Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 15, 1990 TAG: 9006150810
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Medium
A clump of resolutions and motions were left unattended as an estimated 4,000 of the 38,464 total registration showed up for the final day of the annual meeting of the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
Resolutions, which would not have been binding on individual congregations in any case, nonetheless are considered indicative of the sentiments of the majority faction of the denomination.
Messengers to the convention offered resolutions on a wide variety of topics, but issues that have been inflaming tensions in other denominations - such as homosexuality and abortion - were notably absent from the proposals here.
Southern Baptist conventions of recent years already are on record as opposing abortion except when the life of a mother is in danger.
The denomination hardly has considered the issue of homosexuality, which is widely considered as aberrant and sinful in Southern Baptist churches.
One convention speaker, the Rev. John Bisagno of Texas, went so far as to say that having "settled the issue of inerrancy," Southern Baptists should never even have to consider the question of ordaining homosexuals.
Inerrancy is the doctrine that everything in the Bible is literally true. Conservative members who hold that belief overwhelmingly elected the group's new president, Morris Chapman of Texas, on Tuesday.
The small group still here bade farewell to the president of the last two years, the Rev. Jerry Vines of Jacksonville, Fla., also a member of the majority ultraconservative faction.
They also heard a defiant director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs pledge to continue to serve Southern Baptists whether they wanted it or not.
The convention this week cut $350,000 from the budget of the Joint Committee, which also represents eight other Baptist bodies on religious-liberty issues in Washington. James Dunn said his organization would have to restructure itself, including its board of directors, but that he expected individuals, churches and church associations to make up the financial shortfall.
Virginia's association of Southern Baptist churches is already on record as pledging to help make up the loss.
by CNB