• U.S.

Protestants: Baptist Division

3 minute read
TIME

Conservatives among Southern Baptists deeply fear that questioning the literal truth of the Bible will kill their church by scriptural anemia; liberals deeply fear that clinging to the literal Bible will make their church wither and die of a quaint unreality. Last week in Kansas City. 12,670 “messengers” to the annual assembly of the 10,200,000-member church reflected this split by electing a conservative president and passing a string of liberally oriented resolutions. Frontrunner, as the assembly opened, was the Rev. Carl Bates of Charlotte. N.C., who seemed to have doubts about the oldtime conservative religion: “Laymen have a sneaking suspicion that the Kingdom of God is more than ushering on Sundays.” He agreed to be nominated, then suddenly withdrew his candidacy. His reason: he had searched his heart and found that God willed it. That left the way clear for a crusading conservative, the Rev. K. Owen White, 60, a Houston pastor and president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. He won by a scant 157 votes out of more than 8,000 cast over a little-known, third-choice moderate. White was the engineer of the 1962 convention’s repudiation of liberal scholarship in Baptist seminaries. Focus of his attack was a book called The Message of Genesis, by ousted Seminary Professor Ralph Elliott (TIME, Nov. 9), which cautiously asserted that parts of the Old Testament’s first book were symbolic rather than 100% literal truth. “The average man cares nothing about modern theological trends, but he knows he has problems in his heart,” White said. “What shall we preach, if we do not preach the Word? This is no day for raising questions concerning the reliability and authority of God’s word.” Despite White’s victory, the messengers thwarted other conservative hopes. In the first Statement of Faith since 1925, the convention roared approval of a paragraph supporting academic freedom in Baptist schools, approved another phrase speaking of the church as embracing “all of the redeemed of all ages,” which conservatives considered too ecumenical in nature. They shunned a resolution to censure the Kansas City’s Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Elliott had taught. The consensus was that the split was painful, and perhaps profoundly damaging. Said the Rev. Jess Moody of West Palm Beach. Fla., a popular orator of TV fame: “The biggest issue is not all this ecclesiastical falderal. History may record that America died because its spiritual wellsprings dried up, due to the fact the churches were fighting over the wrong issues. The gut issue is what the church will do to keep John. Mary. Billy and Susie Doe lashed to the Cross and made into happy servants of the Lord Christ.”

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com