I have just returned from the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., with a heart filled with thanksgiving for the work to which God has called us and for the joy that we have in serving Him together.
Don WiltonI was delighted and overjoyed at the election of my brother and friend, Dr. Frank Page, to be our leader. This was, I believe, a very significant moment in the history of our Southern Baptist denomination.
The conservative resurgence, which began in 1979, has been established and has taken root to the point at which we are no longer battling with one another over the issues of the inerrancy of the word of God, and we certainly are not having to deal with some of the most divisive and counter-biblical issues such as the condoning of homosexual sin.
And, so, the question pertains to this presidential election. Three fine candidates – all conservative, all soul winners and all Southern Baptists to their toenails. I believe the grassroots of the Southern Baptist denomination voted for Frank Page, not because of individual personality or politics, but because of methodology and who we are and how we do things together as Southern Baptists in our united cooperative means of sharing the message of the Lord Jesus Christ with a lost world.
I believe Frank Page is the man for this hour. His church has led our state by example and we now have a leader who is able to lead us all together, not just by word but in deed. As president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, I pledge my prayerful and practical support to our convention president during the months that lie ahead, and I know you will do the same. I pray for God’s great wisdom to rest upon Him and that His grace alone would be conferred upon him. For without the guarantee of God’s presence, the placing of His name, the conferring of His grace and the gaze of His eyes and His heart, neither Frank Page nor Don Wilton, nor my church, nor your church, nor our South Carolina Baptists, nor anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus can amount to anything.