ST. LOUIS – The 145th annual gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention was little different from any other in the last two decades.
A few thousand Baptists gathered to pray, sing, pass resolutions – and plunge into the middle of controversy because of some remark or action.
This week, it was a former convention president, speaking before the convention began, who caused the stir. The Rev. Jerry Vines called the prophet Muhammad a "demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, the last one of which was a 9-year-old girl."
New convention president Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano said the remarks were "strong" but "accurate."
Muslims condemned them as inaccurate hate speech.
The incident was the most recent in a series of conservative Baptist comments and actions over the last 20 years or so that have antagonized one group or another.
• In 1980, the Rev. Bailey Smith, a former Southern Baptist president, said God does not hear the prayers of Jews.
• In 1988, the convention declared that salvation was found only through Jesus Christ.
• In 1997, the convention voted to boycott Walt Disney Co. to protest its gay-friendly policies.
• In 1998, the convention said a wife should "submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband."
• In 1999, the convention's International Mission Board published guides to praying for Muslims, Hindus and Jews to become Christians. Prayers were to be offered especially on those worshippers' holy days.
• In 2000, the convention said that women should not be pastors and that Christians should oppose homosexuality.
Dr. Richard Land, president of the convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said he's resigned to the fact that Southern Baptists will make the news every year.
"We don't get to write the leads for the secular press," he said. "It has happened so many times that Southern Baptists have come to conventions over the last 20 years and what we think is the big story and the significant story is under-reported compared to what we think is tangential. And I would say ... [the furor over Dr. Vines' comments] is tangential.
"This was done by a former president in a pastors' conference before the convention."
Condemnations
Leaders of the Council on American Islamic Relations asked for condemnations, and on Wednesday they got them.
"In the name of God, we condemn the hateful statement made in our city about Islam and the prophet Muhammad, and we express our solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters," said Bishop George Wayne Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri in a prepared statement.
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called Dr. Vines' remarks "demeaning and damaging to the American ideals of religious diversity and intergroup civility."
"Unfortunately," he said in a prepared statement, "such deplorable, divisive rhetoric is not surprising coming from the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has a track record of denigrating and delegitimizing other religions."
Some moderate Baptists said they had to agree with the critics.
"They're equal-opportunity denouncers," said Dr. Bill Leonard, dean of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. "Everybody gets it."
Imam Muhammad Shakoor of the Dallas Masjid of Al-Islam said Dr. Vines' comments didn't surprise him.
"Even the prophet Muhammad had people who spoke out against him in his time," he said. "Those who rejected him were allowed to reject him. He just said, 'To you be your way and to me be mine.' I'm not condemning the whole Baptist denomination, just the person who made the comment. I know some fine, fine Baptists. That was just his opinion."
'Very tense times'
Dr. Land called Dr. Vines a respected pastor but said he might have addressed the matter differently.
"It's my feeling that you're always going to catch more of what you're trying to catch with honey than with vinegar," he said.
Dr. Charles Wade, executive director of the moderate Baptist General Convention of Texas, said stirring up animosity between religions is inappropriate for Christians.
"This is a time for Christians to speak like Jesus to our world," he said. "We are in very tense times in the relationships between Muslim and Christian, Muslim and Jew, and Muslim and Hindu around the world."
Reflecting on past controversies, Dr. Land said that when Baptists voted for the Disney boycott, that wasn't the convention's most important action that year. He said the biggest thing was a reorganization that recently resulted in the transfer of more than $40 million to frontline ministries.
On the other hand, he said, the 1998 family amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message, which included the line about wives' submission, was a major action.
"But I think most Southern Baptists were shocked that this was shocking to the secular world," he said. "And they were even more shocked that it was shocking to some Southern Baptists, because clearly this is what the vast majority of Southern Baptists believe about the family."
On Wednesday, two brothers who converted from Islam to Christianity and who teach theology at Baptist seminaries were the center of attention. Their new book, Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs, was the source from which Dr. Vines took his information.
The authors are Ergun Mehmet Caner, who teaches at Criswell College in Dallas, and Emir Fethi Caner, who teaches at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. They said their book quotes the hadith, collected sayings of and about Muhammad.
"We don't understand why this is a controversy," said Dr. Ergun Caner. "This is something you have in hadith, this is something in their teachings, something we were taught as children."
He said Muhammad himself questioned whether he was demon-possessed. And, he said, he knows that Dr. Vines doesn't hate Muslims. He wants to lead them to Christ, Dr. Caner said.
Some Muslims say the young bride in question was actually 16 when she was betrothed, 18 when she married the prophet.
Pastors and messengers said it was a shame that people outside the convention were left with a statement from one man as the defining moment of the gathering.
"I think that what the convention has focused on is reaching the lost of the world with a message of hope," said the Rev. Tim Byrd of Allendale Baptist Church in Conroe. "It's not a hate message or nontolerance."
Southern Baptists didn't leave without first addressing the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, hoping to prevent it in their own denomination. Messengers adopted a resolution asking leaders to hold themselves accountable and urging seminaries and other institutions to emphasize ministerial integrity.
The convention also adopted resolutions on praying for peace in the Middle East and declaring its abhorrence of terrorism.