Of the pedophilia charge, Hooper said: "The prophet Muhammad didn't do anything not in accord with the norms of the time."
Message 17593888
Also, from the convention:
Convention wisdom -- On Tuesday, President Bush addressed the Southern Baptist Convention 2002 annual meeting. The nation's largest protestant denomination, the SBC is meeting in St. Louis to conduct denomination business.
Several years ago, the SBC passed a controversial resolution that was, in essence, a formal apology for not having done enough to combat slavery and racial division, which makes some of the president's comments to the group all the more poignant. Speaking via satellite from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Bush said, "Baptists have had an extraordinary influence on American history. They were among the earliest champions of religious tolerance and freedom. Baptists have long upheld the ideal of a free church in a free state. And from the beginning, they believed that forcing a person to worship against his will violated the principles of both Christianity and civility. What I found interesting is the Baptist form of church government was a model of democracy even before the founding of America. And Baptists understood the deep truth of what Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said: 'The church is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.'
"True faith is never isolated from the rest of life, and faith without works is dead. Our democratic government is one way to promote social justice and the common good, which is why the Southern Baptist Convention has become a powerful voice for some of the great issues of our time," he said.
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