Baptists: In a Spirit of Repentance

The 10.6 million-member Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's larg est Protestant church — and the one that has spoken and acted least on civil rights. Now the Baptists seem willing to correct this unenviable record. Last week in Dallas, 8,000 "messengers" to the Convention's annual sessions voted overwhelmingly to accept a report by the Christian Life Commission that sharply criticized the church for silence on racial issues.

"We confess before God and the world," the report said, "that we have been guilty of the sin of conformity to the world, that we have often followed the vain traditions of...

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