Saturday, February 7, 1998
Paige Patterson is nominee for Southern Baptist
presidency
Religions News Service
Paige Patterson, a seminary president who is known as an architect
of the conservative takeover in the Southern Baptist Convention,
will be nominated for the presidency of the denomination -- the
nation's largest Protestant body.
James Merritt, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee, said
thid week at at a conference in Jacksonville, Fla., that he intends
to nominate Patterson to head the 15.7 million-member denomination,
reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern
Baptist Convention.
Patterson, 55, a Hardin-Simmons University graduate, is the
only announced candidate to succeed Tom Elliff, an Oklahoma pastor
who will complete his second one-year term as president at the
denomination's annual meeting June 9-11 in Salt Lake City.
Patterson said if he is elected he will have two primary objectives.
"First, I want to give myself to work with our churches
and the North American Mission Board to baptize 500,000 people
during the year 2000," he said. "Second, I want to do
all I can to assist the International Mission Board in getting
our arms around the globe with a comprehensive program of evangelism
and discipleship."
Patterson played a key role in the takeover of the denomination
by conservatives that began in 1979.
Patterson currently is the president of Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. He previously served
as president of The Criswell College in Dallas and associate pastor
of First Baptist Church in Dallas.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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