January 12, 2000
Editors rank top Baptist
stories of the decade
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) --The 1991 formation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the first formal sign of organizational schism within the Southern Baptist Convention, was ranked the top Baptist news story of the 1990s by editors of Baptist state newspapers.
___Associated Baptist Press conducted an informal poll of Baptist editors nationwide to generate a list of the 10 most important news stories of the decade.
___Although the agencies, institutions and financial resources of the SBC still dwarf those of CBF, the new denomination-within-a-denomination draws financial support from about 1,500 churches and has an annual budget of $15.5 million. The Fellowship supports 126 career missionaries and enlists a yearly average of 3,600 volunteer missionaries in the United States and around the world. It also provides supplemental funding for a number of independent partner organizations that offer theological education, publishing and other church services.
___Other tops stories in the editors' ranking include:
___2. Russell Dilday's firing as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1994. Dilday's firing by conservative trustees of the Fort Worth seminary helped galvanize moderate sentiment, particularly in Texas, where he later served as president of the state convention.
___3. Restructuring of the Southern Baptist Convention. The "Covenant for a New Century," approved in 1995 and implemented over two years, reduced the number of convention entities from 19 to 12. The centerpiece of the restructuring was the creation of the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Ga., a new domestic-missions arm replacing three agencies in the old structure. Officials predicted the reorganization would save $34 million in the first five years.
___4. The 1990 firing of two editors at Baptist Press, the SBC's official news service. The SBC Executive Committee, in a called executive session, fired editor Dan Martin and his boss, Al Shackleford, without stating a cause. Among reaction to the firing was establishment of an independent Baptist news service, Associated Baptist Press.
___5. The SBC severing historic ties with the Baptist Joint Committee, a religious liberty coalition of several Baptist groups, in 1991. The SBC transferred the denomination's assignment for religious liberty to its moral-concerns agency, the Christian Life Commission, later renamed the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
___6. The "True Love Waits" sexual-abstinence campaign, coordinated for Southern Baptists by LifeWay Christian Resources.
___7. Actions distancing the Baptist General Convention of Texas from conservative positions embraced by the SBC.
___8. A 1998 amendment to the Baptist Faith & Message, adding a statement on the family to the SBC's statement of faith.
___9. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, adopted by Congress in 1993 to restore certain religious freedoms struck down in a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court declared parts of the law unconstitutional in 1997. A coalition of religious liberty and civil liberties groups continues to work for passage of laws to bolster religious freedom.
___10. The naming at last summer's SBC annual meeting of a committee to study, and possibly revise, the Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement.
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