I had to learn later in life that there were other people involved in the SBC Conservative Resurgence. I grew up about 60 miles from Memphis, Tennessee. My childhood pastors attended Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary. For all I knew as a teenager, the Conservative Resurgence WAS Adrian Rogers.
I know better now. Thousands of people were involved. A lot of people were leaders. Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler were very influential. Albert Mohler played a very significant part. Jerry Vines was also a key figure. Hundreds of people were "lieutenants" of one sort of another. Together, they accomplished something very important and very good. I'm just barely old enough to have encountered pre-Conservative-Resurgence Baptist theological education. I'm thankful that Southern Baptists have a robust alternative to that. From the subsequent success of our seminaries, I'd say it is safe to conclude that a lot of people and a lot of churches wanted that.
Adrian Rogers died far earlier than his contemporary peers in the SBC Conservative movement. We miss him. People say it frequently: a tweet or comment online in passing, a wistful mention in a sermon or speech. People say it because a lot of us feel it. We feel it because not all of the leaders in the Conservative Resurgence have ended well. We feel it because Adrian Rogers remains a figure who unites a lot of people who somehow are otherwise polarized against one another in our family of churches these days.
After Billy Graham died, the nation spent quite a bit of time wondering aloud, "Who will be the next Billy Graham?" Since the death of Adrian Rogers, there have been Southern Baptists wondering aloud, "Who will be the next Adrian Rogers?" By that, they do not generally mean, "Who will rise up thirty years from now and be like Adrian Rogers?"; they mean, "Can someone be like Adrian Rogers right now…please?"
But what if those someones are here, right under our noses?
Earlier this week, I journeyed to Clinton, Mississippi, to attend the official installation of Evan Lenow as the next president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The two-hour ceremony featured several speakers. Executive Committee CEO Jeff Iorg spoke, as did Danny Akin and Adam Groza. Dr. Lenow's family pastor was among the speakers, as was Lenow's former boss, Mississippi Christian University President Blake Thompson. Apart from the benediction, the very last speaker was Richard Land.
I thought to myself, "This is an interesting passing of the baton." Richard Land was part of the original generation of Conservative Resurgence leadership. Most of you will remember, but for the youngest among you, the transitions in that office went like this: Richard Land -> Russell Moore -> Brent Leatherwood -> Evan Lenow. Of Lenow's predecessors, only Dr. Land was in attendance.
You may say to yourself, "That's not really surprising. Both Moore's departure and Leatherwood's departure were difficult. It would be hard for them to attend something like this." NO DOUBT! I don't fault eiether of them for not being there. Their absence is not really my point anyway. The fact is, Richard Land's departure from the ERLC was no less tumultuous.
In February 2012, George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin. The event unleashed a lot of controversy. In his radio program "Richard Land Live!", Dr. Land accused Barack Obama of using the shooting for political gain. Several people in the Southern Baptist Convention objected. In the aftermath, Aaron Weaver produced what he considered to be evidence of plagiarized remarks in which Dr. Land used other people's words without attribution within his online commentary. Trustees investigated. Land was ousted.
The past 50 years have witnessed A LOT of transitions at our entities that would qualify as what I would call "unhappy departures." My alma mater, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has experienced three (or four, depending upon your retelling of events). The ERLC has had three. The North American Mission Board was not exactly an island of stability before Kevin Ezell went there. The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention's recent history includes a couple of stories that are both sad and bizarre. The fact that Dr. Land departed the ERLC Presidency unhappily is by no means unique.
What IS more of an outlier is this: Dr. Land stayed. He kept coming to Annual Meetings of the Convention. He kept coming to ERLC events as he was invited. He kept showing up at our seminaries and other agencies. As it was appropriate to do so, he kept speaking to the important issues that our Convention was facing.
All of our entity heads were Southern Baptists before they were put into leadership; Dr. Land continued to be a Southern Baptist after he was removed from leadership. He is not the only one. Ken Hemphill has remained nobly involved. Adam Greenway was at the most recent Annual Meeting in Orlando. The list is longer than those three, and I want to acknowledge that.
But Dr. Land's situation is a bit different, because he does represent a link to the earliest and most central circles of the Conservative Resurgence. He and Jimmy Draper are, in my estimation, the most prominent elder statesmen that we have in the Southern Baptist Convention today. Of the two of them, Dr. Land tends to give us the benefit of his public voice more frequently.
For this particular moment in the life of our Convention, I think Dr. Land comes closer to being today's "Adrian Rogers" than does anyone else. Here are some things about him that make him, I think, uniquely unifying:
- He is unmistakeably oriented toward secular politics, but he is also indisputably a churchman first. This is the sweet spot for Southern Baptists. Being a community organizer who has just happened to choose the SBC as your latest project doesn't resonate with rank-and-file Southern Baptists. Being some sort of navel-gazing pietist who has no interest in the secular order is equally off-putting to most Southern Baptists, because we care about the wellbeing of our neighbors and about the health of our nation. Dr Land was, for many years, the leader of Southern Baptist political engagement, and he did a great job at it, so his bonafides as someone concerned with political engagement are beyond question. His post-resignation behavior has nailed down the other part of the equation, making perfectly clear (if it ever was unclear to anyone) that the SBC is not Richard Land's momentary political project—it is his spiritual family to which he has made a lifelong commitment.
- He is not only one of the authors of the present iteration of The Baptist Faith & Message, but he is also a passionate subscriber to all the doctrines that our statement of faith declares and protects. He can talk about the interplay between Article XV and Article XVII of the BF&M in a way that builds confidence in our cherished historic beliefs about the relationship between the church and the secular order. I have found that, when it comes to any article of the BF&M, not only can Dr. Land talk about what it means, but he can also generally trace for you the history of ideas in various antecedent Baptist confessions of faith and other influences in Reformation or broader Christian history that have contributed to the present wording of our statement of faith.
- I do not know for sure whether his departure from the ERLC humbled him. I came to a more personal relationship with Dr. Land well after those things took place. But his humility now is exemplary, in my opinion. Dr. Land has modeled pretty well over the past decade the sometimes precarious balancing act of being a leader without an official position of leadership. He generally gives room for a present generation of leaders to lead without interference, but he is willing to speak when it makes sense. In a more personal vein, I can say that he and I spoke frequently on the phone while I was serving Southern Baptists, and it always benefitted me. The fact that so much of his ongoing activity in the Convention is private or low-key demonstrates that Dr. Land is pursuing neither a "rehabilitation tour" nor a plotted vendetta. He is simply continuing to be a Southern Baptist.
- I do not think that Dr. Land actually has any enemies in the SBC. He's finished "climbing ladders." He mingles in a wide variety of circles within our Convention. Others may regard him as an enemy, but he doesn't seem to treat anyone that way within the SBC, including people who called for his departure from the ERLC. His warm, magnanimous nature has been put to the test and proven through hard circumstances. The resulting breadth of healthy friendships that Dr. Land retains makes him, I believe, a unifying force in our Convention.
I have never been Dr. Land's protégé. I've never been in his home. This is neither an attempt to write a paean for a mentor nor to ingratiate myself to someone. I'm simply trying to give honor where honor is due.
We really do not have to listen to the most shrill, most divisive people in our midst. There remain among us people like Richard Land and Jimmy Draper. Adrian Rogers is with the Lord. Others remain among us. I have given a lot of attention to one of them. There are many others who are less prominent, but equally faithful. Perhaps rather than lamenting what the Lord has taken from us, we should make better use of what he has left us.
