Moderates on Moderates

                                                                                                                     Vol. XII, No. 7, August 1999

"Thank God that there is no such thing as a Baptist creed that includes abortion or drinking booze or any other particular set of agendas and [President Bill Clinton] is in the mainstream of Baptist history as he asserts and affirms his religious liberty." [Quote from BJCPA Executive Director James Dunn in response to a question about the 1993 SBC resolution concerning President Bill Clinton on CBN's 700 Club for February 2, 1994.]

"At Washington cocktail parties, said James Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, people are often shocked to learn that he is a Southern Baptist. 'I tell them I'm a Bill Moyers-Barbara Jordan-Jimmy Carter kind of Baptist,' he said. 'You can see it dawn in their faces. Those are three Baptists - and all Southern Baptists - whose faith and religious involvement is not only not an embarrassment but is central in their lives to who they are, and what they have contributed.'" [As reported by Laurie Goodstein in The New York Times for June 14, 1998.]

     "The use of an occasional four-letter word seemed a kind of defiant badge of liberation. I have never heard a moderate use God's name in a profane way, nor have I heard any sexually explicit language, but other 'four-letter' words can be heard on occasion . . . Likewise, a glass of wine with dinner was not uncommon . . . But they would surely take care that they were unnoticed. Room service was heavily used in Southern Baptist Convention hotels. While moderates wanted to proclaim their liberation from puritanical standards, their freedom to express themselves fully or to drink in moderation was hampered by their knowledge that most of their Southern Baptist brothers and sisters did not approve."

[Excerpt from page 108 of Nancy Ammerman's Baptist Battles published by Rutgers University Press. Ammerman has served on the CBF Coordinating Council and the board of directors for the Alliance of Baptists.]