by William Thornton » Mon Feb 05, 2018 8:06 am
There has been, for a long time in the SBC, a narrative that the Cals have taken over and this in spite of exactly zero SBC presidents being confirmed five-pointers. No question that younger SBCers are more inclined to be Calvinistic. No question either that the Baptist Faith and Message Statement fits both Cals and Trads. The Trads now have their own theological statement, one adopted by not one SBC entity or at any level of SBC life.
Neither announced candidate has indicated any desire or goal of advancing the cause of one side or the other although some Hemphill supporters are positively gleeful over his nomination. These have expressly stated a goal of another CR type movement in which "year-after-year-after-year" Trad-friendly presidents would be elected and work towards a wholesale replacement of non-Trad trustees, wherever they may be. Hemphill, I expect, will speak to this and deny any involvement. I like him because he did not allow himself to be pushed around as SWBTS president years ago. After he left the seminary a job was created for him at the Executive Committee. He is now a big name at a SC Baptist state school, one that was recently tarnished by scandal, that offers a Trad-friendly experience for ministerial students and others.
The choice, best I can see from this distance, is generational. Greear is 44. Hemphill will be 70 when the SBC meets in June. We dipped back into the boomers and recalled a former mega as IMB president from 2011-2014. Those were in that stretch of years where massive deficits were incurred. The current IMB head had to straighten that mess out. While the position of SBC president doesn't have any administrative duties, my thinking is that it's time for that generational change. Greear's church has more IMB mssys than any other SBC church. The church is one of those multi-site, elder led churches that has an extremely focused mission thrust. I'll vote for Greear like I would have in 2016 had I been present.
My stray thoughts on SBC stuff may be found at my blog,