How Many Ballots Did That Pastor Vote?

The 1985 Watershed Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention

How Many Ballots Did That Pastor Vote?

The decade of the 1980s saw the Southern Baptist Convention engaged in an open conflict for control of the denomination. A key year was 1985 when around 45,000 messengers--known in other organizations as delegates--showed up in Dallas, TX.

The key issue each year was the election of the president. A president could serve no more than two one-year terms. Therefore, that election each year was crucial.

While the president presided at the annual meetings, his greatest power was the committee appointments he was authorized to make. 

For leaders on both sides of the conflict, 1985 was a crucial year. The get-out-the-vote efforts on both sides were significant and well-funded. The political atmosphere was intense.

Due to the number of messengers expected, and the size of the primary convention meeting room, access into the main hall was restricted to messengers only.

I was a messenger, but my wife was not. Our church sent their maximum of ten messengers. All were ministers or denominational workers, so spouses could not be accommodated as messengers.

On the primary voting day, my wife could not get into the main hall, but went to an auxiliary auditorium where she could see the meeting on a video screen.

I was not happy with that arrangement. I saved her a seat in case we were able to figure something out. Then a plan occurred to me. 

I asked the people next to me to save my two seats. I walked around the convention hall looking for a trusted friend. I found a long-term ministry colleague and family friend.

I was surprised to see him. He had been very sick and in the hospital. He indicated he had checked himself out of the hospital to travel to Texas for this crucial convention.

(Note: He died less than 30 days later.)

I asked to borrow his messenger ballots to bring my wife into the main hall, and then I would return them to him. He agreed. Showing the ballots would gain her entrance to the main hall.

I went to the auxiliary hall, found her, brought her back to the main hall, and returned my friend’s ballots. 

She sat with me for the full morning session. I went out and brought us in some lunch. After that she left. 

The presidential election was in the afternoon session, and she felt she ought to leave so a messenger could use her seat.

She went back to our hotel and had a quiet afternoon by the pool reading a book. No one else was around. Everyone was attending the convention.

The break between the morning and the afternoon session was two hours. I remained in my seat as I knew saving my seat would not be possible as the main hall filled with messengers and was under continual observation by the fire marshal.

During that two hours a different music group would perform on stage every five to ten minutes. I then understood how many Christian musical artists claim to have performed at the Southern Baptist Convention.

They did so during this break to a crowd not really paying attention.

The Vote

When the vote for president took place, across the aisle from me was a pastor, his wife, and two preschool children. One was in a stroller.

The pastor pulled four sets of ballots out of his coat pocket. He marked each ballot for the candidate he wanted. I did not try to see for whom he voted. When the ushers came by collecting the ballots, he placed all four in the bucket.

If he voted for the same candidate it voted for, I apologize to anyone who needs an apology for his dishonesty.

If he voted for the other candidate, I hope he got what he wanted. I am not sure if God was honored, but I know our God will have the last say.

Over the Years

I saw other things during the decade of the 1980s at the SBC annual conventions. Here are a couple of them.

One year I saw a pastor sitting on a railing in the balcony instructing his ten messengers how to vote. By doing so he morphed them from messengers voting their heart and convictions, into delegates voting according to what they were politically instructed told to do.

In 1983 in Pittsburgh, I remember arriving in a conference room on Monday morning of the convention week for a breakfast, and seeing two dozen sets of ballots laying on a windowsill.

I picked them up and took them to the convention registration desk to turn them in. I indicated where I found them. I also said I wanted an explanation for how this happened.

I got one the next day. The convention registration officer always registers the SBC officers and their spouses—plus others who will be on the platform during the convention—at a dinner held on Sunday evening before the convention starts.

This year it was held in the room where my Monday morning meeting took place. The registration officer had asked his wife to hold on to the extra ballots. She laid them down and forgot about them. He and she were very apologetic.

I fully believed them. I knew him to be a man of integrity. I also knew it could have happened to me if I were in his position.

However, it still created anxiety in unsettled times.

Reflections from George

• I am sure many others have additional stories to tell of voting at an SBC meeting in the past 45 years . If you want to share one, “leave a comment” below.

• Southern Baptists are not the only denomination who has experienced major conflict in the past 50 years. You are also invited to tell you story below.

• One day I will complete a manuscript of reflections on my life as a Southern Baptist. The tentative title for this manuscript is Heartbroken. I believed in the potential of Southern Baptists and the Bold Mission Thrust begun in the late 1970s. Some conservative drift was inevitable. Some effects of post-denominationalism and the rise of non-denominationalism were inevitable. But the disruption that turned to destruction—and is not over yet—was not inevitable.

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