Southern Baptist Convention

Christian Century, Jan 30, 2002

W.A. Criswell, the long-time Dallas preacher who inspired the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s and '90s, was laid to rest January 16 after a funeral service attended by 2,700 people at First Baptist Church of Dallas, which in its heyday was the largest of its denomination with 30,000 members.

Criswell, who died on January 10 at 92, filled 54 books with his sermons and other writings, including the influential Why I Believe the Bible Is Literally True. Billy Graham, who remained a member of the Dallas church despite his longtime residence in North Carolina, sent a message of consolation. Criswell served as SBC president 1968-69, but it was his associate pastor for many years, Paige Patterson, who was one of the prime engineers of the conservative resurgence to regain control of seminary boards and agency posts. Onetime moderate leader Bill Leonard, now a seminary dean at Wake Forest, said Criswell had harsh rhetoric for moderates ("skunks") and for church-state separationists ("infidels") at the height of the theological conflicts. California megachurch pastor Rick Warren, however, recalled Criswell's ardent defense of Warren's innovative ministry when many other Southern Baptist pastors shunned him as a "liberal."