Thanks to Georgia pastor Johnny Hunt and the volume of personal and confidential correspondence he made public, Southern Baptists now know what a former chairman of the SBC Executive Committee thought about the candidacy of Arkansas pastor Ronnie Floyd. We also know what he thought about “Calvinists” and “young leaders” he believed would “dismantle the convention leadership and install their own group.”
“Brother Johnny, your prime time was two years ago,” retired Georgia pastor William Harrell* wrote on Apr. 21, 2008. “You and others got agitated about the 10 percent thing and did not change your own approach even though Mike Hamlet and I went to bat and got it removed. You would have ‘walked in” to the Presidency in Greensboro. Instead, the Mega Pastors went along with you and selected Ronnie Floyd and gave us Frank Page in the process. While I love Ronnie, he was not a good one for several reasons and I felt all along he would not win.”
Harrell continues:
“There was a day when it was a necessity for the mega boys to be there getting things done. We could not have accomplished the turn around without them. But, Johnny, believe me . . . that day is gone and we are now in a day when the mega boys are resented. I honestly don’t think a mega pastor, or one perceived to be in that elite group, can win.”
Harrell urged Hunt to postpone his quest for the convention presidency, promising him that “a time will come very soon when you will be basically coronated . . . not elected . . . to the position.”
To read the entirety of the Harrell email**, click here and here.
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* Pastor Bill Harrell re-emerged in 2016 with public calls to defund the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC. He served four terms on the SBC Executive Committee, and is depicted in a stained glass window at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
**Johnny M. Hunt Papers, Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee.
The Baptist Blogger 
God help those who put their trust and treasure into the SBC…it appears that many in leadership were more concerned with their own gain than in living and loving every person as Jesus taught.
Perhaps the Lord is purging the Southern Baptist denomination, perhaps it is no longer doing His work…