Origin of SBC "Controversy" 
By Bill Jones, layman, 
Hunter's Glen Baptist Church, Plano 

In a May 1986 address to Sunday School Board employees, retired President James L. Sullivan told of a 1970 conference with an associate editor of a magazine in an eastern state. Sullivan had requested the conference, because the magazine was publishing things that Sullivan knew "weren't precisely true."

This conference took place in 1970, nine years before the SBC controversy became public. The man 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 state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention, and we intend to do it as quickly as it can be accomplished."

Their strategy? "We're going to organize the losers of every election and cause of Southern Baptist history we can identify É Winners soon forget but losers never do." As Sullivan explained, "He felt if they could identify and organize [all of] the losers, they would have the majority."

When Sullivan asked the man what issue he and his cohorts planned to use to take over the SBC, he 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." How can we believe current SBC leaders that the fundamentalist takeover was about the Bible rather than a naked grab for power? The takeover plan preceded the issue. (Quotes from 1986 article in Facts and Trends magazine)