Baptist to renew battles: Conservatives vow takeover of Texas churches
by Deborah Kovach Caldwell
Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News

Southern Baptist political rassling in most places is dull lately.

Conservative fundamentalists rule the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, after their decade-long struggle for control. Displaced moderates have largely found new positions. Even the annual Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans Tuesday through Thursday is likely to be a somnolent affair. Most Baptists don’t want to talk politics anymore.

Not so in Texas.

Here, conservatives say they’re fortifying themselves anew for combat over control of the Dallas-based Texas Baptist General Convention, whose 5,508 congregations remain in the hands of moderates and liberals six years after the national fundamentalist takeover.

“We’re going to do everything politicians try to do to win,” said J. Walter Carpenter, editor of the Texas Baptist, the Houston-based newspaper of the conservative lay group Baptists with a Mission. “It’s spiritual warfare, and it’s political warfare.”

In late May, a conservative clergy group called Southern Baptists of Texas elected its first paid administrator for a newly formed network of ministers and congregations.

“We want to minister to our own people,” said the Rev. Miles Seaborn, pastor of Birchman Baptist Church in Fort Worth and president of the group. “There has been tremendous pressure put on conservative pastors. We’ve got a lot of hurting pastors out there, with people calling them mean-spirited, redneck fundamentalists.”

The basis of fundamentalist belief is that the Bible is inerrant in all areas and that authority leans heavily in the direction of the pastor. From that mindset springs the conviction that women should have no official leadership role in the church, that homosexuality is a singular sin, that abortion is wrong in all cases and that government-authorized school prayer should be permitted.

Moderates consider the Bible the inspired word of God and see authority existing among the faithful in congregations. From that mind-set springs the conviction that women in ministry is a local church decision and that government- authorized school prayer is wrong because of the separation of church and state. Almost all moderates believe homosexuality is wrong, though no worse than other sins. Most believe abortion is a sin, but some believe it should be permitted in certain cases.

Mr. Seaborn didn’t offer any specifics for how conservatives would take control of the state convention, except to say they would accomplish the task through “sweat, hard work, basic organization and compassion that reaches across the state.”

During the winter, Mr. Seaborn said during a Southern Baptists of Texas meeting that the group had a “secret weapon” to help develop strategy.

Moderates speculated that he meant retired Judge Paul Pressler of Houston, who was the architect of the national fundamentalist takeover with Dr. Paige Patterson, then president of The Criswell College in Dallas and now president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.

Mr. Seaborn chortled at the thought of worried moderates. “That put them into orbit,” he said. He wouldn’t reveal the “secret weapon.”

Judge Pressler declined to comment.

Conservatives say the latest catalyst for their organizing is anger over the state convention’s decision a few weeks ago not to recommend that its constitution be amended to exclude convention messengers — the Baptist equivalent of delegates — from churches that have practicing homosexuals as deacons or pastors. The convention already has that power, it said.

That decision followed changes in funding formulas over the past 18 months that decreased the amount of support the state convention gives the national organization.

Under the new financial mechanism, churches can decide to exclude gifts to the Southern Baptist Convention and instead direct money to moderate groups, such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The new plan also permits churches to continue giving about two-thirds of their money to the state convention and about one-third to the Southern Baptist Convention.

David Currie, coordinator of the moderate group Texas Baptists Committed, said his group is concerned about the conservative’s anger.

“The logical step [for fundamentalists] is to take control of the state convention,” he said. “The mindset of fundamentalism is control. People like me respect the fundamentalist perspective and feel that Baptists ought to be broad enough to allow a diversity of interpretation of Scripture. These folks don’t. These people want complete conformity. That’s why you can’t find middle ground with them because they don’t have middle ground.”

Dr. Currie said he’s taken note of what happened in North Carolina, long a moderate stronghold like Texas. Last fall, North Carolina Baptists elected their first fundamentalist president in decades by less than 100 votes. According to Dr. Currie, the election happened because the overwhelmingly conservative students at Southeastern Seminary came and voted at the state convention.

Moderates and liberals believe Texas conservatives could be planning a repeat of their national strategy in the 1980s: rallying lay people in small churches around Texas, then urging them to charter buses and take members to vote at the state convention in November.

Or they could use the North Carolina strategy by motivating Fort Worth based Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary students to vote for conservatives at state conventions.

Mr. Carpenter said it’s a matter of doing what it takes: “We’ve packed cars. If we could get buses, the churches would charter buses. The way we’re going to turn it around is with the younger people,” he said.

Reprinted with permission of the Dallas Morning News, June 8, 1996.

September 1996