Revolutionary president

National | With the likely election of Patterson as SBC president, the "Battle for the Bible" will have come full circle | R. Albert Mohler

World War I ended for U.S. General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing with King George V of England telling the tough leader, "You, of course, will be the next American President." But it was not to be, and a survey indicated that the general's own troops would not support his candidacy. The generals of controversial campaigns, even when successful, are rarely elected to public leadership-which makes what Southern Baptists are poised to do this week in Salt Lake City all the more significant.

Paige Patterson, now president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, is expected to be elected without opposition as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Behind this event are two of the most tumultuous decades in Southern Baptist experience, and one of the most fascinating stories from the history of American Christianity.