Mod-Libs continue to build a denomination

by Herb Hollinger                                                                                            Vol. IV, No. 6, August 1991

A "new and more comprehensive ethics agency among Southern Baptists" has been created by a group of moderate leaders. The Baptist Center for Ethics will soon be formally announced. The center will apparently parallel the SBC Christian Life Commission, according to a letter sent by W.C. Fields, chairman of the center's advisory council, to a group of Southern Baptist pastors, former denominational executives, and laymen. Included with the letter were lists of an advisory council, an associates group, and the board of directors.

The letter indicated the agency had been in the planning stage for several months. An executive director and a Nashville office are planned, Fields confirmed, but deferred details until the formal announcement.

In an apparently related development, Robert Parham, associate director with the SBC Christian Life Commission, has submitted his resignation effective 1 September. Parham indicated an announcement will be made within a week concerning his future plans. However, according to sources in Nashville, Parham has been asked to become the executive director of the new Baptist Center for Ethics.

[Comment: everyone has heard the old saying that if it walks, looks, swims, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. The "Cooperative Baptist Fellowship," the organization of moderate and liberal Southern Baptists, appears more and more like a denominational duck every time there is another announcement from them. TCP]