CO-CHAIR THOUGHTS FROM JEROLD McBRIDE
Twenty Years Later: It will Never be Over

After the Southern Baptists of Texas convention was formed, several people suggested to me that maybe Texas Baptists Committed was no longer needed. The fundamentalists had given up and formed their own convention and things would get back to normal in Texas Baptist life with most of us cooperating like we used to do.

I replied that I looked forward to more “unity within our diversity” but that TBC would still be needed for years to come because the attacks on the BGCT would continue as fundamentalists tried to pull churches away from supporting the BGCT. Sadly, this is true.

One such group is called the Texas Baptist Layman’s Association. The Texas Baptist Layman’s Association (TBLA) is patterned after a similar group in Missouri, the Missouri Baptist Layman’s Association, which last year led a successful takeover effort of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

They have mailed out a 16 page flyer titled, The CBF Circle of Friends: Religious Voices Advocate Homosexuality, which they call “an example of the type of relevant, objective and reliable information the TBLA plans to make available to Texas Baptist pastors.”

Then they precede to talk about Russell Dilday, Herbert Reynolds, David Currie, Dick Maples, Charles Wade, Winfred Moore, Phil Lineberger, Phil Strickland, me and others as they attack the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Texas Baptists Committed.

They write, “The CBF Circle of Friends clearly illustrates the error that inevitably results from the work of those who claim to believe the Bible but hold to a ‘low view’ of it.”

For anyone to claim that I hold a “low view” of the Bible is way out of line and is proof of their lack of knowledge concerning my conservative, traditional Baptist convictions. Make such a claim to any of the church members whom I have served these last 28 years and they will laugh. Regarding my Texas Baptist co-workers, I have never had a reason to question anyone’s faith in the Bible as the Word of God and “our final authority in all matters of faith and practice.”

It is fine to disagree. We are Baptists. I do not agree with the direction Paul Pressler, Paige Patterson, Morris Chapman, Jimmy Draper, Adrian Rogers, and other SBC leaders have taken the SBC and its related institutions and ministries. In fact, I have been very vocal in opposing their practices for years, but I do not claim that because some of them belong to or support right-wing political organizations that they individually, or collectively support militia movements, etc. Yet this kind of innuendo is exactly what the “Circle of Friends” does.

The TBLA should heed Paul Pressler’s words when the Judge was questioned about being a member of a group that included Joseph Coors of Coors Brewery: “To say that one is aligned with someone just because they are a member of the same club, church, informational organization or any other group is ridiculous.”

The TBLA mailing is ridiculous and untruthful in its implications. What is sad is they put at the top of their mailing “truth never fears investigation, but the fear of truth refuses to investigate.”

The truth is the TBLA has no desire to make truth their agenda. They know their implications are not true. They know every name mentioned in their flyer is a person who believes the Bible.

They know not a single person mentioned supports homosexuality. They know the truth. They just do not care about the truth. They want to discredit the BGCT, CBF, TBC and anyone associated with them who do not share their agenda.

If the TBLA does not like the direction the BGCT is going then it is fine to explain to Texas Baptists why they feel that way. But it is not fine to slander individuals and claim what is untrue, that is, that Texas Baptist and CBF leaders support homosexuality and do not believe the Bible. There is no justification for such an approach.

I wish I could tell you this type of thing will stop but it probably will not. The fundamentalist personality has to destroy what it cannot control. We can not stop it but we can reject it and for the sake of the gospel, we must. Texas Baptists have too much Kingdom work to do to allow such tactics to succeed. TBC is dedicated to the task of making sure that truth triumphs!

September 1999