via Gavin, this from the Tennessean about the SBC’s election of a new, “more moderate” president. I had been so turned off by the SBC convention that I had forgotten to check how their election of a new president had come out.
Baptists shake up old-guard leadership – Nashville, Tennessee – Wednesday, 06/14/06 – Tennessean.com

Wade Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor who backed Page, said the issue of cooperative-program giving was critical in the election of Page, whose church gave significantly to the program.Burleson, among the best-known Internet bloggers who have criticized the current Southern Baptist leadership, said the computer bloggers were key to Page\’s selection.

“Page may have started out as the underdog,” Burleson said. “But I attribute the fact (he won) to young men and women on blogs.”

(More on why I had been turned off here)

I am delighted at the prospect of an improvement in the awareness among Southern Baptist members in general of the tactics of some in leadership to intimidate those who disagree with them. Many a conservative who questioned the political tactics of leaders, past and present , (stretching back to the Judge Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson “takeover” campaigns in the 70’s and 80’s) have found themselves the target of the smear campaigns , masquerading as “theological concerns”.

I always thought that blogs would pose a direct threat o the hold on power that these cynical manipulators had on the mechanisms of the Southern Baptist convention. But I remain concerned that the “formation” structures that have been constructed during the successful takeover years have raised up a generation of leaders fully indoctrinated into the assumptions about “conservative vs liberal” forwarded by the “guaurdians of orthodoxy” in the SBC; who not only insist upon “inerrancy”, but on their authority to define what that means, which is somewhat of a NON-Baptist stance. The “blogosphere” can also be a breeding ground for the authoritarian pontifications of this nature, much as Drudge does foe the right-wing pundity in the American political scene.

In this instance, however, the momentum of the “takeover” crowd was stemmed; maybe even a little stunned. But we will have to wait and see what is offered or accomplished with an alternative. I myself see little change happening in the matter of the coaltion of the SBC with the Bush administration and the neocons (or alliance with Nationalistic politics in general) and it is here where my deepest problems with the SBC lie. I just thought the item of the blogger influence was interesting (but by no means new or novel anymore)