Amid Contention, Protestants Pick Leaders

For delegates attending the national conventions of three mainline denominations, the last two weeks have been an intense period, a time to debate hot-button issues and make difficult choices over who can best lead their churches.

Combined, the Southern Baptist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches represent more than 20 million Americans. The three clergy elected to head the churches are all relatively unknown faces on the national religious scene -- and all are surprise choices.

Southern Baptists

“I never dreamed that it would happen,” the Rev. Frank S. Page said of his victory over two well-known pastors to head the 16.2-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“Nobody knew me. Who knew Frank Page?” he said.

The self-effacing and affable North Carolina native, who speaks with a warm drawl, said that he sought the top office not intending to win but to get important issues before the 11,000 “messengers” attending the denomination’s annual meeting, held this year in Greensboro, N.C.

One such issue was the Cooperative Program, supported by individual churches giving unrestricted donations to fund various works undertaken by the national office, such as missionary work or last year’s hurricane relief.

Twenty years ago, the typical Southern Baptist church gave 10.6% of the donations it collected to the program, said the Rev. Kenyn Cureton, a top official at the Nashville headquarters. These days, the average donation is 6.6%.

But Page’s congregation bucked the trend and has given 12%, which helped secure the little-known pastor’s election.

Page is pastor of the 4,300-member First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C. The congregation grew 2 1/2 times since he took over the church five years ago.

Page said he plans to put a “sweeter and gentler” face to the denomination by emphasizing what it stands for, not what it opposes.

“Unfortunately, Southern Baptists have long been known for what we’ve been against,” he said.

“I want to send a positive message of transformation -- the power of Christ to change lives,” said Page, who said he had wanted to be a preacher since he was 4 years old.

Presbyterians

The Rev. Joan S. Gray, the new moderator of the 2.3-million-member Presbyterian Church USA, is an Atlanta-based pastor and author whose specialty is conflict resolution and church governance.

Gray, 53, is a veteran “intentional interim pastor” and is brought in to fix churches torn by strife. But Gray says she comes to her new job without many answers. She wants to let God lead the way.

“I really believe God will lead us,” she told the 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., describing her two-year term as a “faith walk adventure.”

The assembly, which meets every other year, had a great deal to decide during the eight-day assembly.

After three decades of contentious debate over homosexuality, commissioners voted this week to allow local and regional governing bodies to decide whether to ordain gays and lesbians as clergy and lay leaders.

Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, said Gray is considered a “very solid leader who is known for her faithfulness to biblical teachings.”

But Mouw also noted that her job has been made more difficult by the policy on gay clergy, which is likely to bring about “a proliferation of ordinations of persons who are in active, same-sex relationships.”

“If that is the case, it’s going to be very difficult for evangelicals in the Presbyterian Church to continue to feel committed to the work of the denomination and to the unity of the denomination,” he said.

The denomination has lost 1.8 million members in the last four decades.

In other actions, the assembly revised its controversial 2004 position calling for “phased, selective divestment” in companies involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The new statement says the Presbyterian church’s holdings pertaining to Israeli and Palestinian territory should “be invested in only peaceful pursuits.”

The 2004 action has been under relentless attack from within the church, especially among evangelicals, and from Jewish organizations.

On abortion, the assembly, shifting long-standing church policy, voted to declare that “viable unborn babies -- those well-developed enough to survive outside the womb if delivered -- ought to be preserved and cared for and not aborted.”

The convention also was rocked by a large surprise.

Six days after Denver businessman and Presbyterian elder Stanley W. Anderson electrified the assembly by pledging to contribute $150 million to help to plant new churches and help struggling congregations, a news report put that offer into question.

The Denver Post reported in its Wednesday editions that Anderson owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to creditors. Last year, two lenders began foreclosure proceedings on Anderson’s house and one debt remains, the newspaper said.

The disclosure compelled John Detterick, executive director of the church’s executive council, to issue a statement saying that he was confident that Anderson would make good on his proposed gift, the largest in the history of the Presbyterian body.

Episcopalians

The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori’s election this week as the first woman presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and her support of gay clergy appear to be exacerbating tensions between the U.S. church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The church, which has been torn by the selection of an openly gay bishop three years ago, continued to struggle with the issue even though some church leaders, including Jefferts Schori, have said it’s time to end the debate over human sexuality and focus on ministering to people in need.

On Wednesday, the day after Episcopal leaders rejected a temporary ban against gay bishops, they reversed themselves. In the interest of promoting harmony, Jefferts Schori, 52, of Nevada endorsed the proposal, which doesn’t ban gay bishops but discourages the church from electing them.

That’s not enough to satisfy conservative congregants who were already planning their response to what they say has become two contentious churches under one roof: conservative orthodox and liberal revisionist.

In a pastoral letter released Friday, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, wrote: “It is with sadness, but also with anticipation, that I write to you now that the General Convention of the Episcopal Church has provided the clarity for which we have long prayed. By almost every assessment the General Convention has embraced the course of ‘walking apart.’ ”

In coming weeks, he added, various orthodox councils around the world will determine how, or whether, the two groups can continue to coexist.

An estimated 20% of the 2.3 million Episcopal Church members in the United States consider themselves orthodox, said the Rev. Canon Daryl Fenton, chief operating officer for the Anglican Communion Network.

In a telephone interview, Fenton said: “It’s clear now that the American church doesn’t want to do what the rest of the communion wants. That’s a new day, a big deal, and a great relief. Now, we can make some important decisions about what to do about our differences.”

Times staff writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this report.