c. 2000 Religion News Service

ORLANDO, Fla. _ Narrow-minded. Judgmental. Extreme.

Average Americans sometimes use words like these to describe Southern Baptists.

So as delegates to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention were underscoring their conservative stances _ positions some say reinforce the negative image _ Southern Baptists were trying to accentuate the positive.

During the June 13-14 meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, three commercials were airing in Central Florida with the theme “Southern Baptists: Changed Lives, Caring People.”

The 30-second spots highlight Southern Baptists’ disaster relief work and the way individuals and churches can change the lives of a downsized businessman or a young gang member through evangelistic efforts.

The messages are a result of a recent study by the denomination’s North American Mission Board and Barna Research Group that found “unchurched” Americans were three times more likely than people who attend Southern Baptist churches to say Southern Baptists are narrow-minded.

The figures comparing Southern Baptist pastors to those who did not regularly attend church were even more striking: The unchurched were six times more likely than the pastors to say Southern Baptists are narrow-minded.

Those impressions don’t seem to bother James Merritt, the Snellville, Ga., pastor who became president of the 15.9 million-member denomination when its meeting ended Wednesday.

“I am as broad-minded as the Bible,” he told reporters in a news conference following his election Tuesday. “My mind stretches from the Garden of Eden to the isle of Patmos. It goes from the book of Genesis to the book of the Revelation. But that’s where my mind stops.”

Other findings in “The Barometer of the Southern Baptist Faith in America”:

_ SBC attendees and pastors are twice as likely as unchurched Americans to consider Southern Baptists to be compassionate.

_ Unchurched Americans were seven times more likely than SBC pastors and twice as likely as SBC attendees to say Southern Baptists are hypocritical.

_ SBC pastors and attendees were three times more likely than unchurched Americans to call Southern Baptists “logical.”

Bob Reccord, president of the North American Mission Board, said the results did not “significantly surprise” him because those outside the faith mostly know about the denomination’s boycott of the Walt Disney Co., opposition to abortion and the declaration that Jesus is the only way to salvation.

“When a denomination like Southern Baptists stand for what we believe the Scripture teaches, it leads in a society based on relativism to a lot of conflict,” he said.

Reccord said in an interview it was “easy to understand” how people would draw the conclusion that Southern Baptists are narrow or bigoted.

“So we said what we need to help people understand is who Southern Baptists really are,” he said. “The thing that sure grabbed my attention is when people said, `If I were to look for a church, I’d look for a church that cared for people in need and was actively involved in that.”’

Thus, he said, it was time to tell people Southern Baptists are already doing that.

“This summer we’ll be sending out 15,000 young people to over 50 different locations to rebuild substandard housing in the inner cities,” he said. And the disaster relief arm of his agency mobilizes volunteers from state Baptist conventions to help when tornadoes and floods hit.

“We are the largest producers of hot, fresh meals when a disaster strikes and a lot of people don’t know that,” he said. “Here’s the amazing part:

There are a lot of Southern Baptists who don’t know that.”

Reccord hopes the commercial campaign will help change the image of Baptists from both inside and outside the denomination. Free videos are being given away to churches, local Baptist associations and state conventions that might want to use them to publicize these Southern Baptist ministries.

“It can help a culture know better who Southern Baptists are and what they do and what they stand for as much as what they stand against,” he said.

Beyond the commercials, Reccord said he hopes the survey results will change the way Southern Baptists approach some mission work.

“We’re trying to help train new church planters in understanding better the culture into which they’re going,” he said.

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