November 19, 2001

Conservatives take top spots in N.C.
___RALEIGH, N.C.--Conservatives won the top two elected offices in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina this year, while moderates held on to the second vice presidency.
___Jerry Pereira, pastor of First Baptist Church of Swannanoa, was elected president. Bob Foy, a layman from Mooresville, won the first vice presidency, and Larry Harper, pastor of Forest Hills Baptist Church in Raleigh, was re-elected second vice president.
___Pereira defeated Raymond Earp, past president of North Carolina Baptist Men and a layman from Calvary Baptist Church in Beaufort, by about 54 percent to 46 percent.
___Foy defeated incumbent Buddy Corbin, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Asheville, by about 53.4 percent to 46.5 percent. Harper was elected by a similar margin.
___Pereira's election is considered a victory for conservatives. He serves as a regional director for Conservative Carolina Baptists. In an interview after the election, Pereira said he only goes to about half of the conservative organization's meetings. \
___"We've got some good people on all sides of the aisle," he said. "I look forward to being the president of all North Carolina Baptists.
___"I reach out my hand to all North Carolina Baptists to rally under the banner of the lordship of Jesus Christ," he said later.
___A reporter from the Mars Hill College newspaper asked Pereira, a Mars Hill graduate, if the state convention would distance itself from the school.
___"As long as I'm president of North Carolina Baptists, we will never disown Mars Hill College," he said.
___"I love all our colleges," he added. "I think they're doing a marvelous job."
___Pereira was a latecomer to the president's race, announcing his candidacy about a month before the annual meeting. The announcement was made five days after Charles Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte, told his congregation he was withdrawing his candidacy because of a recurrence of cancer.
___Pereira served on the search committee that recommended Jim Royston as the convention's executive director-treasurer. He has also served on the committee on committees, which recommends appointments to the nominations committee and several other committees.
___Both Pereira and Foy discounted talk of a conservative takeover of the North Carolina convention. "I think all of us staying together is critical," Foy said.
___Foy said he is a Southern Baptist and an inerrantist.
___"I believe the whole Bible," he said. "Some people talk about other people who don't believe it, but I haven't met them."
___When asked if he had any hesitation of running against an incumbent, Foy said he wasn't running against Corbin, he was running for first vice president.
___"I don't think there's anything wrong with two good men running," he said.
___Foy said he believes laypeople should be more involved in the work of North Carolina Baptists. Laypeople are just as called as pastors, he said.
___"I think many of us don't understand the accountability of that calling," he said.

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