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Editor's
Note: In March 1997, W. B. Tichenor, a long-time leader in the Missouri
Baptist Convention and board member for the Baptist Joint Committee, responded
to the Missouri Baptist Laymen's Association's 12-page flyer on the BJCPA with a
16-page defense of the BJCPA.
The following letter was sent to Dr. Gary Taylor, a member of the Missouri
Baptist Convention Executive Board, who requested an MBLA response to W. B.
Tichenor's defense of the BJCPA.
Our original 1997 response was 26 pages.
This Internet edition was re-released in 1998 as 59 pages.
May
9, 1997 Dear
Brother Gary, Thank
you for sending me Mr. Tichenor's "Detailed Response" to our BJCPA
flyer. This is a very significant
response because Mr. Tichenor is a member of the BJC's board; a long time member
of the governing board of Americans United; parliamentarian for the National CBF;
and recent past moderator of the CBF of Missouri.
It is also evident from the "response" that Mr. Tichenor spent
much time in consultation with Dr. Dunn in acquiring explanations to the various
issues we raised. Therefore, we
accept this "response" as authoritative, with first hand explanations
from the executive director of the BJC. We
felt responding to Mr. Tichenor would serve as an excellent opportunity to deal
with material we didn't have room to include in our 12 pg. BJCPA flyer.
We have also taken this opportunity to expound on the issues we raised.
And though much more material could have been included, I think this will
suffice to substantiate our concerns and our belief that the BJCPA should not be
an official or unofficial part of Missouri Baptist life. Mr. Tichenor takes the first four pages of his
response to praise the work of the BJC. We
did not respond to any of that material because it had nothing to do with the
issues we raised in our BJCPA flyer. For
many years, through our state Baptist paper, Missouri Baptists have heard
nothing but praise for the BJC. The
purpose of our flyer was to tell the "other side of the story," the
things Missouri Baptists never heard - the things Missouri Baptists were never
allowed to know. However, it would
be appropriate to point out one example of the difference between the BJC and
the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
Mr. Tichenor wrote of the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act (RFRA) as one of the BJC's good points.
While both the BJC and the ERLC supported RFRA, their perspectives
regarding the legislation was very different.
RFRA was the result of a U. S. Supreme Court ruling in One particular aspect of Mr. Tichenor's response is
very intriguing. Sixteen times, we
are referred to as the "anonymous authors." However, every item we have ever published included our name
and address. The last two flyers we
produced - The Bible and Homosexuality
and the BJCPA flyer, were sent to every MBC church. Each flyer was accompanied with a cover letter, signed by our
president, Kerry Messer, and contained our phone number and fax number.
When I made my motion regarding the BJC at last year's Missouri Baptist
Convention, I referred to our BJCPA flyer.
As the research director for MBLA I met with the editor of the Word
and Way (you were there). That's
not how "anonymous authors" work.
To refer to the MBLA as "anonymous authors" is extremely
deceitful, especially since Mr. Tichenor knows Kerry and myself very well. According to Mr. Tichenor, every issue we raised in
our BJCPA flyer was either groundless, unfair, baseless, misleading, unfounded,
illogical, erroneous, distorted fallacious, ridiculous, old news or totally
irrelevant. In his "Detailed
Response," Mr. Tichenor defended every activity the BJC has engaged in.
Not one time throughout his entire response did he say that anything was
wrong, inappropriate or even poor judgment on the part of the BJC. We now submit to you this defense of our BJCPA flyer.
We believe the facts will speak clearly for themselves. Yours in Christ Roger A. Moran Research Director, MBLA |