Jerry Vines to Nominate Jimmy Jackson as SBC President: Really? by Peter Lumpkins

  Buzz is busting my ears that Dr. Jerry Vines, past two-term President of the Southern Baptist Convention and Pastor Emeritus, First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida will rise to the occasion come June and nominate Dr. Jimmy Jackson as SBC President....

Will he do it?

Some say he will.

Vines and Jackson have a friendship anchored to the beginning of the Conservative Resurgence in 1979.  Indeed in many ways, Jimmy Jackson is the last of the first generation CR leaders who can be elected president of the convention.

Dr. Jackson has served as Pastor of Whitesburg Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala. for 32 years.  Not only that, he’s danced to virtually every tune in SBC life:

• State convention pastors conference president
• Second vice president (state)
• First vice president (state)
• President of the Alabama Baptist State Convention
• Executive Committee member for the SBC
• First vice president (SBC)
• SBC parliamentarian for 23-24 years
• Trustee at Southwestern Seminary for the past six years (//link)

In addition, Dr. Jackson was one of the first appointments Adrian Rogers made in 1979 when the Conservative Resurgence launched. Hence, Jimmy Jackson is surely the kind of man Jerry Vines would nominate were he to do so.

Indeed no one questions whether or not Jerry Vines still has deep pockets of influence in the Southern Baptist Convention.

He does. 

Even less, whether Vines still swings a big stick in Florida, the state he faithfully served as Pastor of FBCJax for so long.

Rather, the question is, will Dr. Vines nominate Jimmy Jackson as president? 

The buzz says so. 

And, many are hoping so. 

At least those who believe Jimmy Jackson represents who Southern Baptists are and who Southern Baptists desire to be.

With that, I am…

Peter

Comments

[Les Puryear]

Peter,

Your sources were right about Frank Page as President of EC. I pray your sources are also correct about Vines nominating Jackson.

Les

[John Killian]

The best man for the job is Jimmy Jackson. Therefore, he needs the best nominator he can find and that is Jerry Vines.
John Killian

[A.M. Mallett]

I am not a member of the SBC but from what I've heard and read of Dr. Jackson, I think he would be a fine nominee.

[Brian]

After that, Look for Ronnie Floyd to go to NAMB and Aiken to IMB.
Then watch Guidestone do away with the 6 percent retirement guarantee? Lets watch and see.

[Lucas DeFalco]

The SBC is a denominational group in decline. Membership is down the 4th consecutive year. Baptisms are up only slightly this year but down over all the last 5 years. Simply winning the "battle for the Bible" have proven to be insufficient. The SBC is an organization without a clearly defined mission. The GRCTF has made some honest assessments about the bureaucratic "noise" that is occluding that clearly defined mission, and the members of the "old gaurd" of the CR generation have dug in their heels!

Jerry Sutton was right to label the CR "The Baptist Reformation" by the title of his book. The thing about reformations is that they must never cease. "Reformed and reforming" was the mantra of reformers of antiquity. The moment that a reformation stops calling for change is the same moment that such becomes part of the establishment.

[peter]

Lucus,

Wow. Making rounds, ah? Whatever your rhetoric was supposed to have contributed to this thread, I think it derailed right after "The SBC is a denominational group in decline...."

With that, I am...
Peter

[Lucas DeFalco]

Peter,

To what do you attribute the declined in membership, baptisms and attendance in recent years? Do you not thing that the CR generation has "settled in" and has now become the establishment? And don't say that these declines have been caused by the seeker-friendly movement within the SBC because statistically that is one of the few segments in the SBC that is growing.

[peter]

Lucas,

Virtually all evangelicalism has declined in membership, baptisms and attendance in recent years. If so, why would Southern Baptists be an exception? To imply, as you do, the fault lies in main at the footsteps of a "settled in" establishment makes little to no sense, from my perspective, Lucas.

With that, I am...
Peter