November 17, 1999

Southern employee rounds
up votes for state office
___By Trennis Henderson
___Kentucky Western Recorder
___LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP)--A staff member at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has acknowledged meeting with students in an effort to elect conservative officers at this year's Kentucky Baptist Convention.
___A student who attended one of the meetings said Jerry Johnson claimed to be working on behalf of seminary President Al Mohler. However, both Mohler and Johnson denied the president was directly involved.
___"I have not been a part of endorsing any candidate for office in the Kentucky Baptist

JERRY JOHNSON

Convention," Mohler said in an interview last week.
___Mohler said he hoped conservatives who support both the Louisville seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention would be elected to state offices when the convention meets Nov. 16-17 in Covington. He denied, however, that the seminary is backing anyone. "Southern Seminary has not and does not endorse candidates for office," he said.
___Southern is one of six seminaries owned and operated by the Southern Baptist Convention. Though the seminary once enjoyed widespread support among Kentucky Baptists, much of that support has eroded since conservative trustees appointed by the SBC have radically changed the seminary's direction and leadership.
___Questions surfaced about the seminary attempting to influence leadership in the state convention, which is autonomous from the SBC, after an interoffice memo to selected students received wider circulation.
___Johnson, the seminary's assistant director of development, held two meetings on campus with student pastors. A memo from Johnson's office said the purpose of the meetings was "to discuss electing (a) conservative KBC president."
___A staff member in Johnson's office wrote and distributed the memo on seminary letterhead. It invited selected students to "please meet with Jerry" in the seminary cafeteria Nov. 3 or 4. "Specifically, our goal will be to elect a conservative president of the KBC," the memo said.
___Mohler called the use of seminary letterhead "inadvertent" and said it "will not happen again." He said the memo "was intended as an internal document and should be seen as such."
___Johnson called the memo "a mistake."
___"It was not intended as any official memorandum from a seminary employee to students," he said. "I think the person who prepared the memo misunderstood I was asking for this contact on an informal, personal basis."
___A letter written by another seminary employee caused a different kind of problem two years ago.
___Mohler fired reference librarian Paul Debusman--just months short of his planned retirement--after Debusman wrote to then-SBC President Tom Elliff, attempting to correct a factual error in a speech Elliff had given on campus.
___When asked last week by the Western Recorder whether he would compare Johnson's questionable use of seminary letterhead with Debusman's termination, Mohler said he had no comment.
___Johnson is no newcomer to convention politics.
___He was chairman of Southern Seminary's board of trustees before enrolling as a doctoral student and going to work for the seminary. He made an immediate splash a decade ago, when, as a new, 26-year-old trustee, he accused then-President Roy Honeycutt of not believing the Bible.
___"The seminary plans to use its influence to elect a conservative president in order to take back control of the convention," explained a student who attended one of the recent meetings. He said participants were "asked to use their influence to boost voter turnout in the upcoming election."
___The student, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals, said Johnson told the group he "had been meeting with pastors and leaders all over the state."
___"In fact, he stated that he had met with President Mohler and Dr. Danny Akin to discuss their target list of student pastors and leaders who would be sympathetic to their agenda."
___Akin is the seminary's academic vice president and theology school dean. He came to Southern from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., where he worked with Paige Patterson.
___Johnson responded that the student had "really bad information."
___He said his meeting with Mohler and Akin was to "discuss seminary policy on student absences" for those who wanted to attend the KBC annual meeting.
___Johnson distributed a list of "announced conservative candidates that support the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention" to students attending the two meetings on campus. When contacted by the Western Recorder, none of the three candidates indicated any knowledge of Johnson's efforts to boost their candidacy.
___Information distributed by Johnson also included convention registration and voting information. It said the seminary "will grant excused absences to all students who miss class as a result of being a messenger," adding that "students must be able to show their convention registration card to their professor to get this excused absence."
___Johnson said there was nothing inappropriate about his actions. "I think every Southern Baptist, every Kentucky Baptist, has a right to use their influence," he said.
___Mohler said informing students about convention issues is a legitimate educational concern.
___"I would emphasize that no denominational institution should be in the business of making political endorsements," Mohler said. "At the same time, we bear the responsibility of informing our students. There is a distinction between political endorsement and the educational role of the seminary for our own students and our own advocacy on behalf of the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention.
___"We certainly want to inform our students with our goal in mind" of electing conservative KBC candidates, Mohler said. "I would make a distinction between that and endorsing a candidate."
___

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