Pressler returns to Virginia to mark
anniversary of 'jugular' comment
___By Robert Dilday
___Virginia Religious Herald
___LYNCHBURG, Va. (ABP)--Paul Pressler returned to Lynchburg, Va., Sept. 12, 20 years to the day after making his "going for the jugular" comment that for many captured the essence of the theological controversy that raged for two decades across the Southern Baptist Convention.
___The retired Houston judge, who was a key leader in the effort to establish the current conservative stance of the nation's largest Protestant denomination, was the featured speaker at a 20-year anniversary celebration sponsored by Old Forest Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg.
___In 1980, Pressler and Paige Patterson, then president of the Criswell Institute of Biblical Studies in Dallas, led a two-day conference at Old Forest Road Church--one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, coordinated by the pair as they sought to elect conservative presidents of the SBC.
___According to the Religious Herald, which first reported the story, Pressler described the important role of placing conservative trustees on the boards of SBC agencies and seminaries in order to shift the convention to the right and then said: "We're going for the jugular. ... We are going to have knowledgeable, Bible-centered, Christ-honoring trustees of all our institutions, who are not going to sit there like a bunch of dummies and rubber stamp everything that's presented to them, but who are going to inquire why this is being done, what is being taught, what is the finished product of our young people who come out of our institutions going to be."
___The remark was widely reported in the denominational press and became one of the quintessential sound bites of the SBC theological battle. For many moderates, it symbolized the secular political tactics they charged conservatives used to assume power.
___But Pressler, at the 20th anniversary celebration, dismissed such criticism of what he said was clearly a "metaphorical" statement.
___"I said (in 1980) the lifeblood of the convention is its trustees and then using a metaphor ... I said we need to go for the jugular, we need to go for the trustees, saying in effect through a metaphorical expression that the trustees were the lifeblood of the Southern Baptist Convention and if we were going to affect what happened in the Southern Baptist Convention, we would change trustees and by changing trustees, we would change the convention."
___Pressler described some reporting of the comment as a "complete, fraudulent misrepresentation," although he acknowledged the statement was made "unwisely."
___"I've learned ... that you do not give people something that can be taken out of context," he said.
___"It's amazing what the press can do when a reporter has a preconviction and has an agenda that they are trying to sell, and we in the Southern Baptist Convention suffered through erroneous reporting from many quarters for many years.
___"I praise God now that most of our state (Baptist) papers are being fair and Baptist Press (the SBC's publicity arm) is being fair and we have seen tremendous changes in the Southern Baptist Convention."
___Those changes have placed the SBC solidly in a conservative stance and as a result Pressler, 70, said he is reducing his involvement in the denomination's life. He recently completed two terms as a trustee of the SBC International Mission Board.
The Baptist Standard
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