Elliff Answers Hot-topic Queries

by   Joni Hannigan                                                                                                                                      Vol. X, No. 6, June/July 1997

Tom Elliff began the traditional SBC presidential news conference June 17 with a prayer, and ended it with a challenge to those in attendance: "God's got a great plan for your life, and the only way you'll know it is if you know Christ as your Savior."

Elliff, pastor of First Baptist Church, Del City, OK, was re-elected to a second and final one-year term with no opposition the first day of the annual meeting of the nation's largest Protestant denomination June 17 in Dallas. He unhesitatingly answered questions about issues ranging from a proposed resolution to boycott The Disney Company to a question about his views on current controversies surrounding military dismissals for sexual behavior.

Elliff nevertheless held forth his primary agenda as SBC president. "My prayer is God will bring (a great spiritual awakening)," Elliff told reporters, "I don't think much is going to change unless God brings an awakening in our nation."

Responding to questions about a proposed resolution urging Southern Baptists to refrain from patronizing companies like Disney, Elliff said the reason the issue arose around Disney and not other companies involved in morally unacceptable practices is because Disney was a family oriented enterprise at its outset, Elliff said.

"So many families trusted Disney -- didn't have to think twice," Elliff said. "That was before Disney brought in under its umbrella all of these other film companies that produced graphic pornography and illicit pornography, and (they had) gay and lesbian days in their theme park campuses.

"We felt we had to speak out," he explained. "Mr. and Mrs. Southern Baptist" will have to decide how they carry out the principles spelled out in the resolution, Elliff said. "The boycott may not affect Disney economically at all, but the issue is this: We do what is right; we do what we are convicted is right to do. Whether Disney succeeds or fails is not so much the issue as whether we do what is scripturally right.”

On watching ABC programs on television, Elliff asked, "Is it more harm to pay a prostitute or spend the night with it? "If you are a man or woman of principle and character, you're going to let that principle affect everything you do."

As for Southern Baptists who are employed by Disney, Elliff said he has prayed for them. "All of us have to give serious consideration where we put our energies, efforts (and the) years of our lives," he said, and suggested a first response should include asking Disney for a change.

"That's what we're doing," he said, in reference to an initial resolution by Southern Baptists last year asking Disney to respond to the concerns. "If we weren't working for a change, we wouldn't boycott," Elliff said.

A reporter from Arkansas asked Elliff if the fact that President Bill Clinton is a member of a Southern Baptist Church has affected the denomination. "Southern Baptists are people of principle and character; that doesn't change based on whether we have a sitting president in office," said Elliff, who also said it's no secret that past presidents of the SBC drafted and sent Clinton two letters in the past year. Both urged him to act against partial-birth abortion.

On leaders in general, including those in the military, Elliff said, "I believe leaders have a heavier responsibility and ought to be expected to live with perhaps even closer attention to principle and character than people who do not lead.

Fielding questions about the issue of women's ordination, Elliff said, "If you hold that Scripture is indeed the inerrant, infallible Word of God, and you believe Scripture ... speaks plainly, you cannot help but take passages relative to ministry and see that they plainly refer to a man of God -- 'let man be the husband of one wife,’" he quoted from Scripture.

A tremendous diversity in the way church is conducted is apparent among Southern Baptists, Elliff observed. But "non-negotiable" issues involve beliefs about Scripture and salvation by faith in Christ -and Christ alone. Still, that doesn't prevent folks from getting along, Elliff said, noting he has plans to meet with leaders of other Christian groups across the nation this year. "Respect, toleration and compromise are different issues," he said.

Asked whether Southern Baptists might offend Utah Mormons when the SBC annual meeting takes place in Salt Lake next year, Elliff said the city leaders knew what Southern Baptists believe before they decided to host the SBC gathering. Scheduling meetings in areas where Southern Baptist work is not prevalent is done purposefully to strengthen those pastors and congregations in the region, Elliff said.

Elliff said he affirms the SBC Committee on Nomination's guidelines against nominees for SBC boards who support Cooperative Baptist Fellowship ministries. "It would be ludicrous to appoint someone, for instance, as a member of the International Mission Board who had strong ties to CBF, because that would place the president of that board in the unusual predicament of having a board member ... who would have divided allegiance," Elliff said. [BP]