Moderate Baptists to vote on dictum of wifely submission

A delegate to a convention of moderate Texas Baptists introduced a motion Monday that would reject the national leadership's pronouncement that women should submit to their husbands.<br><br>The 2,200

Monday, November 8th 1999, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A delegate to a convention of moderate Texas Baptists introduced a motion Monday that would reject the national leadership's pronouncement that women should submit to their husbands.

The 2,200 representatives attending the Baptist General Convention of Texas' annual meeting in El Paso were to discuss and vote on the motion proposed by Pastor Robert Newell of Houston on Tuesday morning.

A simple majority would pass the motion to affirm the Baptist Faith and Message Statement of 1963.

Doing so would reject an amendment to the denomination's declaration of beliefs that was approved last year during the Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City.

That amendment said wives should submit to their husbands and defined marriage in solely heterosexual terms. Pastors and seminary employees are expected to advocate the ideas.

The Rev. Clyde Glazener, the newly elected president of the 2.7 million-member Texas organization, led the charge against the amendment.

"That amendment, though it spoke about family and had some decent things in it, also had in it some barbs that were intended to hammer women about subservience, in my judgment," said Glazener, pastor of the Gambrell Street Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

The Texas group -- the largest state organization affiliated with the 15.7 million-member national Southern Baptist Convention -- has been distancing itself from the conservative-led national group.