The surprise pick for president of the Southern Baptist Convention says he'll stand up for the denomination's conservative beliefs -- but he'll do it with a smile.

The pastor from South Carolina comes from outside the conservative leadership that has held tight control of the nation's largest Protestant denomination for more than a decade. But he cautions that does not represent a move toward the political middle for a group fervently opposed to abortion and gay sex.

In his campaign, and again after winning Tuesday over two better-known SBC leaders, Page was quick to proclaim his credentials as a conservative and a believer that the Bible is the unerring Word of God. But he also was blunt about his determination to perform cosmetic surgery on the face that the SBC presents to the nation.

Asked how he would determine who would have a voice in Southern Baptist leadership under his presidency, Page cited "a sweet spirit" as the first requirement.

SBC leaders have often come off in recent years as filled with righteous fury, a carry-over from the long, vicious battle for control of the denomination that conservatives and moderates waged in the 1970s and 1980s.

The struggle ended when moderates dropped out of SBC politics in the early 1990s, but a confrontational tone had been set for a generation of conservative SBC leaders.

In 1995, the Southern Baptists adopted a resolution calling for a boycott of The Walt Disney Co. after it decided to offer benefits to partners of gay employees. The boycott lasted for eight years.

SBC declarations banned female pastors and declared that wives should "submit graciously" to their husbands. On Wednesday, a day after Page's election, the SBC's annual meeting adopted a resolution urging that anyone who drinks alcohol be barred from leadership positions.

Wade Burleson, a 44-year-old pastor from Enid, Okla., was one of Page's most outspoken supporters. A conservative like Page, he was nonetheless dismayed at the way SBC leaders handled dissent within the powerful International Missions Board after he joined the panel.

Burleson was publicly reprimanded by board members for writing about the board's internal debates on his Internet blog and threatened with removal, which stoked his desire for change.

Burleson and other dissenting bloggers were given part of the credit for carrying the little-known Page to victory over Ronnie Floyd, pastor of a northwest Arkansas megachurch, and Jerry Sutton, a prominent conservative who leads one of Nashville, Tenn.' s most politically active congregations.

"What they (other Americans) can say is that Southern Baptists are concerned about the good news getting out to people in need," Burleson said. "They can say of Southern Baptists, 'Man, those folks love people.' That's what I hope they hear, loud and clear."

Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University's School of Divinity and a frequent critic of SBC leadership, is less sure that the Southern Baptists have reached a turning point. He noted that Sutton and Floyd likely split the traditional conservative vote, allowing Page to eke out his win.

"Whether it becomes a 'kinder, gentler' denomination, publicly, depends on how much the traditional leadership -- especially certain seminary presidents -- respond," Leonard said in an e-mail interview.

"Page's narrow election may give false hope to many," said Robert Parham of Nashville's Baptist Center for Ethics, which also opposes the SBC leadership.

"Even if Page wants to pursue a reformation, he can't overturn decades of fundamentalist control and organizations stocked with fundamentalist employees."

Page says his election should not be viewed as a harbinger of moderating Southern Baptist philosophy. But he did say he hopes for a "broadening" of voices heard within the denomination and embraced the notion of a "kinder, gentler" SBC.

"For too long, Baptists have been known for what we're against," he said. "It's time to say, 'Please, let us tell what we're for: That there is a life-transforming, relevant-to-today's-people message that we have to share.' "

This is cache, read story here