Bloggasm

Ok, the title of this post is a little misleading, something you’ll see further down, but this article that I found does seem to indicate a shift in the current of evangelical political thought. A Rev. Frank Page was elected by the Southern Baptist Convention as their new president. What’s significant about this election is the fact that Page was not supported by the super-conservative groups, which hints that the church itself is turning moderate:

When the Southern Baptist Convention elected the Rev. Frank Page as the group’s new president at their meeting last week in Greensboro, N.C., the news appeared on the back pages of most secular newspapers — or it didn’t appear at all.

But Page’s upset victory could be very significant, both to the nation’s religious life and to politics. He defeated candidates supported by the convention’s staunchly conservative establishment that has dominated the organization since the mid-1980s. His triumph is one of many signs that new breezes are blowing through the broader evangelical Christian world.

But as I said before, the title of my post is a little misleading, since the article later says:

No, this is not some liberal victory. Indeed, the Baptist Press reported Page as going out of his way to tell reporters that he was not elected “to somehow undo the conservative resurgence” in the convention. But he also signaled that the spirit he hopes to embody is quite different from that of the angry, right-wing, politicized preacher who has been a stock figure in American life for more than two decades.

The entire article is an interesting overview of the evolution of the Evangelical Church and how it’s now starting to shift towards different issues like the environment and the rising AIDS problems.

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