FUNDAMENTALISTS ORGANIZE AND ATTACK IN OTHER STATES
by David Currie,
editor

Texas is not alone in having to deal with fundamentalist attacks. New state fundamentalist organizations have been formed in Kentucky, Alabama and Missouri.

Missouri Baptists are having to deal with an especially militant group of fundamentalists calling themselves the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association (MBLA). Like their counterparts in Texas, they are using CBF as a smokescreen for their efforts to discredit the leadership of the Missouri Baptist Convention and have labeled any who disagree with them as “liberals.”

Here is an example of their style, very similar to what we are experiencing in Texas:

“As is usually the case with liberal groups, many of those supporting such efforts on the lower levels are kept completely in the dark as to the agenda supported by their leadership.

“It was oddly heartbreaking to see little old ladies, wearing CBF lapel stickers, struggling across the street to the CBF get-together held near the convention hotel.

How many of these ladies know that their leaders include those who support child pornography, call Christ, “Sophia” and God, “mother?”

“How many of them know that among the ranks of their leadership are those who question or deny such tenets of orthodox Christianity as the virgin birth, bodily resurrection of Christ, and the existence of Satan and hell?

“How many of these ladies would support, as many of their leaders do, gay marriage and the ordination of active homosexual, lesbian and bisexual persons?”

Does reading that repulse you? How could so-called Christians write such slander and lies about men like Keith Parks, Daniel Vestal, Bill Bruster?

The shocking part is these tactics were learned by observing the work and style of Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson. Now Southern Baptists are going to honor Patterson for such work by electing him president of the SBC. The man nominating him says of Patterson: “His character is impeccable, and his integrity is unquestionable.” Some might call that a strange definition!

March 1998