Conservatives Retain Helm of Southern Baptists

Fundamentalist Southern Baptists retained control of the nation’s biggest Protestant denomination Tuesday with the reelection of the Rev. Jerry Vines of Jacksonville, Fla., as president.

Vines won a second term as leader of the 14.8-million member denomination by defeating the Rev. Daniel Vestal, a suburban Atlanta pastor, in a two-man race.

With 56.5% of the votes from the 19,007 valid ballots at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Vines’ victory marked the 11th straight year an ultra-conservataive candidate has won.

Fundamentalists have steadily taken control of seminary and mission agency boards. They contend that the boards previously had either espoused or tolerated liberal interpretations of the Bible. But the so-called moderates, who backed Vestal, have charged that the fundamentalist coalition has slowly limited freedom of belief and conscience--a cherished Baptist tradition--in a drive for power.

Although the Rev. Richard Jackson of Phoenix, who was defeated by Vines in a closer election last year, has talked about the possibility of pulling out, moderate leaders have generally said they will keep up the fight within the denomination.

Fundamentalist leaders have hoped for a quiet three-day convention, which ends Thursday, instead of the contentious debates characteristic of past annual meetings.

For instance, the fundamentalist-dominated Executive Committee, the top administrative arm of the denomination, voted Monday at Vines’ request to defer the creation of a controversial new lobbying office in Washington until next year’s convention. Moderates earlier objected to the fundamentalist-led move to cut funding for an existing joint committee representing most Baptist denominations.

“(The fundamentalists) are concerned about image here,” said Herb Hollinger of Fresno, editor of a newspaper for the 400,000 Southern Baptists in California. “They don’t want to look like dunces” in Las Vegas by engaging in raucous arguments over the Bible and struggles for power, Hollinger said.

Southern Baptists said they picked Las Vegas as a convention site because of its ability to accommodate a large gathering. But to counteract internal criticism for choosing to meet in the gambling resort, Southern Baptists staged a large door-to-door evangelistic foray in the “sin city” last Saturday. They claimed that the 2,000 volunteers elicited 350 conversions.

Moyers’ Request

One controversy did develop late Monday over a request made months ago by television commentator Bill Moyers to be heard by the executive committee to answer charges of bias by fundamentalist organizer Paul Pressler, a Houston appeals court judge. Moyers, who is also an ordained Southern Baptist minister, interviewed Pressler in a three-part Public Broadcasting System series, “God and Politics,” shown early in 1988. Pressler said later that his segment had been distorted in its presentation.

In an angry letter sent by facsimile machine Sunday and released Monday, Moyers declined a possible invitation to appear before the Southern Baptist Executive Committee next September instead of this week.

“I am up against a situation most un-Baptist: closed minds, and in the parlance of your host city, a stacked deck,” Moyers wrote. He called Pressler, an executive committee member, a politician “who has infected this Christian fellowship with the partisan tactics of malice, manipulation and untruth.”

Pressler declined to comment Tuesday on Moyers’ letter. “I don’t want discordant notes to color the reporting of the convention,” he said.