davis is a dissenter. He's been doing a great deal of dissenting over the past year. I'm reminded of the words of the late Foy Valentine - a great Texas Baptist indeed! Dr. Valentine once described the Baptist dissenter as "the outsider, who yaps at the outside...drinking a little whiskey, and privately just doing his own thing. They have some influence, to be sure, but it's really pretty peripheral."

Minus the whiskey reference, I suspect Foy's quote might sum up the influence of Dr. Rick Davis. But I could very well be wrong? Keeping that in mind, I'd like to point out that Rick recently endorsed a candidate to be the next President of the BGCT.

Who? David Lowrie.

Not exactly a shocker to say the least. Here's the endorsement:

So, today, squaring tiny shoulders, with grim determination, I personally endorse Dr. David Lowrie of First Baptist Church, Canyon, Texas, for president of the BGCT. I endorse him for two terms, in fact, because few of us were in the room when the decision was made BGCT presidents would take one term, not two.....

If apathy is the winner, all who might join us are the losers. We are now in need of a statesman who will reach out to all the bodies left rotating in the diminished Texas circle. Before the energy in the midst of the circle flames out forever, someone must emerge with a firm grasp of reality, beholden to none but the Center Flame and eager for forward movement.

We probably do not dare hope for peace in our time. The cold wars are the longest, for they are measured in influence rather than territory. No treaty is likely to hold when divided cultures live in close physical proximity with totally divergent philosophies and a bloody history.

In a follow-up post, Rick felt the need to defend Lowrie in a post entitled David Lowrie is not a Neo-Con, Right-Wing Fundamentalist who will seek to return us to the fell clutches of the SBC

David Lowrie is, has been and will be what we have said for years we wanted. He keeps focused on the main thing, is beholden to no group to the exclusion of all others and will hold out a hand to all of us, while holding a fist to none of us.

I have taken him on in this space about some of his early comments. He answered all the things I asked, not always to my liking, but in a mature, thoughtful manner. David is open to all of us.

David Lowrie is beholden to no group to the exclusion of all others? And will hold out a hand to all of us? Please. Is this the same David Lowrie who has promised to "stop the drift away from the SBC toward the CBF" because such as a drift has "undermined our effectiveness." Is this the same Davis Lowrie who honestly believes that Texas Baptists are left-leaning and need to "get back to a more centrist position" ??? Ridiculous.

Lowrie has yet to affirm BGCT-CBF cooperation. From all of his interviews and comments, Lowrie has not once affirmed such cooperation or spoken positively of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Why? Davis himself acknowledges that not all of Lowrie's answers have been satisfactory. So how exactly can we be assured that David Lowrie will not exclude any group of Texas Baptists?

We can't.

And I think that's why Rick Davis is forced to constantly defend Lowrie against charges that he's a right-winger, a funny-mentalist. David Lowrie is a hard pill to swallow. Given multiple chances and Lowrie can't even affirm existing relationships between the CBF and BGCT. And then there's the talk of PARITY. Moderates remember all too well a Baptist by the name of Paige Patterson who was clamoring for "PARITY" exactly 25 years ago. We all know how that ended.....

Moving on again....

With that said, I - Big Daddy Weave - offer my blog support for Joy Fenner. She's qualified and nobody contests that. She's a WMUer with a passion for missions and ministry. And it's about dang time that Texas Baptists elect a female as President of the BGCT. It's embarrassingly past time.

On a concluding note, if official BGCT participation in the New Baptist Covenant is taken to a floor vote - I hope Texas Baptists will affirm the NBC and proceed to make their hotel reservations in Atlanta. David Coffey of the Baptist World Alliance will be speaking on the 29th. Inviting the BWA President to speak at your Annual Meeting and then voting against the BWA's most important and historically significant North American project would be disastrous. Let's hope messengers to Amarillo have more sense than that.....

Interview w/ BGCT Presidential Candidate David Lowrie

Rick Davis, a Texas Baptist pastor and blogger, has posted online a short interview with BGCT Presidential Candidate David Lowrie. I have mentioned Mr. Lowrie in a previous post.

This interview seems to be a result of a quote by Lowrie several weeks ago in which he promised to "stop the drift away from the SBC toward the CBF" as President of the BGCT. Continuing, Lowrie asserted that such a drift has "undermined our effectiveness" and Texas Baptists need to "get back to a more centrist position."

According to Rick Davis, Lowrie was quoted correctly and stands firmly behind his words.

Rick's questions are in bold, Lowrie's answers are in block quotes, and my response is after the interview.....

David, did you say you would try to stop the drift from the SBC to the CBF in BGCT life? If so, how would you do this? With personal influence, or through committee appointments, or through influencing hires at the staff level? Or how?

I would seek to stop the drift at the beginning by my personal influence. I would seek to build good working relationships with all our partners in global ministry. I would not seek to burn any bridges, but rather to restore them. I would also encourage that our committee appointment process would reflect the face of the BGCT. Since the majority of our churches give to the SBC, I think our committees should reflect this reality. I believe we need to affirm the SBC causes that we can support in good faith. On the staff level, I would encourage them to look for points of connection and cooperation with the SBC and its ministries. Where we can work together (i.e. Disaster Relief) let's work together. Where we cannot work together, then let's part ways but continue to work for Kingdom purposes on separate fronts. I love the BGCT and I love the SBC, and have since childhood. I realize I live in a new world, but I also know I am still part of the same Kingdom I have always served. The Kingdom of God is much bigger and broader than any of could ever imagine. I believe in a Big House and a Big Tent.

Will you speak forcefully about the ultra neo-fundamentalist drift in the SBC, which has left many of functionally without a home, as to national conventions?

I have attended as many SBC conventions as I could over the past twenty five years. Therefore I speak out of my own personal experiences and not what I have read. I will admit that I have had great difficulty with much of what has happened over the past twenty-five years. I did not always vote with the majority. I lost many votes, but my heart fo the Kingdom and the nations kept me involved. The face of Lottie Moon is much different today. I see her face in the young mssionaries around the world who are giving their lives for the sake of the gospel. I have heard that I am a closet fundamentalist, but I doubt the fundamentalists would claim based on my actions and my actions and my strong support of the BGCT and its openness. I have seen the ugly face of fundamentalism up close when my father was blackballed from a position with a SBC seminary. I fought it then and will fight it in the future if necessary. The important thing to remember is that we are still on the same team even when we don't agree. I believe that our strongest movements are built around relationships, not rules and regulations, so I would seek to build strong, healthy relationships with those in power and would seek to find ways we could work together on Kingdom terms.

In the first question, it appears that David Lowrie supports a Big Tent BGCT. However, Lowrie fails to affirm BGCT-CBF cooperation. From all I've read, Lowrie has not once affirmed such cooperation or spoken positively of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Why? On which SBC ministry can Lowrie NOT cooperate? And on which CBF endeavor will he cooperate? Are there in fact any?

At first glance, Lowrie's second answer sounds a wee-bit better. But honestly, it astounds me even more. Speaking from personal experience, if your pops was blackballed, why haven't you seen the LIGHT? My gosh. His trite ditty about supporting the missionaries is weak. Lottie Moon is not the only missions offering taken up by Baptists. The SBC isn't the only Baptist organization that sends out missionaries. Lowrie sees the face of Lottie Moon today in the faces of young missionaries around the world. Yet in the current SBC, Lottie likely would be turned down by the International Mission Board. Lottie liked to preach ya know. The Apostle Paul wouldn't qualify either - so I'm told. But anyways....

Back to Lowrie's first response.

All his talk about PARITY is UTTER NONSENSE. Pull a Baptist history text out of your bookcase. Look up PARITY in the index and you'll find a picture of PAIGE PATTERSON. 25 years ago on November 24, 1982, Patterson presented a paper in which he expressed his desire for "parity" or equal representation of inerrantists in denominational structures. Today, we know Paige Patterson & Company wanted CONTROL not PARITY. Now, Lowrie is singing the parity tune...

Same song. Different verse?

UPDATE: In the comment section of the aforementioned post of Rick Davis, Lowrie writes that "there is no question that the extremes of fundamentalism moved the SBC away from the center of who we are as Texas Baptists....Most of the challenges we face in this state have little to do with national convention politics (SBC or CBF)."

So, Lowrie acknowledges that the current fundamentalist-led SBC is not representative of "who we are as Texas Baptists." Yet, he wants to "stop the drift away from the SBC toward the CBF." And Lowrie wants "parity" and a return to a more "centrist position."

Does any of that make sense? If the BGCT's challenges have little or nothing to do with the SBC or CBF, why is Lowrie concerned about the so-called CBF drift? Seriously, is "centrist" West Texan for "ultra-conservative" ???

Lowrie concludes his comment with these words:

We have an elephant in the living room, but there may be more than one. The only way to release this herd and send them on their way is for us to start a conversation that leads to concert of effort for the sake of the Kingdom.

Folks that other elephant alluded to is a moderate Baptist......