G. Frink's

When I was a child, the Lumbee earned my enduring admiration by vanquishing the Ku Klux Klan with war whoops and gunfire at the Battle of Hayes Pond, thus successfully defending their reputation for both ferocity and integrity.

It was disappointing to hear that just-elected Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt, a Lumbee Indian, came equipped with a padded resume.

Hunt's advanced degrees are variously honorary or issued by what the Baptist Center for Ethics publication Ethics Daily calls "diploma mills."

My disappointment grew when I learned that, looking back, Hunt's personal resume isn't the only one to consider here. Robert Parham, executive editor of Ethics Daily, wrote:

One of Hunt's own "sons in the ministry" was forced to resign from the prominent First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, Fla., in part because of his diploma mill degrees.
Highly recommended to the church by Hunt, Steven Flockhart was forced out "over a controversy involving fabricated education credentials," reported Baptist Press, which noted that the Palm Beach Post had discovered that Flockhart had obtained correspondence degrees from Covington Theological Seminary, "a Georgia school not accredited by any recognized accrediting agency."

Can a man who presumes the title "Dr." as though he had a valid academic Phd., and fails to accurately assess his own key staff, lead his denomination out of the land of memebership "free fall"?

A majority of those voting at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis said "yes," and it is faintly conceivable that he will prove to be something of respite from hard-line conservatism which is grinding the SBC down. We will see, but today I am moved to give thanks for being a Presbyterian.