There ought to be but three Christian denominations in the world,'' an Episcopal bishop once said. 'The Roman Catholics standing on one side for the authority of the church, and the Baptists standing on the other side for the authority of the Bible. The other denominations should be united, for the difference between them is that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee." Seldom have U.S. Catholics and Baptists, particularly Southern Baptists, been ranged so clearly against each other as on the 1960 issue of a Catholic President.
The U.S. is getting, a cram course in what Catholicism believes; the particular credo of the Southern Baptists is perhaps less familiar. The old notions — the Bible belt, temperance leagues, hellfire evangelism and fundamentalism—are still part of the Southern Baptist scheme of things, but they are growing increasingly oldfashioned. Aside from the obvious issue of racial integration. Southern Baptists differ from their Northern brethren mainly in that 1) they are more distrustful of ecumenical movements, are reluctant to join any other Christian denomination for any purpose, 2) they tend to favor closed Communion for 'those of like faith and order" rather than open Communion. But nonconformity is the Baptist hallmark; there are leading Baptist ministers to the right and left of any issue. A spectrum of Southern Baptist opinion today includes:
¶ WALLIE CRISWELL, 50, pastor of Dallas' First Baptist Church, the world's biggest,* with 12,000 members. A skilled evangelist who began preaching at 17, practices closed Communion and opposes dancing, Criswell is strongly anti-Kennedy, calls Catholicism a "political system that, like an octopus, covers the entire world and threatens our basic freedoms." He also condemns integration: "We'll all stand together in judgment before the Lord, but I think we can worship better our separate ways."
¶ RAMSEY POLLARD, 57, current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently made news for his outspoken stand against a Roman Catholic President. A graduate of Fort Worth's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fundamentalist Pollard is minister of the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn. (membership: 9,000). He feels that though integration problems cannot be "solved overnight, every man ought to treat his fellow man with dignity and love."