Religion: Battling Over the Bible

• Share

Driving all night in their cars, riding by chartered or scheduled bus, by plane, on foot, they came. And came. The 45,431 voters, known as "messengers," spilled over from a convention center in Dallas to fill two other amphitheaters, all of the halls linked by closed-circuit TV for the biggest church business meeting in U.S. history.* The issue was momentous: ideological control of the country's largest Protestant denomination, the 14.4 million-member Southern Baptist Convention.

At stake was the one-year presidency of the 140-yearold S.B.C., a rich denomination (1984 revenues: $3.7 billion) with 36,740 congregations across the U.S. The contenders for S.B.C.'s chief office were Atlanta Incumbent Charles Stanley, 52, and Challenger Winfred Moore, 65, of Amarillo, Texas. Both men are conservative Bible thumpers who shepherd booming congregations, but one crucial difference divides them: the professorial Stanley is one of a group of Fundamentalists who mean to restore a doctrinal hard line. Moore, a lanky, "moderate" charmer, favors a live-and-let-live policy. In the end Stanley won, with a commanding 55.3% of the computerized ballot cards.

Stanley's triumph was the seventh Fundamentalist victory in seven years. Moderates fear it may prove the pivot al one. The Fundamentalists have been seeking power in the S.B.C. to press the cause of "inerrancy," the belief that the Bible is error-free in all historical details. They especially demand that this viewpoint be taught at the six S.B.C. seminaries, which enroll 11,000 students. One of the six, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, is the largest such school in the world. The S.B.C. presidency is an honorific job (all S.B.C. churches are self-governing), but it carries indirect power over appointments to the boards that govern those influential seminaries. There were moderates who predicted that some S.B.C. employees would lose their jobs. But Stanley discounts the threat of a major witch hunt. "There are problems," he says, "and we will deal with them a little at a time."

The severity of the split in S.B.C. ranks was dramatized in two opposing mass meetings the day before the balloting. At a gathering of moderates, Fort Worth Pastor Cecil Sherman belittled the Fundamentalists' attempt to "restore a day that is gone." The other meeting featured the Rev. W.A. Criswell of Dallas, grandiloquent elder statesman of the Fundamentalists, who had sent a form letter to 36,000 S.B.C. clergy urging votes for Stanley. To his audience, Criswell thundered, "Is the theological seminary an appropriate place for a general massacring of Christian theology? Whether we continue to live or ultimately die lies in our dedication to the infallible Word of God."

As pre-election passions mounted, the Fundamentalist wing leaked word that Evangelist Billy Graham had phoned an aide from Europe, asking him to convey his personal backing of Stanley. Earlier, Graham, the best-known clergyman of the S.B.C., had said that he would steer clear of the political dispute.