Southern Baptists: Platform for Presidents

Despite muggy weather, a record registration of 18,672 messengers (delegates) trying to jam into a facility with a capacity of about 11,000, and some potentially divisive issues making the rounds back home, the three-day annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Norfolk. Virginia, ended with most feelings remarkably intact.

The highlight of the meeting last month was a fifteen-minute address by President Ford. It was the first time an incumbent President addressed the SBC in its 131-year history. Ford’s speech revealed an awareness of SBC history and concerns (thanks to input by former SBC pastor Richard Brannon, a White House executive), and he was applauded numerous times. The longest applause came when he challenged Southern Baptists to avoid the “shifting sands of situation ethics” and to adopt instead the stand that says, “This is right, this is wrong; there is a difference.”

His remarks were cast against a background of unfolding sex scandals in Washington and the more-distant Watergate revelations. He said America needs a strong moral foundation, and he maintained that public officials “have a special responsibility to set a good example.” He decried the “abuse of the moral imperatives of honesty and decency on which religion and government and civilized society must rest.” The answer, he asserted, is not only in good government, but in “the Bible, the church, the human heart.” Ford said that in his own life he has found the Bible “a steady compass and a source of great strength and peace.” He spoke of praying for God’s guidance.

In his introductory remarks, the President noted that the last time he spoke to an SBC audience (a men’s breakfast at the 1974 convention in Dallas), he was introduced by SBC layman Jimmy Carter. The comment evoked some good-natured chuckles and applause.

There had been some objections to Ford’s appearance during a campaign year, and there were a few attempts to get the program committee to invite Carter to give an equal-visibility talk, but these were dismissed with little debate.

Sample interviews indicated that the predominantly Southern audience will give Carter solid support in November for both religious and cultural reasons, but a surprising number of clergymen expressed reservations about Carter’s “ambiguity on the issues,” as one minister put it.

Ford may have picked up some votes at the convention, but he probably lost some, too. Only the first 10,500 registrants were issued admission tickets to the speech in the Scope center, and the view of many of these was blocked by a huge press platform erected on the main floor. Angry pickets outside complained they had traveled thousands of miles and spent hundreds of dollars only to be shut out of their own meeting. Overflow facilities next door and miles away in Virginia Beach accommodated up to 4,000 others through closed-circuit TV (although the speech was televised live on a local station). Those left stewing in the afternoon heat blamed it all on Washington and Nashville (SBC headquarters).

In reaction later, the messengers passed a resolution that banned future conventions in any city with a hall that seats fewer than 16,000 and with fewer than 6,500 easily accessible hotel rooms. Officials argued in vain that this would restrict meetings to only a handful of cities.

Except for the furor over facilities, there was little else that ruffled feelings.

In a first-ballot decision the messengers elected James L. Sullivan, 66, as president of the 12.7-million-member body. He is the retired executive of the SBC Sunday School Board.

The office is one of prestige rather than power, but there had been a lot of pre-convention controversy over the presidency. Some leaders had called on Pastor Adrian Rogers of the large Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis not to run. His candidacy was being promoted by the conservative Baptist Faith and Message Fellowship, of which he is a director. Opponents alleged that he would divide the convention.

Weeks before the convention Rogers announced he was not a candidate and would decline if nominated—a pledge he carried out at the convention when he was indeed nominated. He said the Holy Spirit had clearly led him to make that decision.

His friends feel the attacks against him by several editors of SBC state newspapers and other critics were unfair and unwarranted. Rogers was president of the SBC pastors’ conference for the past year, a post that traditionally has been a springboard to the SBC presidency. His critics accused him of “loading” this year’s pre-convention conference program with fellow members of the Baptist Faith and Message Fellowship (BFMF). In reality, however, only one of the many participants was a BFMF member; a number of the speakers were prominent SBC personalities, including two former presidents. There were no factious remarks from the podium, and a number of the 6,000 pastors attending said it was the most inspiring conference in years.

Pastor Jerry Vines of Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, was elected to succeed Rogers. Vines said he was not a member of the BFMF, but he has addressed two of its national meetings since its founding in 1973.

“Many people have prejudged the pastors’ conference as a political cause,” Rogers told a reporter. “That is simply not true.”

The BFMF leaders feel that the SBC is drifting from its evangelical moorings, especially at the seminary level. A main issue is biblical inerrancy; the BFMF’s people say it is no longer taught or believed in many seminary classrooms. They say they want to awaken the grass roots to what is happening, and they accuse the denomination’s leadership of adhering to a peace-at-any-price philosophy.

Quizzed in a press conference about his position, president-elect Sullivan—considered a middle-of-the-roader—said that some of the BFMF leaders were personal friends but that they were wrong to organize formally into a group intent on fragmenting SBC fellowship. BFMF executive-editor William A. Powell of Atlanta asked Sullivan if he believed the original manuscripts of the Bible were without error. “Yes, certainly,” replied Sullivan. “But we don’t have a copy.”

In an address to the convention before his election, Sullivan urged Southern Baptists to continue to look to the Bible and to the commandments of Jesus as the source of authority for the Church.

The messengers adopted a $55 million budget for the coming year along with resolutions that:

• Affirmed the biblical view of the sanctity of human life, including fetal life, but also affirmed the “limited role of government” in abortion matters and the right of mothers to a full range of medical services (two anti-permissive abortion amendments were defeated).

• Expressed “commitment to the biblical truth regarding the practice of homosexuality as sin” (a phrase expressing compassion for homosexuals was deleted in favor of one expressing “concern that all persons be saved from the penalty of sin through our Lord Jesus Christ”).

• Reaffirmed support of religious and political freedom for all, calling especially for the release of imprisoned Soviet Baptist leader Georgi Vins.

• Opposed government support of teaching Transcendental Meditation.

• Supported Sunday as a day of rest.

• Opposed use of alcoholic beverages and pornography.

The most hostile confrontation came during a report of two SBC units that had studied a controversial social studies curriculum series called MACOS (Man: A Course of Study) used by some public elementary schools. The report recommended that the convention neither endorse nor condemn the material. Georgia pastor Herschel A. Markham then denounced the curriculum as “Satanic” and demanded time to read passages to the messengers, threatening to sue if he were turned down. But he offered no motions or amendments, and the debate ended with messengers denying him time to read the passages and adopting the report. (Markham, 42, was later picked up by police in Atlanta after warning passersby there was a “time bomb” in his briefcase. He was apparently referring to the MACOS samples, but he was arrested and held for psychiatric observation.)

Outgoing president Jaroy Weber, a Texas pastor, urged his listeners to become more involved politically and to support candidates who can lead the nation back to Christian principles. He did not say they should vote for Carter, but there were some veiled and some not-so-veiled suggestions to that effect from the podium. Louisiana pastor Bill Hale, one of those who wanted a place for Carter on the program, said: “We’ve been talking about the need for Christian statesmen. Now that we have one, let’s just unwrap him and show him.” And Pastor Bailey E. Smith of First Southern Baptist Church of Del City, Oklahoma, suggested in the opening-night sermon that the nation needs a “born-again Christian” for President. “While it certainly would be improperforme to name that man,” said he, “his initials are the same as our Lord’s.”

The scores of reporters covering the convention had a field day with that remark.

IMPROMPTU PRAYER

Rabbi Maurice S. Sage, 59, president of the Jewish National Fund of America, was about to present a Bible to Betty Ford during a dinner fete last month when he collapsed. As Secret Service agents and others tried to revive him, the First Lady stepped to the podium at New York’s Hilton Hotel and asked the stunned audience to stand and pray for Sage. “I’ll have to say it in my own words,” she said.

She prayed: “Dear Father in heaven, we ask thy blessing on this magnificent man. Rabbi Sage. We know you can take care of him. We know you can bring him back to us. We know you are our leader. You are our strength. You are what life is all about. Love and love of fellow man is what we all need and depend on. Please, dear God.”

Then she asked everyone to join together in silent prayer for the rabbi.

The program was concluded abruptly. Sage, apparently the victim of a heart attack, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital a short time later.

The (New) Law Of The Land

In the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rash of major decisions were some that dealt with church-state issues.

The court voted 5 to 4 to uphold as constitutional Maryland’s five-year-old program of direct financial aid to church-related colleges. Maryland’s only restriction is that the funds must be used for “secular” and not “sectarian” purposes. The ruling, which will affect similar plans in other states and make it easier for church institutions to get aid, upheld a lower court’s 1974 decision involving four Catholic colleges, one of which no longer exists. Originally, Western Maryland College, a United Methodist school, was included, but the school disaffiliated with the denomination in order to qualify for uncontested aid and withdrew from the case (see May 9, 1975, issue, page 49).

Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion, argued that a “hermetic separation” of church and state is impossible, that the Maryland law does not have the “primary effect” of advancing religion, and that “excessive government entanglement with religion” has not been proved in the law’s application. He also pointed to the “essentially secular educational functions” of the four schools in contrast to the religious character of parochial elementary and secondary schools. The courts have struck down a number of state-aid programs involving the latter.

Dissenting justices objected to any public subsidy of religious institutions, and John Paul Stevens—the newest justice—warned that state subsidies carry with them the “pernicious tendency … to tempt religious schools to compromise their religious mission.”

Reaction in the church community has been mixed. Some denominational officials see the ruling as a way of preserving the existence (and affiliation) of their hard-pressed schools; some conservatives tend to agree with Stevens, and they fear subsidies will lead to controls.

In a 7-to-2 decision, the court ruled that private schools may not refuse to admit black students. It stressed, however, that the decision does not affect the right of a private school to admit only those of a particular faith. It also said that the decision would not stop a private school from keeping out members of one race, if that were done “on religious grounds.” Many of the academies and other private schools set up in the aftermath of the high court’s landmark desegregation decision years ago were established by Southern churches. Presumably, most of those schools that still exist will cite religious reasons for keeping blacks out. The ruling grew out of a case involving two secular schools in Virginia that have since integrated.

In another action, the high court ruled that civil courts have no right to decide internal disputes in hierarchical denominations. The civil courts, according to the decision, are bound by decisions of such denominations about “their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government.” The decision overturned a 1975 ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court. That court said the 1963 defrocking of Bishop Dionisije Milivojevich of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church was impermissible because it was not in accord with prescribed church procedures.

Under the final decision, the question of who owned church property formerly under the bishop’s control must also be settled by the church’s authorities, not by civil courts.

Rectifying An Omission

One of the most important contributions to the American Revolution went largely unnoticed in official Bicentennial celebrations. The part played by colonial preachers and churches received relatively little recognition, and evangelist Billy Graham tried to do something about that during the days preceding the Fourth of July.

His organization produced a television special in Colonial Williamsburg and placed it on more than 250 stations across the nation during the July 4 weekend. Graham preached twice at a Bicentennial “festival of faith” crusade in Williamsburg in late June and then delivered a Sunday sermon at the Washington Cathedral.

In both the colonial capital of Virginia and in today’s national capital he paid special tribute to George Whitefield and other eighteenth-century evangelists.

“His impact upon the thirteen colonies cannot be measured,” the twentieth century’s most widely traveled preacher said of Whitefield. “He traveled and preached in them all.… The leaders of the thirteen colonies did not know each other, and it was George Whitefield more than any other person who introduced them to each other. By the time he died at the age of 56 in 1770, the way had been prepared for independence.”

The role of the itinerant preachers was far more important than just that of news-bearers to the patriots, however, Graham indicated. Many signers of the Declaration of Independence sat under the preaching of Whitefield and other Great Awakening evangelists. Biblical concepts were written into the founding documents. The clergymen founded the schools that trained the patriots.

“I do not see how anyone could study the history of America without recognizing religious influences that have helped mold this nation from the beginning,” Graham said. “Time after time in our history there have been appeals to the Supreme Judge in seeking to build a new nation. This idea of freedom as a ‘right’ of all men everywhere is absolutely unique among nations.”

The cathedral was packed for the North Carolina preacher’s sermon, and officials there estimated the crowd at 3,700. The Washington Post said the congregation was about three times larger than usual for an 11 A.M. Sunday service.

In Williamsburg, Graham preached in the College of William and Mary coliseum, and about 9,000 attended each night. In keeping with the Bicentennial theme, programs for both services featured patriotic hymns, and decorations were red, white, and blue. Otherwise, the usual crusade format was followed. More than 500 decisions for Christ were recorded. Many of the decision-makers were out-of-state visitors to the historic area.

In both Washington and Williamsburg the evangelist noted that the nation is ripe for another great awakening. “I believe that every problem facing us today as Americans is basically a spiritual problem,” he said at the cathedral. “Crime is a spiritual problem. Inflation is a spiritual problem. Corruption is a spiritual problem. Social injustice is a spiritual problem. The lack of a ‘will’ even to defend our freedoms is a spiritual problem.”

At Williamsburg he mentioned such worldwide crises as food shortages, war, uncontrolled scientific developments, and repression of free expression. Crises often bring wholesome changes to nations and individuals, he said.

He explained his emphasis on the historic themes by saying that he had declined an appointment to the commission planning the Bicentennial. The evangelist said he turned the job down because he did not want to spend a lot of time in meetings but later regretted the decision.

Graham told reporters in Williamsburg that he had spoken at a Senate Prayer Breakfast in Washington before the crusade. The attendance of over forty senators was the largest on record, sponsors told him. He also revealed that he had just returned from a European trip that included a day’s visit in East Berlin. He was a guest at the American Embassy there and had no public meetings. However, he said, East Germans who had seen him on West German television approached him on the streets and asked for autographs. Some identified themselves as Christians.

ARTHUR H. MATTHEWS

Congress Coming

For nearly a hundred years Catholics have been getting together for an event called the International Eucharistic Congress. It started out in Lille, France, in 1881 as a study assembly attended by 800 people. Held only once before in the United States (in 1926), the congress will convene in Philadelphia the first week of August, and organizers are expecting about one million participants from all over the world. Rooms and dormitories have been booked as far as 100 miles away, and virtually every stadium, convention facility, and assembly hall in the city will be in use for the various celebrations, conferences, exhibits, and workshops. Leaders say the congress is being held to help stem a decline in the practice of faith, apathy towards God, and a lessening of religious and moral values. It was still uncertain this month whether ailing Pope Paul VI would be able to attend.

Show Stopper

Four years ago nightclub entertainer Susan Haines, billing herself as Miss Nude Universe, performed in the altogether at Oklahoma City’s Playgirl Club. Police arrested her, but the indecent-exposure charges didn’t stick, and the city has had to put up with an increasing number of nude shows ever since.

Last month a large ad in the Oklahoma Journal’s movie and nightclub pages announced that Miss Haines, 29, was back in town—this time to give her “testimony for Christ” at suburban First Southern Baptist Church of Del City, sponsor of the ad. Seems she had a run-in with the law in 1974 and somebody gave her a copy of Hal Lindsey’s book, Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth. She became a follower of Jesus as a result. Now she and her husband, residents of Jacksonville, Florida, are planning to visit the fifty cities across the nation where she worked as a dancer. This time she intends to bare her soul.

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