(RNS) — Wiley Drake, a California pastor who rallied Southern Baptists to boycott Disney in the 1990s, has died.
Drake, 82, died on Jan. 27. The Southern Baptist Convention announced his death on Tuesday (Feb. 10).
A longtime pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, California — not far from Disneyland — was a self-styled “champion of the little guy,” known for his outspoken opinions at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meetings. His enthusiasm for speaking at meetings as a church delegate, known as a messenger, and for having his say about the direction of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination was an example of what makes the convention work, said former SBC President Bart Barber.
“Wiley Drake rightly believed that any simple, faithful messenger could go to the microphone at the Southern Baptist Convention and do something that made an eternal difference,” Barber, a Texas pastor, told RNS. “In a nonhierarchical family of churches like the Southern Baptist Convention, that confidence, exemplified by Wiley Drake, makes everything run.”
Born Nov. 23, 1943, in Magnolia, Arkansas, Drake dropped out of high school to follow the rodeo, then served in the Navy, where he met his wife, Barbara, while stationed in Hawaii. He eventually graduated from Biola University and Sou …