FORT WORTH, Texas -- Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary trustees met in a special session Tuesday amid reports the board's fundamentalist faction planned to censure or fire President Russell Dilday.
Dilday, who has been president of the 4,700-student Southern Baptist seminary for 11 years, has come under fire from some trustees for publicly criticizing a fundamentalist movement whose opponents say threatens Baptist traditions of free speech and theological diversity.
Ken Lilly, of Ft. Smith, Ark., chairman of the seminary's board, has prepared an 85-page memo documenting Dilday's alleged 'political activities' on behalf of moderates in the bitterly divided 14.5 million-member denomination. He asked for the closed-door session 'because this is not the kind of thing which should be discussed in an (open) annual or semi-annual meeting.'
Dilday has been an outspoken opponent of the decade-long effort by fundamentalists committed to a rigid theory of Scriptural inerrancy and Religious Right secular politics to seize control of the nation's largest Protestant church body.
Among the issues central to the current dispute is a speech Dilday gave in May to a moderate group in the convention, Baptists Committed to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Dilday was in the board's meeting Tuesday morning and was not available for comment, his secretary said.
But in late September, the seminary president told Baptist Press, the denomination's news agency, that he is 'a staunch conservative, and the only things I have spoken out against ... is that which was destructive, divisive, un-Christlike, contrary to the gospel and contrary to our Southern Baptist heritage.'
As the meeting got under way, it was also reported that the Atlanta law firm of Arnall, Golden & Gregory has sent a letter to Southwestern Seminary trustees threatening to sue fundamentalist trustees if Dilday is fired or censured.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Tuesday that the law firm, which represents unidentified Southern Baptists, 'would regretfully, but without regard to expense, defend Dr. Dilday's rights.'
'You may be assured that the litigation and other measures to be taken will not be filed against the Southern Baptist Convention,' the letter said. 'Actions would be taken against individual trustees of the entitites whose personal positions will be challenged and whose fortunes will be placed at stake.'
The firm also said it has been hired to defend officials with other Southern Baptist agencies, such as Baptist Press and the Foreign Missions Board, who may be threatened by the fundamentalist purge.
Fundamentalists since 1979 have slowly taken control of the 14.5 million-member denomination and now control the boards and commissions that direct Southern Baptist agencies such as the Fort Worth seminary.
The political squabble has centered on inerrancy, the belief that the Bible is literally true in all matters, including history and science. Dilday has said that he believes in inerrancy but disagrees with the political methods used by the fundamentalists to seize control of the convention.
