December 23, 1998

Torrent of disasters
tops '98 news
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___From one vantage point, 1998 was a disastrous year.
___Stories of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and droughts--and the ways Texas Baptists ministered to victims of these disasters--made the front page of the Baptist Standard eight times during the year. No other issue even came close to having that type of protracted exposure.
___Other issues, however, may go down in history as more significant or memorable from the long-term perspective of Texas Baptists: A formal split by conservatives unhappy with the Baptist General Convention of Texas; the Southern Baptist Convention's adoption of a controversial amendment to the "Baptist Faith & Message"; the fallout over a Southern Baptist-bred president facing impeachment over charges of immorality and perjury.
___On the disaster front, Texas Baptist Men recorded one of

TEXANS worked with Romanian refugees.

their busiest years ever, sharing their faith in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in Central America, flooding in South Texas, more flooding in South Texas, starvation in North Korea and various other natural disasters across the globe.
___On the Baptist political front, moderates, conservatives and centrists came to divergent viewpoints over the wisdom of adopting a statement on family as an addition to the "Baptist Faith & Message." Messengers to the SBC annual meeting in Salt Lake City--the most poorly attended convention in nearly 50 years-- embraced the statement, which gained national attention by calling for wives to "graciously submit" to husbands.
___While SBC leaders went on national TV and radio programs defending the statement as biblical, the issue also was hotly debated in local churches. Messengers to the BGCT annual session in November adopted a resolution directly contradicting parts of the SBC's statement.
___The SBC'snew statement also made an impact in Texas when faculty members at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary were told they had to sign the updated "Baptist Faith & Message" or resign. As a

Partnership missions ministered in Germany.

result, one professor resigned and another retired.
___A new convention of Texas Baptists--called Southern Baptists of Texas--formally organized in November, capping two decades of disagreement among Baptists on the national and state level. In particular, organizers of the new convention support changes made by conservatives guiding the SBC and said the BGCT should have followed the SBC's course more closely.
___While not the first state Baptist convention to split in recent years, the splintering of the BGCT was viewed as significant because of the size of the BGCT and its national influence.
___Ironically, while chided as too liberal on one hand, the BGCT took other actions in 1998 labeled by many as quite conservative. The BGCT Executive Board drew national attention in March by declining to accept further contributions from University Church in Austin and asking the church to stop promoting itself as affiliated with the BGCT. The action was taken because the church ordained as a deacon an openly homosexual man.
___BGCT

FOOD distribution was one way Texas Baptists ministered during 1998's disasterous floods.

officials said the action distanced the convention from the Austin church but did not expel the church from the convention. And since the church chose not to send messengers to this year's BGCT annual session, no challenge to the church could be mounted on the convention floor.
___Baptists didn't find any relief on the national political front either. The ever-popular-but-always-embattled Bill Clinton faced his greatest political challenge yet as the U.S. House of Representatives voted articles of impeachment against him.
___Newsweek magazine, meanwhile, ran a column suggesting that Southern Baptist theology had enabled Clinton's immoral behavior.
___Despite his troubles, Clinton wasn't the only focus of religious-minded people in Washington in 1998.
___Congress voted on a Religious Freedom Amendment to the Constitution, a measure advocated by religious conservatives but denounced by moderates and liberals. The measure received a majority vote in the House but not the

DOROTHY Patterson (l) and Mary Mohler defended the SBC's statement on family.

two-thirds required for passage.
___Congress did, however, pass the Religious Liberty and Charitable Donation Protection Act, which guards the tithes of parishioners who file bankruptcy, and the International Religious Freedom Act, which makes a higher priority of monitoring religious persecution abroad.
___This was a year in which Texas Baptist exports and imports made national news.
___Paige Patterson, a native Texan now living in North Carolina, was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. His election brought full circle a campaign which he and Texan Paul Pressler began in 1979 to change the the SBC.
___On the other hand, Texas newcomer Julie Pennington-Russell made headlines by becoming the first female senior pastor of a Texas Baptist church. Pennington-Russell became pastor of Calvary Church in Waco in August, moving from a similar position in California.
___

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