Click for AUDIO; Click for PART 5, 2000: Connecting with David Currie at Texas Baptists Committed
Links in this post: 1, “James L. Sullivan addresses question of SBC turbulence,” Facts and Trends, July-August 1986; 2, “Statement Concerning the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Bill Jones, March 23, 2000
2000 at our church in Plano: Out of my comfort zone and into the fire
In March 2000, the pastor wrote, in the church newsletter, that he wanted the church to “reassess our relationship with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.” He didn’t provide any particular reason or context. However, only two years earlier, the fundamentalists had – as a result of the relentless efforts of David Currie and Texas Baptists Committed (TBC) – given up on their attempt to gain control of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) and formed their own convention – the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC). So I had to wonder whether there was a connection between this new fundamentalist state convention and the pastor’s desire to “reassess” the church’s relationship with the BGCT. In other words, I saw his move as political. In light of the events, which I cited in part 3, of 1992 and 1995, how could I not smell a whiff of political intentions in his implied displeasure with the BGCT? Especially considering that his letter to the church had appeared just a week after fundamentalist pastors had met at Prestonwood Baptist Church – an SBTC megachurch – in Plano to discuss the BGCT.
For the first 10 years of his pastorate, we had been friends but not close friends. I had been generally supportive of his pastorate and his preaching. Because we were not close, however, I had not gone to him with my concerns over the events of 1992 and 1995, mainly because he didn’t know me well enough to understand where I was “coming from.” This was a mistake. I should have confronted him at those times, and I regret that I didn’t. However, this note to the church, asking for a reassessment of our church’s relationship to the BGCT, proved to be the catalyst for me to finally make it clear to this pastor just where I stood when it came to the fundamentalism that had taken over the SBC a decade earlier.
I began composing a letter to him, accompanied by a statement of my position on the “SBC controversy.” I remembered hearing, on a cassette tape of a TBC Convocation from 1993, Dr. Jim Denison – then pastor of First Baptist, Midland, and by 2000 pastor of Park Cities Baptist in Dallas – relate a story told by Dr. James Sullivan in 1986, by then retired president of the SBC Sunday School Board, the SBC’s publishing arm. As related by Jim Denison, Dr. Sullivan told of a conversation he had, in 1970, with the associate editor of a magazine that was publishing things that Sullivan knew “weren’t precisely true.” The editor complained about the system of electing trustees of Baptist agencies and institutions. He blatantly warned Sullivan, “We’re going to do whatever it takes to take over the Southern Baptist Convention, and we intend to do it as quickly as it can be accomplished.” This was fully nine years before the takeover attempt became public with the nomination and election of Adrian Rogers as SBC president! When Dr. Sullivan asked the man what issue they would use to seize control, the man replied, “We haven’t picked it yet, but when we pick it, it will be one that no one can give rebuttal to without hopelessly getting himself into controversy.”
In my statement, I planned to cite this as proof that the issue they had used to divide the SBC – inerrancy – was a straw man. It was chosen not out of conviction but as a strategy for gaining power and control. However, I didn’t want to cite anything like this without documentation to back it up. So, on Saturday evening, March 18, 2000, I called Jim Denison’s home. At this point, Jim Denison didn’t know Bill Jones from the man in the Moon, as we used to say. But I was desperate for this documentation and determined to take my stand with my pastor. Jim’s wife, Janet, answered the phone. When I asked to speak to Dr. Denison, Janet told me that he was at church – it turned out that Park Cities had a Saturday evening worship service, so he was preaching as we spoke. I told Janet about the documentation I needed and why – the situation at my church, etc. Janet was very understanding and sympathetic, and promised to call Jim before he left the church.
Before he left the church that night, Jim Denison pulled the documentation I had requested from his files – which was a 1986 article in the Sunday School Board’s Facts and Trends journal – and faxed it to me. After he arrived home, he called me, and we talked for about a half-hour. Jim was most understanding, caring, and encouraging. Over the next few days, I continued writing both my letter and my statement. By the following Thursday, March 23, I felt they were ready to go – a two-page letter to the pastor, accompanied by my five-page statement of my position on the moderate-fundamentalist SBC controversy. I spent quite a bit of time that morning in prayer. (I don’t remember why I was at home – instead of at work – on a Thursday morning – that was a long time ago, so that part is a little hazy.) I had no idea how the pastor would accept, and respond to, what I had written. After praying for God’s guidance and care, I took off for the Post Office. I mailed that envelope with, honestly, fear and trepidation.
Friday afternoon, the phone rang. It was the pastor. He had received my letter and statement and expressed his appreciation for my concern. Then he asked if I’d like to come in and discuss it further with him. So we made an appointment for the following week.
In my meeting with him:
- He assured me that his intent was not political; rather, his letter to the church stemmed from his concern that the BGCT was keeping too much missions money in Texas and not sending enough of it overseas. This was credible, as he had long demonstrated his passion for world missions, as evidenced by the three-week World Missions conference conducted by the church every fall.
- I asked him, “If a faction in our church used your letter as a pretense to move us toward the fundamentalist camp, how would you respond?” He quickly replied, “I would oppose it.”
- He said that he had NOT been invited to the meeting at Prestonwood the previous week.
- He told me that he planned to appoint a task force to study the church’s relationship to the BGCT, and asked whether I wanted to be appointed to that task force. I said yes, so he appointed me.
The task force started meeting a few weeks later. It was an interesting group of seven people (plus the pastor as an ex-officio member) who ranged from extreme right-wing fundamentalist at one end to three people in the middle who expressed degrees of concern about the SBC’s rightward tilt, to my firm anti-SBC, anti-fundamentalist stance at the other end. We met for a little over a year. Our most memorable meeting, to me, occurred on a Sunday evening in June 2000. At that meeting, I stated that, although I was a member of a church that affiliated with the SBC, I no longer considered myself personally a Southern Baptist, because the SBC had abandoned historic Baptist principles such as the priesthood of all believers and soul freedom/competency of each believer. The pastor took issue with me, saying, “I don’t believe that’s true.”
I responded that it really didn’t matter whether he believed it or not; the evidence from 10 years of fundamentalist control of the SBC, including the 1998 “family” amendment to the Baptist Faith & Message, declaring that wives must be “submissive” to their husbands, proved my point. Later that week, at the annual meeting of the SBC, fundamentalists attempted to remove – from their new version of the Baptist Faith & Message – the very principles I cited to the task force. Only a determined effort by moderates, led by Charles Wade of Arlington, TX, turned back that attempt. Of course, the pastor never came to me and admitted he had been wrong – not that I expected he would!
In 2001, after meeting for about a year, the task force presented its final report to the church. Our recommendation was that we cut the church’s funding of the SBC and BGCT each by one-third. This way, everybody loses – and, I suppose, everybody wins, in a manner of speaking. Anyway, it was certainly an interesting experience.