Christine, having spent four years at a Southern Baptist university (Baylor), I can tell you that there's a great deal more diversity among Baptists than perhaps meets the eye among those outside of that milieu. For the last fifteen years or so, there's been an enormous conflict among various "wings" of the Baptist faith, reflected in a deep schism within the Southern Baptist Convention which has at various times threatened to create a permanent, open split. In actuality, there are many Baptists who don't subscribe to the extremist views of Patterson and his fundamentalist clique. In fact, Baylor University itself has at times threatened to refuse to accept funding from the Southern Baptist Convention and go "independent." A lot of the static that shows up at the Convention is to a great degree ignored by the individual churches, which in the Southern Baptist faith are considered to be beyond the control of any central authority such as the Convention (this is one of the basic tenets of the Southern Baptist faith). For example, the Disney boycott thing was basically ignored by most of the churches. However, at the Convention itself, the fundamentalists have historically been very organized, they have a much higher attendance record among their delegates, and are able to drown out a lot of the more rational voices.
Among the Baptists are many moderate, intelligent, thoughtful people who will castigate the fundamentalist antics of the Convention. It's been well known that the Southern Baptists do not vote as a bloc on what might be called "family values" issues.
Hmmm. As to southern women, I've had my fair share of interaction with them. I think they're a lot more variegated than you assume. |
