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	Southern Baptists Meeting Shows Tension By Eric Gorski The Guardian [San Antonio] June 8, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6695220,00.html Southern Baptists head into their annual national meeting next week at odds over whether they've become too conservative and wed to partisan politics, or whether a harder line is necessary to give the denomination a clear identity. Beginning Tuesday in San Antonio, proposals over everything from political involvement to clergy sexual abuse to speaking in tongues should provide a glimpse at where the 16.3 million-member denomination is headed, 28 years after the ``conservative resurgence'' swept liberals out. What's at stake is the direction of the SBC - the difference between conservative and even more so. And tied to that, how the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. will work to reverse stagnating membership. ``We are at a defining moment as to whether we can find a way to cohere around primary matters and learn to disagree agreeably with one another on secondary and tertiary issues,'' said David Dockery, president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn. ``I think we're on the verge of having too many tests for people to demonstrate that they are faithful Southern Baptists.'' Speaking in tongues offers one example of the internal struggles in the denomination. What some see as a legitimate form of worship, others see as a danger - a hallmark of Pentecostal Christianity spreading into Baptist life. In late 2005, trustees of the denomination's International Mission Board voted to bar future missionaries from using ``private prayer language,'' or speaking in tongues in private - although the trustees softened the rule slightly this year in response to protests, changing the outright ban to a guideline. One proposed resolution in San Antonio would hold other Southern Baptist agencies and seminaries to the same standard in their hiring practices. ``It really comes down to the issue of are we going to have a clear Baptist identity, or are we going to be evangelical ecumenicists?'' said Malcolm Yarnell, a theology professor at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, who supports the resolution. ``My hope is that conservative Baptists will wake up to the fact that the conservative resurgence is in danger of being unraveled.'' Trying to bridge the two camps is SBC president Frank Page of Taylors, S.C., who defeated two more conservative candidates and pledged to renew and revitalize churches. Under Page, a record $150 million was raised in the last year for an overseas mission fund. He also awarded key committee positions to representatives from moderate state Baptist conventions in Texas and Virginia; those states each have competing moderate and conservative conventions. ``There is some hope we can pull back together with a common motivating factor of missions and evangelism,'' said Page, who is up for re-election. That is considered more or less a technicality because presidents usually serve for two years. Along those lines, the SBC in San Antonio will announce the development of a ``multifaceted, flexible'' 10-year evangelistic strategy it hopes will reverse a recent stagnation in the number of baptisms, a trend evoking the membership declines of liberal mainline Protestant churches not nearly as focused on evangelism. In 2006, the number of baptisms in Southern Baptist churches fell for the second consecutive year, dropping to 364,826, the lowest annual total since 1993, according to a survey by the denomination. National membership did increase - but by less than 1 percent. Meantime, a younger generation of pastors is gaining influence, warning on their popular blogs that the denomination has grown too close to the Republican Party and is too quick to point out the perceived sins of others - before looking at its own. A couple of those pastors are calling for Southern Baptists to take a stronger stance to prevent child sexual abuse by clergy or church employees. The issue has taken on greater prominence in the past year due to a few explosive allegations involving Baptist clergy and lobbying efforts by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. The group has been a driving force in pushing Roman Catholic bishops for reform, and has recently turned some of its attention to the Southern Baptists. One proposal, from the Rev. Wade Burleson of Enid, Okla., calls for a feasibility study into developing a national database of Southern Baptist ministers who have been ``credibly accused of, personally confessed to, or legally been convicted of sexual harassment or abuse.'' All churches would have access to the database. ``Nobody delights in having to deal with this issue, but we're better to deal with it than to deny it, bury it and end up 10 years from now with a generation of children that has lost confidence in our churches,'' said the Rev. Benjamin Cole of Arlington, Texas, who crafted a separate resolution calling for Baptists to ``spare no expense'' in protecting children. Some, however, believe a database would be duplicative given that most churches already conduct extensive background checks. They also point out that churches wouldn't be required to use it because the convention is not as centralized as other denominations. Page said the SBC is not opposed to a national database, but sees limited value in it. ``A person who is truly intent on abusing a system can abuse any system,'' he said. ``It would not be a panacea or a cure-all for taking care of this problem.'' Another resolution cautioning against partisan political involvement urges convention leaders ``to exercise great restraint when speaking on behalf of Southern Baptists so as not to intermingle their personal political persuasions with their chief responsibility to represent Jesus Christ and this convention.'' ``Last year,'' Burleson said, ``when there is more applause for Condoleezza Rice talking about bombing the terrorists than there is the reports on our missionaries taking the Gospel to foreign countries, something's out of whack.''
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