Cracks are forming in the Southern Baptist Convention wall. Whether they lead to significant fractures or are easily patched is not yet known.

Current debates over Calvinism, Landmarkism and Charismatic practices might grow more divisive in days ahead, but the more intense pressure point seems to be at the generational divide. Some young SBC leaders — who enjoy the free flow of electronic information — are challenging the old fundamentalist guard that prefers shaping and controlling all information going out to the pews.

It must be frustrating to those who now claim the SBC mantle — and relish in doing their deeds in darkness — to discover a generation that does not play by their rules. Those rules, of course, are that if you show full allegiance to the political agenda of current Southern Baptist leadership you might get a piece of the action for yourself.

Questioning or dissent of any kind has been a disqualifier.

The hot spot of this tension can be seen in the SBC International Mission Board trustees and how recent actions are playing out in cyberspace. A young Oklahoma pastor and trustee, Wade Burleson, violated the unwritten rules of fundamentalism — leading to new written rules against dissent being put into place quickly — by offering an opposing opinion on trustee decisions via a weblog. He also dared to point out the clear violation of written rules by a caucus of fellow trustees seeking to discredit IMB President Jerry Rankin.

Burleson received harsh treatment by his fellow trustees — who now have chosen to silence him rather than try to boot him out at the convention meeting this summer. Although they can’t quite explain his violations clearly and consistently, they don’t appreciate him challenging their ways of doing things.

In response, some young SBCers are rallying their troops to attend the SBC annual meeting in June in Greensboro, N.C., to face down the old guard. Some are even calling for supporting Burleson as a potential convention president.

SBC leaders have not totally ignored the younger leadership growing within the convention. Before retiring as president of LifeWay Christian Resources last winter, Jimmy Draper talked to and with many young pastors. Likewise, innovative Atlanta-area pastor Bryant Wright is breaking the mold of the SBC Pastors Conference that precedes the Greensboro meeting by giving considerable attention to younger leadership.

Most troubling to those who wrestled the SBC machinery away from more moderate-thinking Baptists decades ago — at a time when young Baptist leaders of today were busy learning to walk — is that their values and strategies will be at risk when age finally forces them to loosen their grip and hand over the reins.

For example, Mark Coppenger, who teaches apologetics at Southern Seminary, wrote an opinion piece in the March 21 edition of Baptist Press ripping popular writer Donald Miller. I have seen Miller’s book, Blue Like Jazz, listed as recommended reading on at least one web site of young SBCers.

Coppenger calls the book a “dreadful mess” and discredits Miller in much of the same way he and others have done fellow Baptists who do not share their angry, exclusive approach to being Christian. He chides Miller for being critical of fundamentalism in general and some Republican political positions in particular — sure signs of being outside the approved Southern Baptist perspective.

Also, Miller fails Coppenger’s orthodoxy text by not denouncing homosexuality and abortion in strong enough terms; not affirming the code word “inerrancy” when referring to the Bible; and being “impatient with war metaphors” in the Bible.

Young SBC leaders should consider themselves warned. If you want a place at the table, you better follow the rules. Sound the right themes, don’t make waves and support the powerbrokers if you want to become one. Otherwise, you better bring enough votes to Greensboro this summer to take over the SBC — again.