Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990 TAG: 9006120269
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Medium
In pre-convention activities Monday, representatives of both factions accused the other of being un-Baptist and unbiblical in their denominational politics. Such rhetoric has become common in recent years as the votes for the convention presidency have become closer.
In the only official action of a denominational agency Monday, the convention's executive committee voted to reject a plea to include an addendum to a report that will recommend reducing funding to an affiliated agency.
The executive committee will recommend to the convention today that it cut the funding of the Baptist Joint Committee of Public Affairs by 87 percent, from $391,000 to $50,000 per year. The joint committee represents nine Baptist denominations on issues of church and state in Washington, D.C.
Leaders of the ultraconservative faction now controlling the Southern Baptists contend the Joint Committee is too liberal and has failed to represent the views of the majority of Southern Baptists.
The executive committee refused to allow a response and denial of several of the allegations by the Baptist Joint Committee to be printed in the daily bulletin of the convention.
The executive committee also heard a report from a liaison committee that had been meeting with the Virginia Committee on the Denominational Crisis.
The Baptist General Association of Virginia, representing the state's Southern Baptist congregations, last year voted to send a formal letter of complaint - called a "memorial" - to the national body.
The memorial outlined specific dissatisfaction with proposed cutbacks in funding of the Baptist Joint Committee in Washington and what it called the unresponsiveness of the national leadership to Virginia positions and nominees for national denominational offices.
The national liaison committee has met twice with the Virginia group, but has failed to reach agreement. A third meeting is scheduled in September in Nashville, Tenn. A report from that meeting should be available for Virginia Southern Baptists at their meeting in Richmond, Va., in November.
Groups representing the two political factions in the denomination finished their pre-convention meetings Monday. The Southern Baptist Pastor's Conference - representing the ultraconservative side - met in the Louisiana Superdome Sunday night and Monday.
Ultraconservative pastors have held the presidency for the past 11 years and just this year completed the process of gaining majorities on the board of trustees of every Southern Baptist agency and institution, including all six seminaries.
The so-called "battle of the Bible" has focused on the issue of inerrancy - the belief that the Bible must be considered literally true in matters of science and history, as well as theology and philosophy.
Those generally labeled "moderates" have contended that they, too, believe that the Bible is infallible but that human beings are imperfect and therefore incapable of perfectly interpreting the book.
Generally, leaders of the moderates, such as presidential candidate Daniel Vestal of Atlanta, have contended they believe exactly as the ultraconservatives do about each of those issues but that they would not insist that every other Southern Baptist likewise believe them.
Morris Chapman of Texas, a representative of the controlling faction, is generally viewed as the favorite in today's balloting, but many observers said this week that the vote was likely to be close. The current president, Jerry Vines of Florida, won by a scant 0.5 percent when he was elected to his first term two years ago.
Chapman will be nominated today by John Bisagno of Houston, who was one of the pastors' conference preachers Monday. But Bisagno, who issued a statement earlier this year calling for "enlarging the tent" of current denominational leadership, was unrelenting in his sermon on the issue of inerrancy.
He fired up the crowd of several thousand with a thundering affirmation of all the positions of the inerrantists and by declaring that any deviation from those principles would lead to ruin. Chapman also presented a more reserved sermon on John 3:16 to the pastors' conference Monday.
Elsewhere in New Orleans, The Southern Baptist Forum was being held by the moderate coalition. Speaker W. Randall Lolley, who left the presidency of the embattled Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., in 1988, delivered a sermon in which he called for "recapturing the future" - the theme of the forum.
Lolley attacked fundamentalist and ultraconservative positions on the issues of inerrancy, interpretation, authority of pastors and the position of women.
Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler, a former head of the Women's Missionary Union - an independent auxiliary of the Southern Baptist Convention - and a candidate for the denomination's vice presidency, also spoke at the forum.
by CNB