Baptist moments of Bush 41

[Stephen Fox]

The all time classic was the time James Dunn had a meeting set up with 41 in the White House and Pressler got word and sabotaged the gathering. There is a famous picture of both BJC party and Pressler's Bircher Tex Regulars--maybe Ed McAteer and Albert Lee Smith were possied up with Pressler and Bush there to mediate the catfight.

2. 41 and WMU's Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler both received a doctorate from Furman when it was still part of the SCSBC in 88 at Furman commencement. Getting extra mustard on that story as of 30 minutes ago but not sure what is and what not on the historical record at the moment.

3 Of all the good things being said about 41 presently in Baptist life he can't be forgiven for building on Reagan's 80 meeting with Criswell, Adrian Rogers, McAteer and the Boys in 1980 in Dallas to help elect Reagan and displace the Baptist SS teacher Jimmy Carter. This was shortly after Adrian and Ed Young confronted Carter in the white house and accused him of being a secular humanist.

I'm sure there are some 41/Criswell stories. Wuthnow's Rough Country is definitive on how 41 was part of the malarkey Atwater concocted with the SBC that Rove built on to morph race baiting into abortion politics that was a base of Bush politics through Rove that metastasized into Donald trump.

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]

He was the last President to address the SBC in person. I was there in '91 when he spoke for perhaps 20 minutes to the messengers in Atlanta. It was a major disruption of the convention itself, the security, metal detectors, press platform in the middle of the room blocking off some of the seats. We sat right in front of it, about twenty rows from the podium. There are two things I remember clearly about the speech, one was the moment when he teared up speaking about his own personal relationship with Christ, the other was that while there were those who gave him several standing ovations during his speech, the majority of those present remained seated. I'm sure he remembered it as a pleasant experience, though a couple of anti-war hecklers were inside and started up when he spoke. I also remember that outside, the area between the GWCC and the CNN headquarters was jammed with protestors and we had to cross through all of that to get to a cab. He was still on a popularity high from the Kuwait war, but the economy was starting to take a nosedive.

I don't know how popular he was among Southern Baptists, though. In my circles, which at the time was Southern Missouri, he wasn't very popular. He was the "lesser of two evils" as far as most of them were concerned, committed to an Episcopalian expression of faith and apparently not willing to change that for his image. His use of evangelical terminology was always awkward and it seemed he was either oblivious to the criticism from the religious right about his "liberal, pro-choice" federal judiciary appointments, or he deliberately ignored them. I don't see much polling data focusing on the religious right in 1992, but he picked up 43% of the white, Protestant vote.

I don't know whether you'd call it one of his Baptist moments, but he was defeated in his re-election bid by a Southern Baptist.

[William Thornton]

Stephen, it may interest you that I had a conversation with Billy Sunday Birt, Jr. This morning.

Has nothing to do with bush41.

[Stephen Fox]

Would love to see the grave near Jefferson. Toying with the idea of meeting you there if you are good to drive me over to Zebs east of Athens for lunch. May need your cell to solidify but lot depends on holidays logistics.

[Stephen Fox]

From the NPR weekend program ON the Media gets things about right.

Every good thing Meacham said about him as a family man is true, and larger than life patriotic story, still his Abortion and SBC politics were chocked full of mendacity.