Religious Groups Take Part in Arguments Over Bork

Despite longstanding policies against backing or opposing specific political candidates, some religious bodies have jumped directly into the fray over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork.

The unusual burst of pro-and-con religious partisanship has aligned religious groups on both sides of the Bork nomination, although most individual denominations have stayed officially aloof.

But some, departing from past practice, have joined the extensive campaigning for or against the candidate.

Past avoidance of such partisanship stems both from the politically diverse views within denominations and an Internal Revenue Service regulation barring tax-exempt organizations from taking sides in campaigns for public office.

Created an Uproar

Support for Bork by the Southern Baptist Public Affairs Committee stirred an uproar in that biggest of Protestant denominations. On the other hand, the United Methodist Church has disputed claims that it is opposing him.

“The United Methodist Church doesn’t come out for or against anyone like that,” said Thomas McAnally of Nashville, Tenn., the denomination’s information director, repudiating news reports that it had taken sides.

The Methodist mix-up resulted from a women’s division advisory to local units to examine Bork’s civil rights records and write reactions to senators.

It’s a touchy religious zone.

However, outright opposition to Bork came from an interdenominational cooperative body, the National Council of Churches, and from leaders of Reform Judaism and the United Church of Christ.

In contrast, support for Bork came from the National Assn. of Evangelicals, the orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel, and the Knights of Columbus Catholic fraternal order, in addition to the Southern Baptist committee.

Such interventions specifically for or against a nominee were unprecedented, except for a single instance by the National Council of Churches.

The Rev. Dean Kelley, the council’s church-state expert, said taking sides on Bork was “not exactly intervening in a political campaign” since no election was involved, only a pending Senate vote on a presidential nominee.

Of the council action against Bork on Sept. 18, he said, “I don’t think they were looking over their shoulder at the IRS code.” He noted that the council once before--in 1970--took a stand against a Supreme Court nominee, G. Harold Carswell.

The Southern Baptist committee’s support for Bork touched off a storm in that denomination, already embroiled in conflict over increasing fundamentalist control of agencies.

Several officials deplored the action while others defended it.

It drew one of the strongest blasts from a longtime top leader, the Rev. Porter W. Routh of Nashville, who for 28 years headed the denomination’s executive committee.

Resolution Cited

In a letter to state Southern Baptist weeklies, he said the endorsement of Bork violates a denominational bylaw and breaks a precedent against such actions.

He said the denomination “has never (urged) and should not now be urging the election of any candidate for office.”

He cited a 1976 convention resolution reaffirming a “long tradition of non-endorsement of any political candidate.’

Routh added:

“It is a sad day when persons who have incomplete knowledge of Baptist history or tradition, or the price paid for religious liberty, make decisions which are in violation of specific Southern Baptist actions, and also in violations of the principles of separation of church and state. . . .”

On the other hand, Les Csorba of Alexandria, Va., a committee member, said it has “a responsibility to represent” the denomination on First Amendment issues and the endorsement of Bork was “consistent with that.”

The committee was newly set up last year after fundamentalists solidified a nine-year process of gaining control of Southern Baptist agencies through appointments of rotated trustees by the denominational president.

The Rev. James M. Dunn of Washington, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, including seven other Baptist bodies besides Southern Baptists, said no Southern Baptist committee could speak “for the entire denomination.”

However, the committee’s resolution, sent to U.S. senators, said it “is imperative that we, as the largest non-Catholic religious denomination in the United States, take a firm stand in supporting” Bork’s nomination.

The resolution said opposition to Bork “has come from extremist organizations . . . led and financed by individuals who have consistently opposed the very traditional moral positions Southern Baptists have held.”

On the other side, the Reform Jewish president, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, said “we cannot sit idly by” when Bork’s record suggests he would turn back progress on church-state separation and various individual rights.