SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION Exiting leader is voice of conservative convictions

Dr. Jack Graham ends his tenure 25 years after a conservative resurgence.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
In more than one sense, Dr. Jack Graham says, he's been president of the Southern Baptist Convention in a time of war -- not only the war in Iraq, and the worldwide war on terrorism, but a cultural war.
"It's been a privilege to be a voice for the evangelical, conservative, biblical and Christian worldview," said the Rev. Mr. Graham, 53, who wrapped up his two-year term as president when the nation's largest Protestant denomination met this week in Indianapolis.
Throughout his tenure, the pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, has been that conservative voice on issues ranging from Islam to cloning, from missionaries in the Middle East to gay unions. Though not as flamboyant as some of his predecessors, he has spoken with conviction to the pews and to the press, not shying away from beliefs that many non-evangelicals found objectionable.
"I believe evangelical Christians need to speak the truth and not flinch in the face of opposition," he said. "Jesus never promised that life would be easy."
He leaves the presidency a better person and a better pastor, he said, ready to focus solely on a church that has grown by 3,000 members in the last two years, to 23,000. He celebrates his 15th anniversary as pastor of Prestonwood this month.
Praise for his term
Mr. Graham "has represented our convention with dignity and courage," said Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and a former SBC president. "His years will be remembered as years of peace and progress."
His tenure ends exactly 25 years after a watershed meeting in Houston where the fiery "Double-P Texans" -- Patterson and Paul Pressler -- led the conservative resurgence (or takeover, depending on whom you ask) of the now 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention.
Conservatives and moderates were sharply divided on matters of theology and social policy. Theologically, the key disagreement was over biblical inerrancy, which conservatives say is beyond dispute.
The battle continued for years, and Southern Baptists routinely made headlines at their annual meeting -- for boycotting Disney, targeting Jews for evangelism, barring women from the pulpit, and saying each wife should "submit graciously to the leadership of her husband."
Conservative and moderate Baptists have gone their separate ways. Few moderates bother to attend the SBC annual national meeting anymore.
Some states, including Texas, now convene both moderate and conservative conventions (the moderate Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the conservative Southern Baptists of Texas Convention).
Polished leadership
Bill Leonard, dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, said that 25 years after the infighting, many believers are in search of leaders like Mr. Graham -- younger, less flamboyant pastors, typically from big-city churches, who are more polished and less likely to "put their foot in their mouth" than some earlier figures, even as they embrace the same conservative positions.
Mr. Graham's immediate predecessor, the Rev. James Merritt, the head of a megachurch in suburban Atlanta, fits the same mold, Leonard said.
These new leaders, he said, "may have come through the controversy and are very conservative, but they are in churches where the majority of members don't know about the controversy and couldn't care less." The members' identity is with the church, not the denomination, he said.
Robert M. Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, a moderate organization based in Nashville, Tenn., said Mr. Graham's comparatively low-key style meant he "hasn't been taken as seriously as other Southern Baptist Convention leaders."
"Adrian Rogers was dynamic in the pulpit," Parham said of one famous former president. "Paige Patterson was compelling in his articulation of his agenda. Bailey Smith was inflammatory. But then you come to someone like Jack Graham and what you're encountering is, well, bland."
If that's the worst that critics can come up with, said California pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie, a friend of Mr. Graham's, "then I think he has done a pretty good job.
"I'd rather have a steadfast, consistent person than a flamboyant flameout."