February 25, 2002
Religious broadcasters' president quits
___NASHVILLE, Tenn.--An attempt to move the National Religious Broadcasters organization away from partisan politics apparently has forced the resignation of the group's newly elected president.
___Less than five months after his installation as NRB president, Wayne Pederson resigned Feb. 15 on the eve of the association's convention.
___Pederson's decision "ultimately came down to a question of confidence in his leadership," according to an NRB news release.
___Prominent religious broadcasters such as Jerry Falwell and James Dobson lined up against Pederson after he gave an interview to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Within that lengthy interview, published Jan. 5, Pederson said he wanted the NRB to downplay its political image and increase its spiritual, theological image.
___"What's disturbing to me is that evangelicals are identified politically more than theologically," he said. "We get associated with the far Christian right and marginalized. To me the important thing is to keep focus on what's important to us spiritually."
___Pederson referenced "an element in NRB that wants us to be politically oriented--to take stands on public issues. But that's not in our constitution," he explained. "Our constitution says we're to make the Christian media as effective as it can be. We need not be pulled into the political arena."
___According to the minutes of a Jan. 23 NRB executive committee meeting, Falwell told Pederson he would quietly leave NRB if the group changed direction--emphasizing only the spiritual rather than the socio-cultural-political issues that have partly defined the organization in recent years.
___Likewise, Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, also told executive committee members he would withdraw from the organization and decline to speak at the opening session in Nashville if Pederson remained as president.
___American Family Association founder Don Wildmon had predicted Pederson's comments might cost him his job.
___"He says we ought to be concerned with theology. Well, that's what we are concerned (with)--theology drives our social action," Wildmon said. "Everyone I know (in Christian broadcasting) are members of what the secular media would call the Religious Right, and these are the people that Wayne Pederson is criticizing. These are the people he's saying we don't need anymore."
___Based on news service reports
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