[1]ATLANTA (BP)–Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson was re-elected by acclamation during the June 15 afternoon convention session in Atlanta.
Nominated by evangelist Junior Hill, a member of West Mead Baptist Church, Decatur, Ala., the 56-year-old president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., was recommended as a man “who has the passion to make the main thing” of evangelism “the main thing.”
In his past year of service as president, Patterson was described by Hill as “thoughtful and wise in his leadership, tempered and restrained in his public statements, impeccable in his character and uncompromising in his call for biblical righteousness and New Testament evangelism.”
Hill praised the “incredible growth of Southeastern Seminary under Patterson’s visionary leadership” and referred to “the spirit of revival that now permeates that campus” as “nothing
short of miraculous.”
And though he is best known as an educator and theologian, Hill said Southern Baptists have seen in the last year “a side of this gifted man that many did not know existed,” as he “stood tall among us as a preacher of the Word of God. With the burden and compassion of a pastor, he has challenged us to establish thousands of new churches, with primary emphasis to the densely populated urban areas.
“Contrary to what naysayers want us to believe,” Hill said, “Southern Baptists’ best days are before us.
“While there are many who would disdain the name Baptist and make light of our spiritual heritage, I, for one, have never been more happy to be called a Southern Baptist,” he added to the applause of messengers. “I am especially happy that in this exciting hour and wonderful new millennium that we enter we have a man like Dr. Paige Patterson to be our leader.”