Is Mike Stone the SBC21 frontrunner?

With the Annual Southern Baptist Convention of 2021 quickly approaching, the race to become its President is heating up. The race between Al Mohler, Ed Litton, Mike Stone, and Randy Adams is underway. there is a lot of organization heading into this convention. Mike Stone, who is very active with the Conservative Baptist Network, has received this major grassroots endorsement.

An Al Mohler defender took to twitter to decry the Calvinist supporting an Arminian for President calling Critical Race Theory a conspiracy theory. He later tweets that he looks forward to the SBC overwhelmingly electing Al Mohler.

If Al Mohler was truly the frontrunner, there would be no reason to come over the top rope to slander the opposition in such a wishful way, specifically referencing their support of Mike Stone. Furthermore, the resignation of Russell Moore, who is a product of Al Mohler, from the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has been seen as a political move to help Al Mohler because Moore is a liability to Mohler.

In related news, there is a GoFundMe to send messengers to Nashville that has raised over $5200 in a campaign that makes reference to Tom Ascol and Founder’s ministry, who have spoken fondly of Mike Stone.

Evangelical Dark Web’s previous analysis of Mike Stone was as follows:

The quote would seem to indicate that Mike Stone is not a Calvinist, as Founders Ministry is a well known hub of reformed Baptist theology. This is an exceedingly smart play on Tom Ascol’s behalf to support the Conservative Baptist Network candidate despite soteriological differences.

Presuming that Al Mohler is the Big Eva candidate as he was in 2020, there is already a base who would oppose Al Mohler based on his reformed theology. As the Southern Baptist Convention is a big tent on soteriology, securing this base would allow Founders Ministry to win over the reformed Baptist to tear away at those who would support Al Mohler on these grounds. It’s a shrewd political move. The Conservative Baptist Network was founded to bridge this divide in the Southern Baptist Convention to fight for the 2nd Conservative Resurgence. And by all means, ridding the convention of the Social Justice Gospel is certainly a more fundamental battle than soteriology.

By all appearances, presuming that the Conservative Baptist Network can keep its base unsplit on candidates, they have presented a suitable candidate who appears to take the issue of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality very seriously. Al Mohler, or whoever Big Eva nominates, is beatable with shrewd navigating, base mobilization, and resonating with the general sentiment of uncompromised Baptists.

Everything written back in January turned out to be true. This does not bode well for Randy Adams who is also one of the good guys in this race. Randy Adams has a more enumerated plan for solving the SBC’s issues, and is a solid candidate who has done battle with Kevin Ezell. There is little doubt in his resolve to fight Critical Race Theory also. Both Stone and Adams are anti-establishment candidates, but Randy Adams seems to be behind in creating a base of support. With the Conservative Baptist Network throwing their weight behind their guy, it appears that coalescing behind Mike Stone may be the inevitable strategy to secure victory for the faithful Christians.