(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 Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and worked in marketing and as a machinist before serving churches in Texas, Arkansas and California.
In the 1970s, he struggled with alcoholism and was fired from a job in marketing before getting sober.
“A big part of three or four years, I honestly have very little knowledge of what happened,” he told RNS in 1997.
No stranger to controversy, Drake waged a legal battle with the city of Buena Park for years. His church ran a homeless shelter and feeding program, and city officials wanted to shut it down. Drake told The New York Times that he started the shelter after kicking a drunken man off church property.
“’I never thought a preacher would treat me this way,” he recalled the man saying, according to the Times.
Drake told the Times that he’d rather follow the Bible than city officials.
”God didn’t suggest, he commanded us to care for the poor. We have a mandate that goes all the way back to the Old Testament,” Drake said in 1997. The shelter was condemned and shut down in 2017.
Wiley Drake, then-pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., introduced a motion June 13, 2006, to ask the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention to write a letter of appreciation to the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals for a ruling that allowed his church and others to continue programs for homeless people that his local government was trying to shut down. The SBC’s annual meeting that year was in Greensboro, N.C. Photo courtesy of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives
Along with preaching and ministry to the homeless, Drake was outspoken about politics and social issues and tried to get the SBC to censure then-President Bill Clinton for his sexual misconduct in office.
“I believe we need to hold him personally accountable,” Drake said during the discussion about a 1998 resolution on ethical standards for political leaders, RNS reported at the time.
Drake was perhaps best known for authoring a resolution for Southern Baptists to boycott Disney because the company’s amusement parks hosted gay-friendly events. He first raised the idea of a boycott in 1996 but the SBC decided to hold off.
But Southern Baptists determined a year later that a threat was not enough. They had once considered the company family-friendly but grew increasingly frustrated with it due to its airing of programs and adoption of policies they believed favored gay rights.
In 1997, SBC messengers voted overwhelmingly at the annual meeting to boycott the Walt Disney Co., including its theme parks, Disney stores and the ABC television network, which is owned by Disney.
The boycott was lifted in 2005. Disney offered special discounts to Southern Baptists during the denomination’s 2010 annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, and later in 2022, when the denomination met in Anaheim, California. Disney theme parks are near or in those cities.
The gadfly pastor would later make headlines for praying for President Barack Obama’s death. He also embraced the birther conspiracy — popularized by Donald Trump – and sued to have the 2008 presidential election overturned, claiming Obama was not born in the United States. Drake also clashed with the SBC’s Executive Committee for touting a denominational role during a failed run for public office.
Drake, who made 35 motions at SBC meetings, ran for SBC president twice but lost. However, he was elected second vice president of the denomination in 2006, beating out J.D. Greear, a North Carolina megachurch pastor who later became SBC president. During one of Drake’s many visits to the microphone at SBC meetings, he also once urged former SBC President Ronnie Floyd to run for the White House. (Drake’s motion was ruled out of order.)
Floyd said Drake will be missed.
“I loved Wiley and he was one of a kind in SBC life,” Floyd posted on X. ”Thank God for pastors like Wiley Drake.”
“We grieve the passing of a Southern Baptist icon and open mic legend,” Greear wrote on X after hearing news of Drake’s death. “Wiley and I had some wonderful (and a few interesting) interactions. Note that he defeated me for the 2nd Vice President of the SBC in 2006. Praying for his family. You will be missed, Wiley. You were loved.”
Drake became a fixture at SBC meetings, and his appearances at the microphone were often greeted with laughter and a few groans. In his 2006 nomination speech, Kentucky pastor Bill Dodson praised Drake’s dedication to the SBC.
“Last year, when I nominated Wiley Drake, I told you I’d be back if you didn’t elect him, but you did not elect him, so here I am,” Dodson said to roars of laughter. “Wiley kept on serving when nobody asked. He will keep serving us, if nobody notices.”
A funeral service will be held Sunday at Oasis Church in Levelland, Texas, where Drake lived with his daughter and his family in retirement.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Barbara, in 2010. Survivors include three siblings, four children, 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
