My letter from Harvard Expository Writing, May 87

[Stephen Fox]

May 13 87 I sent Richard Marius a letter. Many say if not for some politicking from an editor of the New Republic he woulda been a speech writer for President Al Gore if friends of Judge Pressler hadn't been so sinister in Florida.
I sub taught Marius son at Holston HS in Knoxville, Tn in 1980 or so. I remember he was a swimmer.
Marius taught at UTenn before going to Harvard and was raised ETenn Baptist in the Marney tradition. His Esquire article Dec 81 was one of the first to go to the guts of the SBC takeover majestically in a secular publication.
He wrote:

Dear Mr. Fox

Your interesting letter of May 13 has arrived....I am interested in the fundamentalists, and I may write something else about them sometime, but not now.

My story in the Dec 81 Esquire disappointed me for several reasons. Esquire cut out my effort to analyze the fundamentalist take-over of the convention and to link it with all sorts of right-wing groups. I talked at length with Paige Patterson. I said in my article that if anybody ever taught an elephant to talk, the elephant would sound like Paige Pattterson. But in their wisdom, the editors cut that out along with lots of other comments. I immensely disliked the fundamentalists because I thought that they represented the worst sort of religious bigots--people unwilling to admit their own doubts and eager to persecute others so they might prove to themselves that they do indeed believe. Of course I was a reporter getting them to to talk, and I made no response to their gibberish except to ask questions. I had a long telephone conversation with Ed McAteer. He sent me a lot of literature that I eventually threw away. McAteer and Pattterson freely admitted their friendship with Jesse Helms, and I had no doubt that the fundies see themselves as the religious wing of a great poliitical drive towards a certain kind of dictatorship in America. But I have thought all along that they would overextend themselves and die. I found Patterson,, his fat little cohort Paul Pressler, and Patterson's rotund brother-in-law (who edits the Baptist Advocate--hilarious people, worthy of burlesque. But I'm too busy now to do anything except look on from afar.

Good luck in your future [endeavours]. Alas, I have to stop drinking Coors Beer. I thought the sons had taken a more moderate stance than the old man had taken. But I see I was misinformed. I would be interested in organziaing a boycott against the firm.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Marius

Marius passed away about ten years ago. He wrote a book about Martin Luther

[Haruo]

I think it ill becomes a beer drinker to diss the portly.

[Stephen Fox]

BDWeaver, Gourley and others will recognize Rosenberg as author of SB's in Transition:

Dear Mr. Fox....belatedly after successive five plagues ...and poison ivy:

I really enjoyed talking to you, and receiving that wealth of material and food for thought. My back issues of SBC Today finally arrived and I feel much more up to date.

What I think now is this: The SBC is being mobilized to serve as the base for a New Right movement. Falwell's throwaway comment in Salt Lake to look to James Dobson for leadership after the demise of the Moral Majority was a red herring. When the SBC has been disciplined and intimidated and the necessary personnel substitutions have been made, they will move. All the other stuff is incidental. Each successive outrage is outrageous but not worth getting bothered about (except, of course for the individuals involved)--it is the pattern that is important. What I see going now is an erosion of board-staff boundaries, this constant interference by trustees in personnel and program responsibilities.

What interests me now is why the moderates took so long to see what was happening. I found a piece by Glenn Hinson in Rev-Exp, Spring 1982. p 229, they...."have linked arms with the American political right and thus articulate positions more social and political than theologgical in nature." He saw what was happening...was anybody listening? Was he too gentle, too reluctant to be more explicit? Too Afraid?

I can't find a reference for the Dr. ? you mentioned on the phone, the one you mentioned on the phone who sstudied SB supprot for Bush in the election. Would be grateful for that if it's convenient for you to be let me know...

Don't know how to proceed for next project.....Thank you so much for your interest and support.

About the reference to Bold Mission Thrust and Operation Penetration; I did not feel qualified to pursue the idea but the image of the unsaved as a woman's body waiting I could not leave unnoticed...did not intend to be snide. I love your little joke....

Best Ellen Rossenberg

I can't remember the joke. Musta been the one about why Baptists don't have sex standin up.

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/23/159768245 ... ver-donors

Click on the link above and listen. Rove and American Crossroads have perfected with Pressler and Richard Land's designs the prophecy of Ellen Rosenberg in my letter above.

[Stephen Fox]

Compare these quotes from the recently published Strom Thurmond's America to Ellen Rosenberg's letter above:

Excerpts from Crespino's Strom Thurmond's America

Page 128 in the chapter "Outside Agitators."
Isolated and superannuated though they seemed to many opinion makers, Strom's Americans--that misshapen collection of Dixiecrats and John Birchers, conservative businessmaem and Kennedy haters--were no marginal group in American politics in the early 60's. They were at the center of a fight that would soon transform the Republican Party--and, by extension, national politics.

In 1962 right winger Will Workman whose rhetoric Roger Milliken was sending on through Harry Dent to Thurmond, ran as a Republican against sitting sitting Democrat US Senator Olin D Johnston. Workman got 42 percent of the vote, which Dent explained to Thurmond as a pretty good poll going forward. Soon Thurmond had changed parties and was backing Goldwater. Of Workman's 62 race Crespino says on page 134: "It was a flash frame of future party politics in South Carolina and the nation."

[Stephen Fox]

http://foxofbama.blogspot.com/2012/12/j ... a-gop.html

[Stephen Fox]

Stephen:

This is to try to thank you for your letter to the Nov 29 Baptist Courier and the one to Birmingham News of Nov 26. Just a few courageous, interested voices like yours, scattered over the strategic states, could have saved us from the total chaos on SBC and state levels. I am sure you have been doing just that--speaking and writing. I have been screaming since 1979. We believe the fundys; they do what they say they will do. Also, we know our Baptist polity and its dependence on trust and integrity.

Within hours after cutting out your Courier letter, I read of the Beeson bequest. I rushed a note to my Alabama relative to congratulate her and Samford. Since she is so confident that the trials that rage in the SBC and other states (ours, alas) will not come in Alabama, I dared to comment. It was something like this: "I hope that the wisdom that helped Mr. Beeson make his fortune also cautioned him to write safeguards around the Samford Bequest. I hope he knew that the word 'convention' cannot be equated with' Baptist." You may have broken the light to her; by return mail she sent me your Birmingham News letter.!

I don't think you need to worry about Furman. I can tell you more...You doubtless have noted that our "cold turkey" approach gave us a better deal than Stetson, Mercer, or even Baylor.

Keep writing and I'll keep screaming. I am a member of the Convention Affiliations Committee, FBC Greenville. You must have been at Atlanta I; I'll see you at Atlanta II.

Very best wishes,

Loulie L. O. Pettigrew

P.S.
Pardon the fuzzy copy. My typewriter is at the fixer's
for the third time this fall. Nervous break-down, I think

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.goupstate.com/article/201308 ... in-Gaffney

See the comments to this piece. Barty Sides, the son of the Presbyterian minister in Gaffney when my Dad was a pastor there, joins me in remembering days of integration of the schools and we pay tribute to the local ministerial association of that transitional time.

See comments to this article at link above

[Stephen Fox]

I found this the other day at the house, a Richard Land reply in 88 to a letter I wrote him. His reply on SBC CLC stationery.

Excerpts:

Dear Mr. Fox:

I think it would be perhaps more productive for me to tell you my beliefs rather than to define myself over and and against others, as you have suggested in your letter. I hold Dr. MLKing in high regard as a prophet in his own time who had a tremendous impact on me personally....Our generation owes him a great debt. I am not a member of the John Birch Society and have never been a member of the JBS,and my personal view is the JBS is made up of well meaning, but misinformed people, who most of the time do more harm to the causes they seek to serve, than they do of a positive nature.

....On church and State I suggest you read tapes of my presentations from the Criswell Center on the matter (he gave me an address and a contact person).You suggested a forum where I, Sam Currin and Albert Lee Smith "square off" with Lee Berg, Neal Rodgers, John Buchanan . I have no problem with a sustained dialogue with anyone in a productive setting. I am a bit concerned with your phrase "square off.", however....

Thank you for taking the time to write. I hope you find my reply helpful. Please do not hesitate to write in the future if you have concerns you feel need to be expressed.

Sincerely,

Richard D. Land

[Stephen Fox]

Stephen:

Thank you for your letter concerning the present and continuing controversy over the Baptist Joint Committee. As you are probably aware, the real thrust of this effort seems to be to establish a right-wing political office in Washington that bears the name Southern Baptist. The parties mentioned in your letter have been involved for years in this effort. The brethren don't seem to care as long as the whole thing can be called a battle over "inerrancy" which of course, it is not.

....I would encourage you to do anything you can that is legal and Christian to expose the conspiracy that seems to be going on. Texas laymen have assured me the ties you hinted at certainly exist, but have decided not to pursue them, since the Moyers exposures seem to have done little to slow the steam-roller.

As to a course of action that would solve our problems I am at a loss.Until the pastors realize that the free exercise of religion is at stake, we are fighting a losing battle....

Grady C Cothen

[Stephen Fox]

I found a copy of the Index in a drawer in a Back room last week and there I found a full column letter I had published. Jack Harwell was still the editor that fall and Lolley still the President of SEBTS. I quoted Tom Edsall of the June 6 86 Wash Post and ended with a quote from Leszek Kolakowski of the U Chicago about how Adrian Rogers and Tim LaHaye were using secular humanism as a ruse in the takeover strategy. It was about the time Jimmy Carter had told Jerry Falwell to go to Hell. I commended him for it.

Will have the letter for you soon.

[William Thornton]

Look for some news on Kelley soon, Stephen. Will rev you up.