Chapter 9 Blueprint of a Takeover
How
was it possible for the Pressler-Patterson group to accomplish their goal?
The key was the immense appointive powers concentrated in the office of
the SBC president.
The
SBC president is elected in June for a one-year term and a can be
re-elected for a second term. In the spring of the each year, about nine
months after he is elected, the president appoints a committee on
committees.
This
seventy-member committee on committees fulfills its responsibility several
weeks later at the annual SBC meeting in June. At that time, it nominates
(and the messengers elect) a second large committee, the all-important
committee on nominations. (Until 1987, this committee was named “the
committee on boards.”)
This
powerful committee shows its importance a year later at the next annual
meeting of the SBC. At that time (two years after the election of the
president who “stands behind it”), this committee nominates a person
for every vacancy on every one of the twenty boards of trustees/directors
that govern the Convention’s agencies and institutions. (See diagram
below.)
Not
all trustees/directors are replaced in a single year. They serve staggered
terms. Some terms are four years, while some are five years, depending
upon the agency or institution. Trustees/directors may succeed
themselves for a second term at the will of the committee on nominations.
Normally they do. It could take ten years to completely recycle a board of
trustees/directors. It requires several years to shift the majority on any
given board, but a series of presidents can bring that change about if
each follows a single plan. That is precisely what happened.
While
messengers at the annual meeting of the SBC elect the trustees/directors,
the committee on nominations, almost without exception, dictates who will
be elected. It’s easy to understand why this would be so. The thousands
of messengers at an annual meeting would be hard pressed to change more
than a handful of the nearly 250 nominations made by this committee, even
if a majority of the messengers wanted to do so. Sufficient time is not
allowed.
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