Drake not content to be silent partner

Posted: 11/03/06

Drake not content to be silent partner

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

BUENA PARK, Calif. (ABP)—The Southern Baptist Convention expects very little from its vice presidents—nothing, in fact, unless the SBC president becomes incapacitated. Traditionally, those elected each year to the mostly honorary VP positions are seen but not heard.

But when Southern Baptists elected Wiley Drake second vice president in June, they should not have expected Drake to be quiet about it.

Drake—a Los Angeles-area pastor, radio crusader, SBC gadfly and self-proclaimed “champion of the little guy”—is making the most of his new title. And that’s causing more than a little consternation in the SBC’s Nashville headquarters.

When Drake recently created his own makeshift letterhead proclaiming “Southern Baptist Convention, Office of the 2nd Vice President”—and used it to endorse Republican Dick Mountjoy of California in his bid for the U.S. Senate—he got a stern warning from the SBC’s top lawyer.

“Looking back, I shouldn’t have done it,” Drake said in an interview. “But no one told me what I should or shouldn’t do.”

So, Drake is asking the convention to spell out the responsibilities of the SBC’s two vice presidents, and he is making a suggestion for his own role.

“I already function as an interfaith ambassador,” Drake said. And he would like for the title to be made official. Drake pointed out he was asked by Yuri Shtern, a Jew and member of the Israeli Knesset, to pray for the official’s failing health—which Drake did on radio. He said he also gets regular calls from the Israeli Embassy because of his role in the pro-Israel Christian Allies Caucus, which gives him an interfaith role.

In addition to supporting Israel, Drake uses his live, four-day-a-week radio and Internet broadcast to campaign for countless conservative Christian causes—former “Ten Commandments judge” Roy Moore, a Christian “exodus” from public schools, prayer and Bible teaching in public schools, and public prayer “in Jesus’ name” in the military and in government meetings.

He also comes to the aid of numerous small-time Christian “culture warriors”—hence the name, Crusader Radio. And he’s the chaplain for the Minutemen who monitor the U.S.-Mexican border and a regular participant in prayer sessions in the halls of Congress.

Around Buena Park, however, Drake is best known as the pastor who fought city hall for the right to turn his tiny church into a homeless shelter and nearly went to jail for it.

Wiley Drake burst on the Southern Baptist scene about a decade ago when he led the charge for a boycott of entertainment giant Disney Co., even though his church lies almost in the shadow of Disneyland.

His success in that effort initiated his steady stream of speeches from the floor of recent SBC conventions for this or that cause, introducing more failed resolutions than probably anyone in recent SBC history. “I’m as egotistical as the next guy,” he conceded.

Drake’s love for attention irritates many Southern Baptists. But he’s a hero to others, particularly the small-church pastors who seldom get a voice in the 16-million- member denomination, which has been led by a parade of megachurch pastors for almost three decades.

It was for those “little guys,” Drake said, that he agreed to be nominated to the previously obscure role of second vice president, which is almost an afterthought in the SBC’s power structure. But Drake insisted he was elected with a mandate of sorts.

“I’m trying to speak up for the small church and the little guy, because many of them have said to me they feel disenfranchised” by the SBC leadership, said Drake, whose 75-member church is about the size of the average SBC congregation.

“The people who voted for me were saying: ‘Our convention is in a mess, and I’m about to leave. But it sounds like Wiley may do something about it. It sounds like (SBC President) Frank Page may do something about it.’“

At the June SBC annual meeting, Page and Drake each were narrowly elected on the first ballot against multiple candidates. The pair’s candidacies were trumpeted by a new coalition of conservative Southern Baptist pastors and laity—led by young activist bloggers—who were upset with the leadership’s narrow theology, power-hoarding practices and closed-door meetings.

Drake said he is a nobody who became a “somebody” by virtue of his election. “I want to be the ‘somebody’ who tells the other ‘somebodies,’ ‘You need to listen to the little guys, otherwise they are going to leave the Southern Baptist Convention.’“

Drake has ceased using his makeshift SBC letterhead. But he has added the title of “2nd Vice President” to his church letterhead—and he will keep using it, regardless whether SBC officials like it. “If they have a problem with that, they’re going to have to sue me.”

SBC attorney August Boto, in a letter Oct. 4, instructed Drake not to use his title in correspondence, and he suggested Drake drop his quest for a job description too.

Two days later, Drake wrote an open letter to all Southern Baptists urging them to define the role of the vice presidents. “So without any job description to direct me, I’m left with no option but to create one on my own,” he wrote. “The 2nd Vice President should be a servant role to the convention, not an honorary title. He should be a prayer warrior for convention causes and the most faithful advocate of our missionaries. He should encourage pastors and reach souls. He should lead his church before he tries to lead the convention, feed the hungry before he feeds his ego, and listen before he speaks.”

Drake’s attorney, Mel Laney of Washington, D.C., responded to Boto Oct. 21 with another letter, copied to all SBC Executive Committee members, asking for clarification about Drake’s role—and suggesting the job of interfaith ambassador. The reaction from Executive Committee members has been mixed. Some offered Drake polite encouragement, but several said his request was inappropriate and unappreciated.

The SBC’s leaders, clearly exasperated with Drake’s first four months as an officer, might be counting the days until his term expires in June 2007. But Drake has news for them.

“I’m absolutely going to be nominated for vice president again next year,” he said.

And if and when president Frank Page completes the traditional second one-year term in 2008, Drake added, “then I’m going to be nominated for president.”

“And if the Old Guard is able to nominate someone who unseats Frank Page next year, I’ll run against him too.”