EDITORIAL: Look past gender toward priorities

Posted: 11/02/07

EDITORIAL:
Look past gender toward priorities

The 2008 Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting came off much more peacefully than prognosticators predicted. To pick a word from this space in last week’s paper, messengers in Amarillo “behaved.” More than that, they represented the best of Baptist ideals. Even when they disagreed, they did so agreeably, and the atmosphere in the assembly hall and hallways was warm and harmonious.

Many Texas Baptists contributed to this positive atmosphere, but none moreso than the president and presidential candidates. President Steve Vernon embodied a genial, caring and helpful Christian spirit. And presidential contenders Joy Fenner and David Lowrie elevated cordiality to new levels. They all set standards of grace.

Our guest speakers, Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey and pastor/author Rick Warren, helped us look beyond ourselves to greater issues. Coffey reminded the BGCT of its place in world Baptist affairs, and Warren helped us see how our present and momentary challenges are insignificant compared to a lost and hurting world.

The 2008 annual meeting will be remembered as the time when the BGCT made history by electing its first female president. Some people predict that decision will cost the convention $2 million to $5 million. Their thinking goes like this: Churches are fed up with spoon-fed “diversity” that produced the first Hispanic, African-American and woman presidents in the past four years. They’re particularly galled that a woman was elected president, citing this as the last straw of “liberalism,” the weight that broke their backs of participation.

You can understand this logic. Some churches and pastors have been put out with the BGCT for a variety of reasons. Our relationship with the Southern Baptist Convention, historic election politics, the Valley church-starting scandal and lack of confidence in the budget come readily to mind. So, anybody looking for a reason to leave can cite this election as grounds for departure.

But I don’t think the loss will be that great. Here’s why:

• BGCT Baptists are fair. The folks who have been irritated by the BGCT’s single-party politics got what they wanted—a wide-open election. We had two excellent, gracious candidates in Lowrie and Fenner. Texas Baptists who cared enough to show up and vote showed up and voted. The vast majority of Texas Baptists believe fair is fair, and they respect the decision of the majority.

• BGCT Baptists are biblical. Some say multitudes of churches will find election of a woman president theologically offensive. How’s that? We elected a convention president, not a convention pastor. Even the Southern Baptist Convention, which takes a strict stand on women in ministry, reserves the restriction to women pastors. Theologically literate Baptists know the concept of a convention is extra-biblical. It just isn’t there. A convention isn’t a church, and a president isn’t a pastor. So, most Baptists who don’t like the idea of a woman president also realize they can’t argue against it on biblical grounds.

• Women won’t stand for it. Fenner’s resume is terrific presidential material—20 years as executive director of a missions organization, 14 years as a foreign missionary, a lifetime of selfless service to Christ’s church. Women in all kinds of BGCT churches are not inclined to let their men punish the state convention for elevating one of their own to this honorable post. Fenner isn’t just an exemplary woman in ministry; she’s an exemplary minister. Women in our churches can be counted on to stand with their sister, who is a worthy role model for Baptist daughters from Booker to Brownsville.

Next year’s annual meeting will focus on the budget—elevating and appropriating it responsibly. In the meantime, let’s focus on the grandeur of our priorities, not the gender of our president.

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard.