November 13, 2000
Kentucky political group linked to seminary
___LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP)--Conservatives loyal to the Southern Baptist Convention have organized a "laymen's network" in Kentucky to help elect a like-minded president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention this year.
___Representatives of the Kentucky Baptist Laymen's Network acknowledged they are contacting people throughout the commonwealth prior to the state convention's annual meeting Nov. 14-15 in Bowling Green.
___"The goal of the network is to promote a conservative agenda, and the conservative agenda is basically aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention," said Ray Moncrief, a member of Immanuel Baptist Church in Corbin and one of four board members for the new network.
___Two people have been named thus far as candidates for Kentucky Baptist Convention president: Kevin Ezell, pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, and Jim McKinley, a retired Southern Baptist missionary to Bangladesh who also lives in Louisville.
___Ezell is the conservative-backed candidate. Among his church members is Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Ezell has been a public supporter of Mohler, although the two differ on some theological points, such as election and predestination.
___The president of the laymen's network is John Michael, a former trustee of Southern Seminary. In addition to Michael and Moncrief, the two other board members are Michael Harris, also a former trustee of Southern Seminary and a member of Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, and Jack Amis, a member of Porter Memorial Baptist Church in Lexington.
___Two men identified as advisers to the group are Laverne Butler, former president of Mid-Continent College in West Kentucky, and Jerry Johnson, a former Southern Seminary trustee who now works in the seminary's development office.
___In addition to electing a conservative president who will be loyal to the SBC, a major goal of the Kentucky Baptist Laymen's Network is to "expose" the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Butler said.
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