Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 8, 1990 TAG: 9004080098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Rev. Dr. Daniel Vestal, pastor of Dunwoody Baptist Church in Atlanta, stumped in Christiansburg and Roanoke.
Although he defines himself - and virtually all Southern Baptists - as theologically conservative, he is championing the cause of the so-called moderate wing of the denomination.
Vestal, 45, is campaigning on a pledge of inclusiveness in denominational politics, a condition he says has been lacking under the leadership of the past decade.
The candidate of an ultraconservative Southern Baptist faction first won the presidency 11 years ago.
In the years afterward, that group has solidified its control by continuing to win that office each year and extending its influence to the boards of trustees of each of the major denominational institutions.
Vestal charges that a "college of cardinals" has been created among leaders of that faction who are interested only in perpetuating control of the convention to the exclusion of everyone "who doesn't believe the Bible exactly as they do."
The past five presidents of the convention - each firmly aligned with the ultraconservative wing - have endorsed Vestal's opponent, the Rev. Morris Chapman of Wichita Falls, Texas.
Chapman's candidacy also has been connected to a call by Houston, Texas, pastor John Bisagno for including all those who believe in "a perfect Bible" in denominational leadership. Bisagno is expected to nominate Chapman for the presidency at the convention's annual meeting in New Orleans in June.
The Bisagno statement has been endorsed by several Southern Baptist ministers who in the past have avoided direct involvement in denominational politics, including the Rev. Charles Fuller, pastor of First Baptist Church on Third Street Southwest in Roanoke.
Although Fuller declined to specifically endorse Chapman's candidacy, he has said the Bisagno proposal for "broadened togetherness" has "refreshing potential."
Another previously politically uncommitted pastor, the Rev. Joel Gregory of Fort Worth, Texas, endorsed both the statement and Chapman.
In announcing his candidacy, Chapman, 49, called on the convention to "enlarge the tent . . . to encompass all cooperating Southern Baptists who are dedicated to perpetuating our allegiance to the Bible as the perfect word from the perfect God."
Gregory, who was in Roanoke last week to preach revival services at Fuller's church, said he made the endorsement only after being assured by Chapman and some previous convention presidents that the call for "enlarging the tent" was sincere.
Vestal told an audience in Christiansburg that such promises are nothing new.
"The evil of this [ultraconservative] movement is that it has thrived politically on slander - on the lie that some other people don't believe in the Bible," he said.
Vestal said his differences with the group now in power are not theological. He is an "inerrantist," one who believes, as one Southern Baptist statement of faith puts it, that the Bible "is truth without any mixture of error."
He says there are "foundational beliefs" about Jesus Christ - the virgin birth, resurrection and the second coming - that are crucial to his denomination.
But Vestal challenges the necessity of accepting some conditions of faith that his opponent has asserted are essential as well - beliefs that Adam and Eve were real people, that the named authors actually wrote each of the books of the Bible ascribed to them, that the miracles were real supernatural events, and that all the historical accounts in the Bible are accurate and reliable.
"The problem is not the perfect Bible," Vestal said. "The problem is imperfect human beings" who are incapable of perfect interpretation. Those people, he said, have confined control of the denomination to those who interpret the Bible as they do.
In fact, Vestal said, he agreed 11 years ago that the denomination needed to address some theological concerns, particularly perceptions of unacceptable liberalism in agencies and seminaries.
What has happened, however, is that "those problems pale in comparison to the current controversy. . . . The cure has been worse than the disease." He cited funding and morale problems in denominational institutions and a slowed rate of growth in baptisms under the current leadership.
Vestal told his Southwest Virginia audiences that he would be a reconciler and pledged to include even his political opponents in the denomination's decision-making process if he is elected.
He said he has worked behind the scenes for the past 11 years attempting to do just that, first on a study of the financial study group, later on the committee on nominations that seeks candidates for denominational boards, and most recently on the Peace Committee, which was chaired by Fuller.
That committee, which reported to the full national convention in 1987, failed to accomplish its mission of peacemaking, Vestal contends. The faction currently in control "is a vicious control movement that doesn't care what it does to anybody," he said. "It has got to be neutralized for reconciliation" to occur, he said.
Although Fuller said the failure of the Peace Committee recommendations has been in their implementation rather than their formation, he and Gregory agreed in an interview last week that there must be some return to the center in denominational politics.
However, both said it should come from the current, more conservative leadership group than from the moderate side. That is why he endorsed the Bisagno proposal and Chapman's candidacy, Gregory said.
"We should include the maximum number of people who profess a perfect Bible," Gregory said. The change he advocates "is not in the desire that the denomination be dominated by those who believe in the perfect word of God."
He said that was one reason he preferred the term "enlarging the tent" to "inclusiveness" in describing the reconciliation he wants.
Enlarging the tent still implies some limits in belief, he said, and recognizes that the current control group must do the extending.
"Something's got to give. We need some relief," Fuller said, but at the same time some limits on theological limits are needed. The notion of the larger tent also reflects what he sees as the fact that no tent is large enough to cover "all the extremes" in Southern Baptist life.
Vestal, Fuller and Gregory all ultimately use similar language to describe their hopes for ending the controversy.
"We need to move away from using litmus tests to preaching the flawless word of God and evangelizing the world thereby," Fuller said. "We need to get off these heavy agendas and onto the simple agenda."
by CNB