Religion: Baptist Dismissals

• Share

I do not deny the virgin birth, said Baptist Max Wicker, "and I do not affirm it. My mind is still open." This statement of position last week did not satisfy Wicker's superiors on the general board of the Southern Baptist Church in North Carolina. After a six-hour hearing, the board dismissed from their jobs: Wicker, 39, secretary of the Baptist Student Union at Duke University; the Rev. J. C. Herrin, 29, Baptist Student Union secretary at the University of North Carolina, and the union's state secretary, the Rev. James W. Ray, 39. Like Wicker, the others had been found too infirm in Baptist fundamentals for the general board.

The Student Union leaders were first put on the carpet last November, because Ray had invited Vanderbilt University's Dr. Nels Ferre, a liberal Christian theologian to give the principal speech at their state convention. General board members' heard that Congregationalist Ferre does not believe in the virgin birth,—and they quickly canceled his appearance. Since then, the board has been digging into charges that the Baptist student pastors have been guiding their young congregations independent of regular church supervision.

At the board's hearing last week, some young voices were raised in dissent. Said one Baptist student: "Perhaps we students need to investigate some of our leaders for pettiness and prejudice." But most of the 500 Southern Baptists present thought that the board was right, and that the young ministers were too "interdenominational" for comfort. "I am told," said one minister angrily, "that a Jewish rabbi has been invited to speak at a Sunday night [student] forum." Added another: "A man who doesn't believe in the virgin birth is no more a Baptist than the Pope of Rome."