And everyone is waiting for the rent boy to drop. Fill us in, Christianity Today:
Frank S. Page has resigned as president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee (EC), effective today, over what is described as “a morally inappropriate relationship in the recent past.” Florida pastor Stephen Rummage, chairman of the committee, released a 300-word statement Tuesday afternoon on behalf of its officers noting the circumstances of Page’s resignation:
Last evening, the officers of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee met via phone conference with Dr. Frank Page during which he announced his plans for retirement. Today, I spoke with Dr. Page and learned that his retirement announcement was precipitated by a morally inappropriate relationship in the recent past. This news will, we understand, bring great sorrow. I have shared with the Executive Committee officers what Dr. Page shared with me, including Dr. Page’s repentance and deep regret that his actions have caused pain for others.
“My heart is broken for Dr. Page, his family, and everyone affected,” Rummage, senior pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida, stated.
Page had a big job…
As EC president, the 65-year-old Page has held a key role in coordinating the work of the SBC’s national ministries—encompassing two mission boards, six seminaries, and other entities—and overseeing a Cooperative Program budget of nearly $200 million yearly. Page’s work also included building relationships with 42 state and regional Baptist conventions and 47,000-plus Southern Baptist churches in all 50 states.
…and the SBC is a real force in American politics. You might want to sit down for this: the SBC opposes abortion rights, equality of the sexes (“a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband”), same-sex marriage, and anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT people. Roy Moore is a Southern Baptist.
Back to Page: the other player or players in the “morally inappropriate relationship” that led to Page’s downfall have yet to step forward. Considering that other Christian leaders caught having sex with teenage girls have been granted mulligans—one even received applause—whatever and whoever Page was doing had to be worse in the eyes of evangelical Christians than screwing a minor of the opposite sex who also happens to be a member of your congregation. So everyone out there is thinking Page got caught with a dick in his mouth. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. It’s certainly the only explanation that makes sense of the statement released by the Southern Baptist Convention. I mean, if Page had been screwing around with women, they would’ve found a way work that “no homo” detail into the press release.
Some fun facts about the Southern Baptist Convention:
In 1860, a Southern Baptist pastor from Virginia, Thornton Stringfellow, defended the institution of forced enslavement of millions of African men and women in Cotton Is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments, with the full force of scripture: “Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command… Under the gospel, [slavery] has brought within the range of gospel influence, millions of Ham’s descendant’s among ourselves, who but for this institution, would have sunk down to eternal ruin.”
[The Southern Baptist Convention formed in 1845] when a group of churches broke away from another loose association of Baptists, called the Triennial Convention. The foreign-outreach arm of the organization had forbidden a slaveholding church elder from becoming a missionary, saying it would violate the organization’s neutral position on slavery. After attempting to negotiate a compromise, 293 dissenting church leaders—representing as many as 365,000 Christians—met in Augusta, Georgia, and formed a new association that supported slavery.