c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ In the wake of guilty verdicts against the president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, supporters and critics of the Rev. Henry J. Lyons have differing views about the coming days of an almost-certain reorganization of the denomination.

The Rev. Henry J. Lyons was found guilty Saturday (Feb. 27) of Florida charges of racketeering and grand theft and the embattled Baptist leader still faces a federal trial on a 54-count indictment charging him with extortion, tax evasion and money laundering.

But Lyons has not yet resigned as head of the predominantly African-American denomination and everyone has not given up on Lyons’ leadership.

While one black church expert recommends replacing Lyons with a”towering figure”on an interim basis _ such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson _ others think Lyons should remain president until a prison door slams behind him.”Now should be a season of reform in the convention,”said the Rev. Robert Franklin, president of the Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of predominantly black seminaries in Atlanta.”The members of the board and the Committee on Ethics and Integrity should all tender their resignations.” Calling it a time for”a clean slate,”he suggested that Jackson could be a”towering figure who can restore credibility to step in to complete the term until elections can occur.” But the Rev. E.V. Hill, a prominent, Los Angeles-based board member of the NBCUSA, said Franklin is mistaken about the denomination’s structure: the ethics committee has already been dismissed, and 75 percent of the board’s members are elected leaders of the denomination’s 63 state conventions.”He ought to be resigning from the seminary. He doesn’t know the structure,”Hill said of Franklin.”That’s just like saying that all Congress should resign and that Castro should be brought in and put over the government. That’s ludicrous.” Jackson was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Discussions of a post-Lyons convention come after an all-white jury in Largo, Fla., found Lyons guilty of swindling more than $4 million from corporations that wanted access to the names of denomination members to sell them products and trying to steal more than $200,000 from the Anti-Defamation League, money which Lyons had promised to donate to burned black churches in Alabama. His co-defendant and former denominational aide, Bernice Edwards, was acquitted of a racketeering charge.”You try to do something good for people in distress and wake up to find out that our good faith and good peoples’ good faith have been hijacked,”said Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL. Before the state trial, Lyons returned much of the money from the ADL/National Urban League’s”Rebuild the Churches Fund”at the ADL’s request and it went to churches in other states. “As far as we’re concerned, all’s well that ends well,”said Foxman.

The Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson of Mount Vernon, N.Y., one of the candidates running against Lyons in a presidential election scheduled for September, said he believes Lyons being found guilty of using money meant for the convention for personal means is”equally devastating.” Richardson reiterated his call for Lyons’ resignation.”I do it for a concern for him as a person and for the potential that he has to be rehabilitated and for the pain that his family is going through,”said Richardson.

But his reasons also are political.”We need a candidate who’s willing to identify his candidacy with … reforms and that’s what I’m doing,”he said.”If we simply elect a new president and that president goes back to doing things as usual, that would finish us off.” At the moment, Lyons not only remains president, but a candidate for the presidency that will lead the denomination for the next five years.”If they do not boot Lyons out of the presidency, they can pretty much count on losing the Baby Boomer generation,”predicted the Rev. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, a sociology professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and a minister affiliated with Lyons’ denomination.”If Lyons tries to run the convention from jail, they’ll lose the younger generation.” Elderly members would have more difficulty than younger, geographically mobile members who are more accustomed to switching congregations as they make their career climbs as part of the new black middle class, she said.”It’s hard for older people to change churches,”she said.”Sometimes they will tolerate a lot more nonsense because it’s home. We don’t just call it church. We call it our `home church.'” Another potential split could be caused by potential dissatisfaction with the top candidates to succeed Lyons because they are both Northerners _ Richardson from upstate New York and the Rev. William Shaw of Philadelphia.”It’ll either mean a shift in power or a split,”said Gilkes.”The majority of the members are from the South.” Shaw could not be reached for comment.

Gilkes said the denomination is at a”major historic turning point.”She compared it to other key dates _ 1915, when the NBCUSA split with the National Baptist Convention of America over the role of a publishing house, and 1960, when the Progressive National Baptist Convention began after a debate over whether the NBCUSA should support the civil rights movement.

But while some are thinking about Lyons’ successor, others wonder how long he can stay put.”I personally believe that as long as he’s not incarcerated, I think he can perform leadership for us,”said the Rev. Ira Acree, pastor of Greater St. John Holiness Baptist Church in Chicago.”I don’t think you should kick a man when he’s down. That’s why I find myself praying for him.” Hill, of Los Angeles, says he’s praying for Lyons, too.”This is a great shock and a great jolt to his spirit,”said Hill, who thinks the jury made a mistake.

Asked whether he thinks Lyons should resign, Hill said:”I see no reason for him to do so.” He compared Lyons to President Clinton, impeached by the House, but acquitted by the Senate.”So we lost the first round,”Hill said.”We’re now headed for the appeal.” (OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE)

The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said she hopes the reorganized church can move beyond the”tragic”court decision.”This is a very large and potentially a very powerful church, very equipped to do good in our world and my hope is that they can put the leadership crisis behind them and move forward,”said Campbell. The NBCUSA is one of 35 member denominations of the council, but participates at a”very minimal level,”Campbell said.

While Campbell said she hopes the case will be viewed as a crisis for an individual rather than an African-American church, Franklin said Lyons’ case has stirred other black denominations to improve their administrative policies.”Three of the eight major African-American denominations now require all of their newly elected or appointed leadership to enroll … in an executive management program,”he said.

Those leaders _ of the Church of God in Christ, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church _ are enrolled in the Institute of Church Administration and Management at the Interdenominational Theological Center.

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