The Interfaith Alliance Board of Directors:

While much more could be said about The Interfaith Alliance and its pro-homosexual activities, certainly, the information presented is sufficient to raise this question:  How could Dr. David Currie, coordinator of Texas Baptists Committed, serving as an officer of the TIA board of directors, be so unaware of all this information that he could honestly declare:

I have been on the [TIA] board three years and have never missed a meeting.  The issues of homosexuality and abortion have never been mentioned during a meeting, nor to me in private conversation by a fellow [TIA board] member.[i] 

TIA’s commitment to pro-homosexual activism is nothing more than a reflection of its board members and their commitment to the full normalization of homosexuality.  A brief look at a few of the TIA board members that have served with Dr. Currie further reveals the degree of their commitment. 

·         Rev. Meg Riley is the former director of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Office of Gay and Lesbian Concerns.  Riley, who is openly a lesbian, recently signed the SIECUS declaration supporting  homosexual marriage and the ordination of homosexual persons.  Rev. Riley also signed the 1996 letter to Congress published by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) supporting the partial-birth abortion procedure.

·         Bishop Edmond Browning, retired presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, presented his name before Congress in support of gays in the military.   Rev. Browning signed the SIECUS declaration supporting homosexual marriage and the ordination of homosexual persons.  Rev. Browning also signed the RCRC letter supporting the partial-birth abortion procedure.   

·         Herbert Valentine, the founding president of TIA and a former moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA, also signed the SIECUS declaration supporting homosexual marriage and the ordination of homosexual persons. 

·         Rev. J. Phillip Wogaman, is pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C., the church attended by President Clinton.  Wogaman “outspokenly favors the ordination of practicing homosexuals” and in 1995 hosted a symposium on homosexuality and shared his pulpit with…Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong.  The Bishop alleged St. Paul was a ‘self-hating gay man,’ while Wogaman acknowledged that King David might have also been a gender bender.”[ii]  Rev. Wogaman also signed the 1996 RCRC letter supporting the partial-birth abortion procedure.   

·         Dr. John Swomley, is a former professor of Christian ethics, at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City and has been an outspoken advocate for homosexuality.  Swomley is a long-time member of the national ACLU board of directors, where most recently, he served as secretary.  The ACLU’s Lesbian & Gay Rights Project has been a leading force in the battle for the full normalization of homosexuality.[iii]  Swomley has also served as chairman of the ACLU’s national Church/State Committee and is president of Americans for Religious Liberty, whose executive director, Edd Doerr, is president of the American Humanist Association.  Doerr was a signer of the Humanist Manifesto II.  Swomley also writes a regular column in the Humanist magazine.  Dr. Somley also signed the RCRC letter supporting the partial-birth abortion procedure.  Three other TIA board  members serve on the national advisory board of ARL.[iv]  Former BJCPA executive director, James E. Wood Jr., serves on the ARL board of directors.            

·         Rev. Robert Meneilly, heads a group called “Mainstream Coalition,” which works closely with the ACLU, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and the Pro-Choice Action League.  He has been recognized as a champion for homosexual causes, having received an award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in 1994.[v]  Rev. Meneilly was a signer of the SIECUS declaration supporting homosexual marriage and the ordination of homosexual persons.   

·         Denise Davidoff, a TIA vice president, is the moderator of the Unitarian Universalist Association, signed the SIECUS declaration supporting homosexual marriage and the ordination of homosexual persons. 

·         Bishop Frederick James, a TIA vice president, presented his name before Congress in support of gays in the military. 

·         Rev. Amos Brown, “embraced homosexual marriage while running - successfully - for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.”[vi]  

·         Dr. Diane Porter, a former vice president of the National Council of Churches and a former executive in the Episcopal Church, “supported a new church seminary policy that welcomed ‘committed same-sex couples.’”[vii]

·         Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a Roman Catholic Bishop from Detroit, stated in 1993 while advocating acceptance of homosexuals in the military, that “Homosexual orientation is certainly not wrong, unless you want to say God made a mistake.”[viii]

·         Joan Brown Campbell, outgoing General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, presented her name before Congress in support of gays in the military and has “demonstrated for homosexual rights.”[ix]

·         William P. Thompson, a former moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA, has also served as president of the National Council of Churches, a former board member of People for the American Way, and a member of the central committee of the World Council of Churches.  In 1991, Thompson “defended a report within the Presbyterian Church (USA) that urged acceptance of non-martial sexual behavior among heterosexuals and homosexuals.”[x] 

Mainstream Missouri Baptists, Texas Baptists Committed and the CBF:

Reasons for Concern

Dr. Currie’s position as an officer on the board of directors of The Interfaith Alliance is symbolic of what’s

wrong with the CBF and why there has been such concern about the growing influence of the CBF within our state Baptist conventions.  TIA is an organization whose board is made up of advocates for abortion rights and “gay rights” ---  it is the Religious Left at its best, using “religious voices” to advocate those things which are far from the “mainstream” of Bible-believing Southern Baptists. 

For too long, CBF leaders like Dr. C. Welton Gaddy and Dr. David Currie have been allowed to redefine the pro-homosexual/pro-abortion Religious Left as “mainstream,” while at the same time portraying conservative, Bible-believing Southern Baptists as “fundamentalists” and conservative Christian organizations like Focus on the Family as “religious extremists.” 

There are indeed two very different and competing visions for the future of Southern Baptist state conventions.  In Missouri, one of those competing visions -- Project 1000 – says:  We believe the vast majority of Missouri Baptists are morally, socially and theologically conservative and that the Southern Baptist Convention, with its commitment to missions, evangelism and theological integrity, best reflects who we are and what we believe.  The other, Mainstream Missouri Baptists, which has openly aligned itself with Dr. David Currie’s Texas Baptists Committed and the CBF, has publicly declared their opposition to the conservative Southern Baptist Convention. 

Americans United for Separation of Church and State said it well in a 1998 editorial:  ‘“You are known by the company you keep’…  You can tell a lot about our organization by considering who stands with us… and who stands against us.”[xi]  May we as Southern Baptists be like “the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.”  (I Chronicles 12:32)

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