Here’s some more of what Duke McCall had to say, in an article in SBTS’s publication, The Tie, about the Conservative Resurgence:
The past 18 months have been a dark and depressing period in the life of Southern Baptists. For the first time since I was ordained to the Baptist ministry almost a half-century ago, I have had reason to fear for the future of our convention.
The well-financed effort to wrest from the conservative majority of Southern Baptists their agencies and assets has moved relentlessly, attacking honorable Christian servants, misleading and confusing lay persons, camouflaging a grab for power as a ‘battle to save the Bible.’
The leaders of Bold Mission Thrust have been especially frustrated as they have seen our denomination’s energies sapped by the political shenanigans of a hard-core conspiracy. And this at a time when Southern Baptists had an unprecedented opportunity to share the Gospel with a lost world!
Using both the elective and appointive processes of the Convention, with deliberate and calculated plans to divide and disenfranchise the mainstream of Southern Baptists, a ‘power politics’ party is seeking to change the nature of the policy-making boards of all the agencies of the Convention. They want to remove the broad cross-section of Southern Baptists who now serve as trustees and replace them with others, many of whom support institutions which compete with Southern Baptists and drain off millions of dollars from the Cooperative Program each year.
The result, if this militant minority of independent interests succeeds, will be the destruction of the Southern Baptist Convention as we know it. (quoted by Jerry Sutton in The Baptist Reformation: The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, pp. 341-342).
Earlier in the book, Jerry Sutton had this to say about another one of McCall’s efforts to stop the Resurgence in its tracks—“McCall’s use of slur tactics, distortion, and inaccurate analogies are exemplary of his willingness to use whatever tactics necessary to maintain the status quo, even though it was outside the will of the majority of Southern Baptists” (p. 112).
While it doesn’t seem as if McCall has changed his views, based on the report of his remarks at the dedication ceremony, he seems to have toned down his rhetoric. I ask that because there have been diverse currents running through our community and fellowship. We do not always agree with each other on everything, but what I call upon us to recognize is that the hand of God is upon this institution and those with responsibility for her and that we acknowledge that and say, “We will continue our own convictions as they diverge from one another. But we will stand together in one common commitment in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.”
And here is where the rub is, in my mind. Given the historical context, the “convictions” of which McCall speaks seem certainly to include matters central to the Faith, don’t they? What we know of the man, his presidency at SBTS and the Baptist World Alliance, his advocacy against the Conservative Resurgence, and his writings on these things, it would seem extremely naïve to conclude that he refers only to matters, to frame in it terms of Mohler’s triage model, of secondary or tertiary concern. And if, as he did during his presidency, McCall is claiming that Bible believing people should “stand together in one common commitment in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” with those who deny the very fundamentals of the Faith, the sad irony of this new pavilion is even greater.
