Chapter 20   Moderate Responses to the Takeover

The devastation left in the wake of the Fundamentalist Takeover is obvious to those Baptists who appreciate the freedom, diversity, and openness of former days. There was a time when Southern Baptists stood together in doing the work of the gospel. While we might have differed on how best to do this, we did not try to exclude each other from the opportunity to do ministry. The damage done to the cause of Christ by the Fundamentalist Takeover is incalculable. But the perceptive reader may be wondering where the moderates were as the Fundamentalist juggernaut plowed forward. Was there any significant attempt to thwart the Takeover before it went too far? What was the political response to this very political Takeover?

Moderates Resist Partisan Politics. An intentional effort to defeat the Fundamentalist revolution eventually evolved, but moderates were slow to take up partisan politics within the Convention. At the beginning of the controversy most of the seminary leadership and most of the SBC agency leadership was made up of people who would later identify themselves as “moderates.” They saw the election of Adrian Rogers and the political machinations of Paige Patterson and Judge Pressler as distasteful but not alarming. In retrospect these leaders were clearly overconfident. They had been in the vanguard of SBC leadership for many years, and assumed they had built up a reservoir of trust in the denomination that could not be easily shaken. They assumed this new controversy was just another Fundamentalist “tempest in a teapot,” that would soon blow over. In any event, people of their view held most of the reins of power in the denomination. They felt they could “handle” the upstarts.

Moderates Work to Get Out the Vote. After the election of Bailey Smith to be SBC president at the 1980 Convention, with 51 percent of the vote on the first ballot, against five other non-aligned candidates, the moderates were shaken. Paul Pressler’s announcement in September that a Fundamentalist political strategy did indeed exist and that they were attempting to “go for the jugular” of the Convention, galvanized moderates into action. Duke McCall, former president of Southern Seminary, encouraged Cecil Sherman, then pastor of the First Baptist Church of Asheville, North Carolina, to launch a resistance movement. Dr. Sherman asked seventeen trusted leaders from various states to meet with him in Gatlinburg , Tennessee , in late September of 1980. The group that met there became known, somewhat humorously, as the “Gatlinburg Gang.”

Together, these men developed their own strategy for a “get out the vote” campaign. Their goal was to defeat the Pressler-Patterson machine by electing a consensus candidate who would be acceptable to a broad spectrum of Southern Baptists. Many of the candidates put forward by the moderates over the next few years were quite theologically conservative, but were not willing to shut all moderates out of the denomination. The “get out the vote” strategy was simple enough, and while it grew in size over the next few years, it never became much more complex. They sought out viable candidates and generally agreed to support one in particular before each upcoming national convention. They elected a national coordinator for their movement. They also selected state coordinators who would in turn recruit coordinators in the local Baptist associations. Based on the number of messengers who promised to go and vote for a moderate candidate, they estimated their chances and focused additional efforts to recruit more messengers from weaker areas.

Moderates Are the “True Conservatives.” Their rhetorical strategy was simple as well. Moderates presented themselves as denominational loyalists and friends of missions. They also presented themselves as the “true conservatives” because they wanted to maintain the Southern Baptist traditions of soul freedom and the priesthood of all believers. In contrast Fundamentalists were shown to be violating traditional Baptist freedoms. Moderates accused the Fundamentalists of diverting money, time, and energy from “Bold Mission Thrust,” the attempt to reach everyone with a gospel witness before the end of the century. Moderates pointed out that the charges of rampant liberalism in the denomination were vastly exaggerated. In tandem with this, they declared that the Fundamentalist movement was primarily a grab for power, with theological issues being used as a smokescreen. Moderates showcased the ethical transgressions in the political activity of the Fundamentalists.

They also pointed out that the whole political enterprise launched by the Fundamentalists was an exercise in worldly politics, far removed from the kindness and civility of previous years. Even the stern Fundamentalist patriarch at the First Baptist Church of Dallas, W.A. Criswell, was disturbed by the tactics of the Takeover faction. He declared in 1980 that the methods used by his associate, Paige Patterson, and Judge Pressler were “those of a different world.”^[121]

Why Moderates Lost the Struggle. The moderates lost “the struggle for the soul of the SBC” as Walter Shurden puts it, for several reasons. To begin with, they had to play “catch-up” against an opposition that was already well organized and had won two major elections in 1979 and 1980. On the strength of those victories, the Fundamentalists were well ahead of the moderates in understanding the mechanics of how to dominate the conventions. Their troops came early, got the best blocks of hotel rooms near the convention centers, and sat in the seats closest to the rostrum for best effect in both voice and hand votes.

Incumbency also has its advantages in planning and administering the conventions. One advantage of incumbency is the extensive power of the Convention president as chair of the meeting. Each of the editors of this booklet has witnessed high-handed and partisan use of the chair, in everything from the recognition of speakers to parliamentary procedure rulings. The rulings of the president could be challenged and appealed to a parliamentarian, kept near the platform for just such disputes. However, even the selection of the parliamentarian is in the control of those who run the Convention. That advantage is seen quite clearly in a celebration following the 1990 Convention in New Orleans .

Following their massive and rather final defeat of the moderates, Paige Patterson and others went to the Café Du Monde in the French Quarter to celebrate their victory. Patterson and Pressler were given framed certificates honoring their achievements. The Convention parliamentarian, supposedly neutral and from another denomination, was present for the celebration, and even called it to order! When his presence at this meeting was challenged as inappropriate, he first explained that he was “just passing by, picking up an order of doughnuts.” When the challengers pointed out that the parliamentarian had actually been seen arriving at Café Du Monde in a limousine with the Convention president, he amended his story to say that he was on “24 hour call” and therefore obliged to accompany the President wherever he went. When one messenger tried to tell the story of what he had seen at Café Du Monde to the Convention the following day, he was deterred. Twice the President refused to recognize him and twice his microphone was turned off.^[122] Such abuse of the chair was common all during the Takeover.

Fundamentalists Claim “High Moral Ground.” Another reason for the failure of the moderate political response is that by 1981 the Fundamentalists had already convinced many Baptists that they held the moral high ground. As James Slatton observes: “They had ‘prayer meetings’ not political rallies, and they were ‘led of the spirit’ to nominate ‘Godly’ men for office.”^[123] Thus they often obscured the worldly political nature of their activities. Their rhetoric, accusing denominational leaders and seminary presidents of “liberalism,” and their passionate call to “save the Bible” within the Convention, was exactly the kind of white-hot language that sweeps a crowd off its feet into a glorious sense of mission. It was much like the inflammatory rhetoric of Joseph R. McCarthy’s hunt for communists, and southern politicians of another era who used the language of racial prejudice to get in power and stay in power. Fundamentalist language engaged the heart, while deceptively disengaging the mind.  

The moderate position was a harder sell precisely because it was “moderate,” while Fundamentalist language was not. Educated Fundamentalists might qualify their statements about the Bible more carefully in a classroom setting, but on the political stump, when they fiercely declared the Bible “inerrant” they stirred the passions of many Bible-believing Baptists. The moderate position, more thoughtful and more truthful, was better crafted for the classroom. Few ever learned how to present moderate beliefs in the language of a rally. So, as the Fundamentalists proclaimed the Bible inerrant, moderates were either silent or too cerebral, and gave the impression that these accusations of heresy were true. To say, “Well, let’s think about this more carefully” is hardly going to bring the basic Baptist to his feet in passionate commitment. Unwilling to cast the basic subjects of the controversy in moral and political language, moderates were left with trying to discredit the ethics and the distinctive Baptist-ness of their opponents. They presented the controversy as merely a power struggle. True believers in the Fundamentalist camp were generally unfazed by this approach and many non-Fundamentalists saw such attacks as “mean-spirited.”

This, of course, brings up another problem for the moderate political response. Most moderates found the whole political nature of the Controversy mean-spirited and distasteful in the extreme. They saw any response in kind as sinking to the level of the enemy. They regarded such partisan and exclusionary politics as beneath the dignity of civil Christian churchmanship — beyond the pale of both Baptist freedom and Christian love, their most cherished biblical values. While the typical Fundamentalist layperson was caught up in the excitement of a “revolution for God,” moderates wrestled with how far to go in fighting back. Hence many moderates were loathe to rise to the occasion. In practical terms, this meant they never raised quite enough money or quite enough votes to defeat their opponents in the contest.

Moderates Discouraged from Within. Far from being motivated by white-hot political rhetoric, the Gatlinburg Gang and other moderate leaders were often intentionally discouraged from political organizing by their own allies. Cecil Sherman tells of how one moderate leader warned him in 1981 that moderate political organizing would only make things worse, and that they should simply wait for “the pendulum to swing back.” A major denominational executive told him: “Stop what you are doing Cecil; we can handle these people.” When the seminary presidents offered “the Glorieta Statement” in 1986, affirming biblical inerrancy in the hope that their schools would not be further attacked, Dr. Sherman protested to one of the seminary presidents who was later summarily fired by Fundamentalist trustees. That president told him: “Cecil, you are more trouble to us than they are.”^[124] Such responses on the part of people they were trying to help did not exactly create a “Go get ’em, you can do it!” spirit.

Some prominent and influential pastors failed to speak out when it might have done more good because they were reluctant to join the rough-and-tumble of a political fight. Other moderates were afraid of being painted as liberals by the other side, and thus losing their jobs. The moderate political movement that did evolve from the Gatlinburg meeting was loose knit, with occasionally changing leadership. The Fundamentalists were tightly organized, with an almost military discipline, and had focused, consistent leadership, with a clear vision and a clear strategy that they stayed with throughout their campaign. Cecil Sherman points out that if the moderate leaders had been more authoritarian in their approach, no one would have followed them, since moderates by nature resist the kind of authoritarian, lock-step approach common to Fundamentalists. For all these reasons, the energy and momentum were never sufficient in the moderate movement to defeat a dedicated opposition, willing to make great sacrifices.

There were, however, many great men and women of the moderate Baptist community who fought the good fight to the bitter end for freedom and truth. Great sacrifices in time, money, and career advancement were made by those faithful Christians. 

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