c. 1998 Religion News Service

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, embattled president of one of the nation’s largest black religious bodies, apologized to church members Thursday (Sept. 10) and began a fund-raising effort to fight federal and state charges of illegal financial dealings.

In an hourlong speech to some 10,000 people attending the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Lyons acknowledged he had”made mistakes.””I want to say, my brothers and sisters, that I wanted to be a perfect president,”Lyons said, adding he had dreaming of becoming head of the denomination since he was 12 years-old.”I have made mistakes,”he said.”I have made some serious miscalculations of judgment … I want you to know today from the bottom of my heart, from the bottom of my soul, I am truly sorry. I want you to forgive me. I ask you to forgive me. I ask for your mercy.

Lyons speech drew a standing ovation from the audience.

The scandal-scarred cleric, who faces a 56-count federal indictment for his alleged financial misdeeds, insisted on his innocence, and supporters, led by the Rev. E.V. Hill of Los Angeles, one of the denomination’s most prominent figures, began a fund-raising drive for Lyons’ legal defense expenses.”When this convention is over, the president of this convention will face the legal battle of his life,”Hill said, referring to the federal indictment.

He received 70 early pledges of $500 donations and then a general offering was taken among the audience. Church members dropped cash and checks _ some as high as $2,000 _ into six buckets and a trashbag passed by a corps of ushers.”The strategy against us Negroes is to break us and bankrupt us so that we will not have the opportunity to properly defend ourselves,”the Rev. John Chaplin, first vice president of the denomination said in urging support for contributions to the legal defense fund.

In addition to supporting their beleaguered president, church members also voiced strong support for another embattled chief executive _ President Bill Clinton.

The delegates, by voice vote, overwhelmingly adopted a resolution saying the denomination, which reports a membership of 8.2 million people, extends”our loving forgiveness and prayerful support for him and his family, and further call upon Christians everywhere to join us in prayer for them and for the healing of our nation, even our world,” Lyons addressed the issue of the resolution at the beginning of his speech, before apologizing for his own personal conduct.”We want to let America know, we want to let the world know that we stand firmly behind our president,”Lyons said.”We’d like to see the majority Republican Congress get off his back. We’d like to see Mr. Starr put in his place and stop wasting the taxpayers money,”Lyons said in comments that drew hearty applause from the audience.” But not all church members were satisfied with Lyons’ apology and his announcement Wednesday that he would seek re-election. A number of other church leaders have announced plans to challenge Lyons at the convention’s 1996 meeting in Tampa, Fla.

Speaking briefly to reporters Wednesday before entering a closed meeting to announce his re-election plans, Lyons said his supporters had urged him to make a formal re-election announcement.

“I didn’t need much pressure, now, but I’m being pressured to go on and say it,” said Lyons, who is seeking a second five-year term.

On Monday, Hill told reporters Lyons had admitted to the denomination’s board that he had an “improper relationship” with one of the two female aides with whom he has been charged .

“I understand the charges that I face … but the reason why I am here today is I’m innocent,” Lyons said Wednesday, adding he is “assuming and hoping … I will be cleared of the charges.”

Lyons said he hoped the convention and “black and white” America would realize that “whatever wrongs or sins I’ve committed, whatever guilt I bear, I’m sorry for that … and I’m sincere about that.”

With the hope “things in my life will return to normal,” Lyons said he felt confident he could seek re-election and encourage his supporters to start work in cities across the country to aid his campaign.

Asked what he would do if things don’t return to normal, Lyons laughed and said, “Well, then I don’t have to discuss it. That’s academic. That’s understood.”

Lyons was elected to the presidency in 1994 on a reform platform that promised to make the denomination more of a force to be reckoned with politically. The pastor of a church in St. Petersburg, Fla., Lyons headed the Florida arm of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.

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Supporters, such as Chaplin, said they are fully behind Lyons, arguing the legally embattled president has “tremendous support.”

“The world finds it hard to understand that black people have love,” said Chaplin, of Washington, D.C. “We have forgiven all of the horrors and the plagues that have fallen to us … in America so we have love to forgive our own. People find it strange that we love our own brother. … The key … word that we have is the love of God. That’s what we have in this convention.”

The Rev. Richard P. Bifford, recording secretary of the denomination, agreed. He and Chaplin stood in the hotel hallway outside the meeting room where supporters could be heard cheering “five more years.”

“The people who have difficulty understanding our position are not Christians,” said Bifford of Pine Bluff, Ark. “Christians don’t have a problem understanding forgiveness.”

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But the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, one of the other announced candidates for denominational president, took another view.

“I forgive Rev. Lyons because the grace of God requires it, but there must be grace and discipline,” he said. “… Grace without discipline is cheap grace. We cannot just forgive and allow the effects of the mistakes to continue to diminish the witness of Christ in this denomination.”

Richardson, 49, the pastor of a church in Mount Vernon, N.Y., was defeated by Lyons in the 1994 presidential election. Richardson had been the candidate favored by the Rev. T.J. Jemison, who had served 12 years in office prior to Lyons’ 1994 election.

“We are now being laughed at, being viewed as not serious, of being hypocrites,” Richardson said of the denomination. “Somebody has to step forward and say … `enough is enough.”’

Other candidates who have announced they will run against Lyons include the Rev. William Shaw of Philadelphia; the Rev. Harry Blake of Shreveport, La.; the Rev. Cameron Alexander, president of the General Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia; and the Rev. Jasper Williams of Atlanta.

Shaw finished third in the 1994 balloting and Williams, a write-in candidate, was fifth.

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