E.J. Dionne, Jr., on the Southern Baptists

No, I haven't gone to focusing exclusively on the Christian Right for all posts. But there's been more than the usual opportunity lately.

The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, Jr., was also writing on the Southern Baptists' national meeting last week: A Shift Among the Evangelicals 06/16/06. He writes:

Sometimes very important elections receive very little attention.

When the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) elected the Rev. Frank Page as the group's president at its meeting this week in Greensboro, N.C., the news appeared on the back pages of most secular newspapers - or it didn't appear at all.

Regular readers of The Blue Voice were hearing about it, of course. (Hey, it's like the labor leader John L. Lewis used to say, "He who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted".)

Dionne also highlights the new role that the Baptist blogosphere (kind of a scary thought, that!) is playing. And he quotes someone who agrees with me on being cautious about what the election of Frank Page as the new SBC president means:

In response to the resulting purges and acrimony, moderate and progressive Baptists formed new organizations such as the Nashville-based Baptist Center for Ethics. Robert Parham, the center's executive director, argues that it would be a mistake to read too much into Page's triumph. "This was a race between the right and the far right," Parham said. "One election neither makes a positive trend nor unmakes the essence of fundamentalism."

He offers some optimistic thoughts on "mellowing of evangelical Christianity". But I'm not quite so hopeful in that regard.

He mentions an increasing interest among evangelical churches in helping victims of the AIDS epidemic. But a big issue for both Protestant and Catholic groups doing AIDS work is whether or not they will provide accurate and adequate medical information about condoms. If not, they may do more harm than good by getting more involved in that field.

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