BGCT leaders denounce Baptist Press report, Moran's influence
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___DALLAS--"We will not allow lies to go unchallenged," Charles Wade told members of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board May 22.
___Wade, BGCT executive director, made emotional comments about an article that ran the previous day in Baptist Press, the public relations arm of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee.
___That article was based on a report in Citizen, a magazine published by James Dobson's Focus on the Family ministry, that was highly critical of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. The Citizen article drew heavily upon material provided by Missouri layman Roger Moran, who has been an ardent critic of the BJC, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and BGCT. Moran is a member of the SBC Executive Committee.
___Moran's criticisms have been based on so-called "guilt-by-association" tactics, attempting to portray moderate Baptist leaders as supporting abortion rights and homosexuality because they have at times served on boards or committees of other organizations alongside non-Baptists who support more liberal positions.
___The BP article went further, however, and attempted to connect Focus on the Family's concerns about the BJC to the BGCT, because the Texas convention has continued to support the religious liberty agency even though the SBC defunded it.
___The BP article also criticized the Baptist Standard for a series of articles published in February 2000 that explained Moran's background and included criticism of his so-called "research."
___The BGCT's Committee on Baptist Integrity has rebuked Moran numerous times for what they and others have termed malicious and unwarranted attacks on other Christians. Nevertheless, Moran's literature has been distributed widely across Texas and other states. It has been republished and distributed in several churches that have voted to distance themselves from the BGCT.
___The BP article reports that the Texas Baptist Laymen's Association, headed by Wichita Falls businessman Bill Streich, is planning another mailing of Moran literature to 5,000 Texas churches.
___The BP article was written by Tammi Ledbetter, whose husband is communications director for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, formed as a direct competitor to the BGCT.
___BGCT President Clyde Glazener told the Executive Board the BP article--the latest in a string of highly negative articles about the BGCT--illustrates that fundamentalists who oppose the BGCT are the ones who are stirring up trouble.
___"We have been trying to get out of this fight," he said. "We don't want to fight, but we will defend who we are."
___Glazener predicted Baptist Press will continue to keep their "guns leveled at us" because the BGCT is to the SBC "a little bit like Taiwan is to China."
___Wade said he feels "a deep sense of outrage" about the way SBC leaders have used BP to "stir up accusations against us."
___"I am going to write Southern Baptist leaders as well as Dr. Dobson and ask them to publicly disavow this kind of reporting," he said.
___"Our convention and our leadership have again been attacked by people who know better," Wade asserted.
___However, "we're not going to be distracted by this kind of behavior," he added.
___Phil Strickland, coordinator of the Christian ethics and public life section of the BGCT, spoke to the Executive Board on behalf of the Integrity Committee, to which he relates as staff liaison.
___He defended the BJC against the attack by both Dobson's magazine and BP.
___"The BJC has my firm and absolute support, mainly because I still believe in the separation of church and state," he said. He then listed a number of issues the BJC has been instrumental in getting passed in Washington, including the Equal Access Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. He also noted that just the week before, the BJC was heard defending Attorney General John Ashcroft's practice of holding prayer meetings in his Washington office before each workday.
___"They have been a faithful, effective voice for freedom," Strickland said.
___He criticized the guilt-by-association techniques of Moran's research as "demonizing" people. The comparisons Moran draws are no more valid than accusing SBC leaders of being supportive of cults simply because they attended a prayer breakfast during the recent presidential inaugural that was hosted by Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church.
___Strickland, Wade and Glazener all commended the Baptist Standard for integrity in reporting and urged Texas Baptists to read the Standard rather than BP to find the truth.
___In another impromptu response to the BP article, Bobby Broyles, pastor of First Baptist Church of Earth, said he was mystified about accusations brought against the BGCT by Moran and SBC leaders.
___Noting that he has served on the BGCT Executive Board, strategy planning committee and Christian Life Commission, he said: "There has never been one discussion in any meeting I've been in ..., never one hint that abortion is a moral option. There has never been any hint that homosexuality is a moral lifestyle. There has never been a hint that anyone doesn't believe in the authority of the Bible."
___Texas Baptists need to understand one thing about Moran and SBC leaders who quote his research, Broyles said: "These folks are lying."
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