Archconservatives in Control : Candidate of Baptist Moderates Confident Time Is in Their Favor

On a recent Saturday morning at his huge church complex in a well-to-do neighborhood here, the Rev. Richard A. Jackson did not give the impression that it is desperation time for the so-called moderates in the Southern Baptist Convention.

But Jackson will be a nominee again for the denomination’s presidency Tuesday in San Antonio, representing a large minority of Southern Baptists who hope to derail the takeover by a coalition of archconservatives that has won successive presidencies since 1979, usually by a 60% to 40% margin.

Jackson was the loser in two previous serious bids, last year and in 1980.

Biblical Conservative

As many as 40,000 “messengers,” or delegates, are expected to have a choice between Jackson, who is a biblical conservative but declares his independence from partisanship, and the Rev. Jerry Vines of Jacksonville, Fla., the newest flag-bearer of the coalition, a group also regarded as “fundamentalist” because of its intolerance of leaders thought to be soft on literalist Bible teaching.

The Southern Baptist president, customarily reelected to a second term, has appointive powers to gradually transform the makeup of seminary and mission boards. A seminary president and an agency director have resigned in recent months in the face of new archconservative majorities on their boards of trustees.

Another fundamentalist victory next week would seem to signal a no-looking-back victory for strategists Paul Pressler, a Houston appeals court judge, and the Rev. Paige Patterson of Dallas.

But Jackson appeared at ease during an interview at his North Phoenix Baptist Church, which has 18,500 members. The latest addition to the 40-acre church complex is a $5-million family recreational center containing two basketball courts, six handball and racquetball courts, weight-lifting equipment and space sometimes used as a roller-skating rink.

Shot 75 at Golf

Jackson’s sport is golf, and he conceded that his relaxed mood was set partly by a 75 he had shot that week.

Pressed on the matter of the denomination’s direction, the 49-year-old pastor said he thinks that a reaction will develop against the archconservative style, if not in San Antonio next week, then eventually. “I think balanced leadership will return someday,” he said.

Second, Jackson suggested that the Pressler-Patterson coalition will tire of managing the nationwide denomination of more than 14 million members. “People with an independent mind-set will not enjoy for very long leading a cooperative effort,” Jackson said.

“Like a dog chasing a car: You catch it, you got to drive it. These are good people, so I don’t think they’ll run it into the ground. But they’ll tire of it, if they don’t devour each other first,” he predicted.

Theology aside, Jackson said the real fight in the nation’s largest Protestant body is between “cooperative” Southern Baptists and what he called the coalition’s independent-minded leading pastors. The latter tend to want their own way in situations that call for give and take, Jackson said.

“Southern Baptists have always been cooperative Baptists. Now, to cooperate you don’t have to be a compromiser, you don’t have to be a middle-of-the-road, spineless nobody,” he said.

Jackson has said that messengers will be hard-pressed to find significant theological differences between him and Vines, the other likely nominee. (Southern Baptists maintain a fiction of non-candidacy; Vines noted last week that no one has asked his permission to nominate him.)

Jackson is not a “moderate” in theology, but in manner. “Compared to (other churches) we’re all rednecks,” he said. Moderate leaders believe Jackson’s conservative Bible views make him electable, and his record of cooperation makes him acceptable.

Gives $1 Million

During the 1986-87 fiscal year, Jackson’s church gave $1 million to the Southern Baptist Cooperative Program unified budget from undesignated receipts of $6.6 million. In the same 12 months, the church baptized 1,206 people. Southern Baptist officials said it may be the only time that a church has led Southern Baptists in both baptisms and cooperative program giving.

By comparison, Vines’ First Baptist Church of Jacksonville gave $200,000 from its 1986-87 undesignated receipts of $7.4 million. Opponents of Vines have also said that he has been uninvolved in Baptist work at the state and regional levels.

Jackson and Vines, by coincidence, were both presidential nominees in 1977, a year when the favorite was the Rev. Jimmy Allen. Vines lost to Allen in a runoff. Jackson said he was nominated at the last minute by a friend, the Rev. Jimmy Draper of Euless, Tex., who would later become a successful presidential candidate for the fundamentalist coalition. Jackson quoted Draper as saying, “Jimmy Allen is going to win but I’m going to nominate you so I can tell everyone about your church.”

Memphis pastor Adrian Rogers, who won the presidency for fellow fundamentalists in 1979, 1986 and 1987, nominated Vines. “We were all good friends. None of us ran around with Jimmy Allen,” Jackson said.

Turns Down Invitation

But he said he turned down overtures to join the fundamentalist coalition. He was nominated in 1980 against Oklahoma fundamentalist Bailey Smith. “I didn’t have a chance to win but I did it to prove to the world that I didn’t belong to that coalition,” Jackson said.

“The next year I nominated Bailey Smith so that I could show that I believed that what this convention needed was some unity, some loyalty, and that we could work together,” he said. “But the next year I saw that wasn’t going to happen.”

Jackson was clearly identified as favorable to moderates when in 1986 he nominated the Rev. W. Winfred Moore, a Texas moderate, and Jackson himself was nominated last year.

In a different twist this year, the Rev. George Harris, a San Antonio pastor who had previously always voted for the fundamentalist candidates, announced early this year that he would nominate Jackson. The Phoenix pastor would be “good for fundamentalists, good for moderates and good for all,” Harris was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Vines told Baptist Press, the denomination’s news service, that “the theological problems in our convention are real . . . and must be dealt with. It is important to have someone who is a courageous conservative as president.”