James Dunn Is the Focus of a Southern Baptist Controversy

Wrangling among Southern Baptists is nothing new. But the controversy swirling around James Dunn is extraordinarily intense.

The combative Texan is executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (BJC). The Washington, D.C.—based group conducts research, reports news, and serves as a government liaison on issues related to church and state. It is funded by nine Baptist denominations, but the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) provides more than 80 percent of its support.

Some SBC leaders are fuming about the controversial positions Dunn has taken on issues close to conservatives’ hearts. At the denomination’s annual meeting last year, messengers voted to support President Reagan’s proposed constitutional amendment to restore oral prayer in public schools. But Dunn testified against the measure in Congress, denouncing Reagan for “despicable demagoguery” and for “playing petty politics with prayer.” The statements placed Dunn high on the hit list of Southern Baptist conservatives.

“I part company with them at the point of tampering with the Constitution by adding another amendment that would put upon the Constitution the inflexibility of the moment,” Dunn told CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

But no matter what his reasoning, SBC conservatives oppose him. In fact, they oppose the very idea of a Baptist Joint Committee. “We pay 85 percent of the BJC’s budget. We fail to see why we shouldn’t have our own representative in Washington,” says Paige Patterson of the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies in Dallas.

Patterson says a motion for separate Southern Baptist representation in Washington is likely to surface at the SBC’s June meeting in Kansas City. Meanwhile, he says Southern Baptist conservative leaders simply go over Dunn’s head to gain access to government officials.

“Dunn has been extremely antagonistic against the President, guaranteeing that he would have no influence at all in representing us regarding the Vatican envoy question,” Patterson says. “He hobnobs with the liberal establishment in the House and Senate.… That doesn’t make us very happy either.”

In his defense, Dunn points out that several liberal senators, including Mark Hatfield (R-Oreg.) and Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.), are leading the congressional opposition to Reagan’s appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican. Patterson suffers from a “terrible misconception,” Dunn says.

“Face-to-face contact is not the way most things happen in Washington,” he says. “We have excellent relationships with decision makers that cut across political and ideological lines.”

Conservative Southern Baptists believe Dunn fraternizes with the wrong sort outside of government as well. For three years he was a board member of People for the American Way (PAW), a group founded by television producer Norman Lear to oppose the Moral Majority and much of the so-called electronic church. When his term ended in December, Dunn refused renomination to the PAW board, mainly because of the criticism it stirred.

“I’ve got enough to do on religious liberty concerns without wasting time with people who are bothered about my being part of it [PAW],” he says.

Lear’s organization raised the ire of some Southern Baptists because of its relationship with the Playboy Foundation. PAW received a $40,000 grant from the foundation and has placed ads free of charge in Playboy magazine. It enraged Southern Baptist conservatives when PAW mentioned the BJC in connection with Dunn.

“It’s not appropriate at all for him to use the name of the organization [BJC] to support PAW when they’re willing to accept funding from Playboy,” says Albert Lee Smith, a member of the Southern Baptist Public Affairs Committee, a BJC subsidiary.

Dunn’s decision to decline renomination to the PAW board has not satisfied all of his critics. “Dunn is still a member of the organization and is clearly identified with them,” Patterson says. “It’s like putting Sodom together with Jerusalem.”

Patterson says the Southern Baptists are growing increasingly wary of the BJC. Calls for Dunn’s resignation have cropped up around the country. And the Alabama Baptist Convention last year asked the SBC to withdraw its funding of the BJC because of Dunn’s association with PAW.

A year ago, First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls, Texas, which strongly supports cooperative Baptist endeavors, withdrew its funding of the BJC. “That was the shot heard ‘round the world,” Patterson says. “We are totally at the mercy of what Dunn and his staff happen to think. Once Baptists understand that fully, even the moderates will not put up with that.”

Dunn is undaunted. He says Christians should work with “many people with whom we do not agree on everything.… I believe in the long haul it is terribly important that we continue to work in the real world.”

A major showdown is expected this year between progambling interests and religious groups that oppose betting.

If anyone were putting money on the outcome, the odds would favor the gambling industry. Backed by millions of dollars for lobbying and public relations, gambling interests are planning a major expansion in several states. Religious groups are gearing up for a fight. But the general public has been receptive to gambling when it promises to supplement a state’s tax base.

Eighty-two percent of those who responded to a Gallup poll last year said they would approve of some form of legalized gambling if it meant increased state revenues.

Most states already allow some form of gambling. Bingo is legal in 46 states, horse race betting in 32, lotteries in 18, and casinos in two. Only four states (Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi, Utah) prohibit all forms of gambling, according to the Congressional Research Center.

Legislation that would legalize lotteries is expected to be considered this year in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Virginia, says Larry Braidfoot of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission. Pari-mutuel betting proposals are being studied in Hawaii, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Southern Baptist leaders from 11 states met last fall to formulate a major campaign against pari-mutuel betting, state lotteries, and casino gambling. Ironically, in battling the issue, churches are confronted with the role religion has played in fostering legalized gambling. Proponents of a North Carolina lottery point out that the first lottery approved by the state’s colonial council was held to raise money to build churches.

“About 44 percent of the people living in states where bingo is illegal think it is legal because of its close association with churches and charitable groups,” reports the United Methodist magazine engage/social action. Some of the states that prohibit bingo and lotteries make exceptions for charitable groups.

Catholic churches have been particularly associated with the use of bingo to raise money. But some Catholics are rethinking their position on the subject. “The temptation of church bingo has caused me and others that I know to commit sin,” wrote Nathan Kollar in U.S. Catholic magazine. “The church shouldn’t tempt us. Christ said we shouldn’t make his Father’s house a house of business.”

The dilemma came to a head when Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of Richmond, Virginia, opposed a move to legalize pari-mutuel betting in 1978. “Many institutions, including our own parishes, sponsor bingo, raffles, and bazaars to raise needed funds for educational and charitable purposes,” he said. “Gambling is not generally regarded by our tradition as immoral and sinful.”

But he added that “after study and reflection, I am convinced that only a select few would benefit greatly from pari-mutuel betting.… Serious questions need to be raised about the participation of our own parishes in legalized bingo.”

In addition to moral objections, religious forces are adding social-justice questions to their arguments against gambling.

“An industry which wrecks lives, leads to an increased crime rate, fails to deliver what it promises in financial rewards, breaks homes, leaves families in financial stress, and preys upon the poor is not an industry which is a matter of personal morality,” Braidfoot says.

In their book The Atlantic City Gamble, George Sternlieb and James Hughes write that “every study of casino gambling has indicated its regressive nature … that is, that lower-income groups spent a greater percentage of their income on gambling than other income groups.”

Sternlieb says thefts, murders, and prostitution have increased and the influence of organized crime has grown in Atlantic City since it legalized casinos in 1978. In spite of those problems, he says, “no one wants to slash the throat of the golden calf.”

Indeed, some Americans are addicted to the practice. The problem of compulsive gambling has attracted attention through mass-media coverage and the work of the National Council on Compulsive Gambling. Joseph Dunne, a New York police chaplain who is a cofounder of the council, says there are some 6 million compulsive gamblers in the United States.

Opponents of gambling have succeeded in defeating legislation in several states. But such proposals don’t go away forever, says David Lindsay, a United Methodist minister and a veteran of anticasino battles in Florida.

“The continuing battle against casinos raises a degree of frustration,” he says. “It would be nice to defeat the proposal once and for all. But we are struggling against an idea. While we can defeat a specific proposal by a ballot, or we can provide sufficient opposition to discourage proponents on one specific attempt, we do not seem to defeat the idea.”

The challenge is great. But CHRISTIANITY TODAY advisory editor Kenneth Kantzer says there is reason for optimism. “A century ago, our nation reversed its position and began to oppose gambling,” he points out. “It can do it again—if we have the will.”

RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE

World Scene

In Poland, 21 million people watched The Day After, an American film about nuclear war. It was the first full-length showing of the film in a communist country. Immediately before the film, an announcer accused the United States of failing to match a Moscow pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.

The British House of Commons voted against restoring the death penalty for murder, terrorism, and other crimes. Violent crime has risen in Great Britain, but there were only 619 homicides in 1982. The government has instituted stricter measures, including a minimum 20-year term for crimes such as the murder of policemen and prison officers, and for terrorist acts or armed robbery in which someone is killed.

The number of Lutherans in the world has risen to nearly 69 million, an increase of about 50,000. Data collected by the Lutheran World Federation showed the greatest growth in Africa, where there are 3.8 million Lutherans. The most significant decline occurred in West Germany, with a loss of 167,000 members.

Religious extremists in India stopped a public showing of the film Jesus and forced the Baptist pastors who brought the film to leave. However, villagers protected the pastors as they fled, and promised to arrange for another showing of the film. The group that stopped the showing has been opposing Christianity in the the area for several years.

Some British Methodists are accusing the house church movement of authoritarian and unscriptural tendencies. William R. Davies, principal of Cliff College, says some extremists claim the house church is the one true church. The term refers to groups of Christians that meet in members’ homes. British Methodists have lost about 550 members to house churches over the past two years.

A Romanian magistrate has delayed the trial of Baptist pastor Iosif Stefanut for the second time. Stefanut faces charges of distributing religious literature without government approval. His trial was delayed the first time to assign a public defender to the case. There was no clear reason for the second delay. But sources indicate the court might be waiting to gauge reaction from the West.

Deaths

Paul De Ballester, 56, auxiliary bishop in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, former Roman Catholic monk, first convert to Greek Orthodoxy to become a bishop in the Western Hemisphere; January 31, in Mexico City, of bullet wounds.

Leslie Frederick Weber, 71, former executive secretary for social ministry services of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, former pastor; January 27, in Saint Louis, Missouri, of cardiac arrest.

John Coventry Smith, 80, former president of the World Council of Churches, former moderator of the former United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.; January 15, near Philadelphia, of a heart attack.

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