Dr. Morris Chapman on SBC President

For the benefit of our SBC readers, here's an excellent article on the nomination for SBC President by Dr. Morris Chapman.

http://www.morrischapman.com/article.asp?id=50

As I stated in the last article I wrote on this at Strange Baptist Fire, addressing Dr. Ronnie Floyd's nomination, my personal overriding concern for the SBC isn't so much who is elected as it is the election process itself. There are 43,000 churches and 16.4 million members (assuming that they all show up to church; if we go by attendance, the SBC is about 1/3 to 1/2 that size), why do the same personalities keep rotating in and out of office on the boards? Why do SBC presidents and prominent pastors wind up as executives of agencies? Why does the SBC need a megachurch pastor as President every year? Why do Paige Patterson, Johnny Hunt, and Bailey Smith have to give a public nomination to the candidate? If the "Battle for the Bible" is truly over, then why are the elections in the SBC just slightly more free than the elections in Cuba? Is this a function of SBC denominational structure? The SBC is organized very much like the Old South; in the Old South, the political machine often gave its imprimatur. Is this a similar phenomenon, or is there more to it? What about conflicts of interest? Even the wives have been affected. Look at the schedule for the wives' events this coming SBC; almost all the same names that are speaking in workshops at the Pastor's Conference have wives who have planned and are hosting the wives' conference. Those that aren't are closely associated with those who are, and all of these are close to or directly in the Inner Circle, including Ronnie Floyd and his wife. If another candidate or candidates for President is nominated from the floor, it is extremely doubtful he will have the kind of visibility in Greensboro as Ronnie Floyd and even Mrs. Floyd! That's like having a massive convention where the candidates for US president are all present but only one gets to speak to the people. That's a big no-no in the world, and here the SBC seems to be going down a path even the world recognizes is unfair. These things should not be, and that goes for whoever is on the ballot, not just Ronnie Floyd.

Read Dr. Morris Chapman's article. It is most insightful. He used to be SBC President himself. He knows what he's saying.