Baptist Leaders Affirm New Creed

Thursday, November 16th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) â€” A new Southern Baptist statement of faith saying the Bible is without error and women shouldn't be pastors generally won support in sharply divided state meetings, leaving many wondering whether the rift over the church's conservative shift will ever be healed.

After Alabama Baptists overwhelmingly affirmed the new creed Wednesday, several of the 1,200 delegates got up and walked out.

``These people are not Baptists. The Baptists are leaving,'' Mary Goodhue of Huntsville said as she left.

The new Baptist Faith and Message was passed by the Southern Baptist Convention â€” America's largest Protestant denomination, with 15.8 million members â€” in June.

Some 2,000 Louisiana Baptists passed a resolution supporting the creed by 252 votes. The daylong fight was so exhausting that the delegates left before the end of official business, which included a proposal to bar church members from attending Mardi Gras.

``Sometimes you just get worn out and want to go home,'' said convention president Tommy French, a Baton Rouge pastor.

Georgia, Florida and Tennessee Baptists were among others who voted in favor of the creed this week. North Carolina's delegates passed a carefully worded resolution reaffirming their commitment to the national convention.

Kentucky's Baptists elected a self-described ``compromiser'' as their new president by a close margin and a formed a committee to study whether to take up the statement, effectively tabling the issue.

South Carolina Baptists left the issue off their agenda entirely and Virginia's decided Wednesday to let local congregations decide whether to embrace it.

``Our attitude is to not continue fighting and bickering,'' said the Rev. Reginald R. McDonough, executive director of the Virginia Baptists.

The Southern Baptist Convention has become increasingly divided in recent years over what some see as a creeping conservatism.

Former President Jimmy Carter announced earlier this month he was breaking from the church, criticizing the new statement as too rigid. Texas Baptists also cited the creed in voting last month to weaken their ties to the national denomination.

Before Wednesday's meeting of Alabama Baptists, more than 100 Baptists â€” several of them delegates to the convention â€” crowded into a Montgomery restaurant to sign up members for a new organization called the Mainstream Alabama Baptists.

Members expressed concern about fundamentalists restricting the roles for women and leading the denomination away from traditional principles.

The Rev. Gerald Lord, pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Killen, Ala., said more than 350 people have signed up for the new group.

``We are not going to try to clean up the Southern Baptist Convention,'' he said. ``To me, that is a lost cause.''

Nancy Ammerman, professor of sociology of religion at Connecticut's Hartford Seminary and author of ``Baptist Battles,'' said she believes such splintering will continue.

And while the statement of faith is not binding on churches or individual members, she believes it sends a powerful message.

``The conservative movement has really been going on in the church for 10 years now,'' Ammerman said. ``But what the statement of faith did was put it all in writing. It made it all seem like it had God's stamp of approval.''