News from the Georgia Baptist Convention - A Tennessee Baptist Omen

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are several state conventions meeting during the same time frame as the Tennessee Baptist Convention meeting. The news from the Georgia Baptist Convention meeting headlines, " Georgia Baptists finalize split with Mercer University". That saddens me on a personal level. A former Mercer president was a favorite dinner guest of mine on trips to Atlanta and Macon back in the 1960's. Dr. Harris championed the admission of qualified students into higher education regardless or race, and caught much criticism for his stance among conservatives (and Baptists) in Middle Georgia. It was Dr. Harris who convinced me that the traditionally accepted "equal but separate" philosophy was wrong, legally and morally.

So, yesterday, Georgia Baptists blew off 170 years of history due to the labeling of Mercer as "too liberal". I find that troubling. I did not agree with the gay groups who met on that campus or the faculty who supported them. I did not agree with the liberal direction the university was going, however, I never ever considered that the university had drifted from its historical Baptist roots. Just as Dr. Harris disagreed with the equal but separate segregationists, I suspect that he would argue that labeling moderates and liberals as second-class Baptists (or Christians) would have disgusted him as well. Yesterday, the conservatives in Georgia who wanted control over Mercer lost any opportunity for influencing the university's future by pushing it away rather than embracing their differences. There is still pushing going on in Tennessee at this very moment that will result in similar Tennessee newspaper headlines of the future. Baptists will lose yet another part of their history because they simply refuse to accept other Baptists... how sad is that?!