April 3, 2000
Is it a 're-ordination' or not?
___VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (BP)--Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson's plan to reaffirm the ordination he gave up when he ran for president in 1988 has drawn questions from the Southern Baptist pastor who ordained Robertson in 1960.
___Robertson is founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University. He also is host of the network's flagship television program, "The 700 Club."
___Robertson was ordained in 1960 as a Southern Baptist minister by Freemason Street Baptist Church in Norfolk, Va. However, he asked that his ordination be terminated priorto his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988.
"If he's trying to reaffirm what doesn't exist, then it's illegal by ecclesiastical policy, and more than that, it's dishonest."
--Donald Dunlap, Robertson's former pastor
___He reaffirmed those vows March 27 at Regent University.
___However, that action should have no impact, argued Donald Dunlap, pastor at Freemason Street when Robertson's ordination was terminated. Dunlap told Associated Press the reaffirmation has no standing.
___"You cannot reaffirm what does not exist," said Dunlap, now an interim pastor at Churchland Baptist Church in Chesapeake, Va. "His ordination was terminated at his insistence. If he's trying to reaffirm what doesn't exist, then it's illegal by ecclesiastical policy, and more than that, it's dishonest."
___"I have just completed my 70th birthday, and feel at this critical juncture of my life that I want to dedicate what's left in a special way to world missions and world evangelization," Robertson said in a statement after the ceremony. "This is not an ordination to any particular denomination, but merely an affirmation to God and man that the focus of what is left of my life will be to worldwide Christian service."
___Members of an ordination council, who will serve as a board of spiritual advisers for Robertson, heard and responded to his vows. Its members include Jack Hayford, president of the King's Seminary in Los Angeles; Thomas Trask, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God; Vinson Synan, dean of the School of Divinity of Regent University; and Episcopal Bishop John Howe of Florida.
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