Free Republic

Sometimes very important elections receive very little attention. When the Southern Baptist Convention elected the Rev. Frank Page as the group's president at its meeting this week in Greensboro, N.C., the news appeared on the back pages of most secular newspapers -- or it didn't appear at all. But Page's upset victory could be very significant, both to the nation's religious life and to politics. He defeated candidates supported by the convention's staunchly conservative establishment, which has dominated the organization since the mid-1980s. His triumph is one of many signs that new breezes are blowing through the broader evangelical Christian...

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention refused Wednesday to support a resolution urging the denomination to form a strategy for removing children from public schools in favor of home schooling or education at private schools. The "exit strategy" proposal, offered by Roger Moran of Troy, Mo., and Texas author Bruce Shortt, came as many Southern Baptists are concerned about how classrooms are handling subjects such as homosexuality and "intelligent design." But the SBC's resolutions committee instead called on members to "engage the culture of our public school systems" by exerting "godly influence," declining to put the proposal from Moran and...