Panel Selects Calif. Pastor to Head Seminary

A theologically conservative California pastor who says he avoids the partisan battles in the Southern Baptist Convention will be nominated Monday for the presidency of the denomination’s Golden Gate Theological Seminary.

An informed source said the search committee will nominate Riverside Pastor William Crews, 50, a seminary trustee for four years and a member of the 22-member “peace committee” seeking to resolve fundamentalist-moderate rivalries in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Crews said by telephone this week that he could not comment on the nomination.

However, the source said Crews will carry the unanimous recommendation of the search committee chaired by Baton Rouge, La., business executive O. Q. Quick , who is also chairman of the seminary’s board of trustees.

Coveted by Fundamentalists

The president’s job, vacant since last March when the Rev. Frank Pollard resigned after three years, is one of three openings coveted by fundamentalist leaders in the nearly 15-million-member denomination. The others are positions heading the Christian Life Commission and the Home Mission Board. Fundamentalists have won the election for convention president every year since 1979 but have not captured key appointive positions.

Crews has been pastor since 1978 of Riverside’s Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church, which has 2,300 members. He holds bachelor’s degrees from Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Tex., and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Tex. He was president of the Southern Baptists’ California convention 1982-84.

Crews, a member of the seminary president search committee, said last June that his guess was “that we will again pick someone in the middle politically but theologically conservative.” He said that was an apt description of himself and a great many others on the seminary board who wish to keep the denominational struggles away from the 1,250-student school.