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When Wayne Pederson moved to Virginia last month to assume his duties as president and chief operating officer of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), he kept his family's home in Minneapolis.

By Saturday evening, Pederson will know if he'll be returning to Minneapolis sooner than he had anticipated.

After his comments in a January 5 article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune generated a controversy in the 1,300-member organization, Pederson submitted his resignation to Chairman and CEO Glenn Plummer on February 8. Saturday, the 93-member board of directors will vote on whether to accept Pederson's resignation during its annual convention in Nashville. Pederson was to have been inaugurated Saturday.

Pederson suggested to the Star-Tribune that the NRB should be known more for its evangelical theology than its conservative stance on political and public policy issues. Pederson said that people automatically associate Christian broadcasters with the Religious Right.

Shortly after the article was published, several prominent members of the organization publicly called for his resignation.

"I think what I was saying has been misunderstood," Pederson told CT. "I wasn't saying that Christian broadcasters shouldn't be speaking to the moral issues of the day. What I was trying to say [was that] our theology, evangelism, and discipleship should always take priority over our political positions, and we ought to be more known for our gospel than for our politics. But in no way was I trying to distance NRB from religious conservatives or saying that they shouldn't use their broadcasts to speak to the moral and cultural issues of the day."

Still, Pederson's remarks have ignited a public and private controversy in the 59-year-old organization, as members both castigated and defended Pederson. Formerly president of Northwestern Radio in Minneapolis and NRB chairman, Pederson assumed his duties January 1 after being unanimously elected last year. Brandt Gustavson, the previous NRB president, died last May 14 of cancer.

Don Wildmon, president and founder of the American Family Association (AFA) and American Family Radio Network, declined CT's request for an interview. "Mr. Pederson has criticized those he calls the members of the Religious Right," Wildmon told WorldNet Daily. "If one stops to think about it, that includes Jim Dobson and Chuck Colson and Adrian Rogers and Vic Eliason and Dick Bott—I mean, just about anybody who has worked hard to make the NRB what it is. It is just tragic. I really think Mr. Pederson would best serve the cause to step aside, because if he does not, there is a good chance, a real good chance, that either he would be replaced or that an organization more representative of our views would come forth."

The nine-member executive committee of the NRB began to discuss the issue January 23 after Wildmon, his son Tim (an AFA executive), Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, author/broadcaster Tim LaHaye, and Richard Bott of Bott Radio Network spoke about their concerns in news articles.

However, according to Plummer, a turning point in the discussion took place January 24, when Focus on the Family President James Dobson held a conference call with several influential members of the organization to discuss Pederson. The group unanimously agreed that Pederson should resign. Plummer told CT that Dobson called Pederson to inform him of the group's decision. Dobson, the scheduled keynote speaker at the convention, has said he will not speak at the opening session and will leave the organization if Pederson is retained.

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February (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46