Saturday, June 27, 1998

Revealed: the real difference between Southern Baptists and Presbyterians

By Ken Garfield / Knight Ridder Newspapers

If Harvard ever hires me to deliver a lecture on comparative religion, I've got something to say. After four days at the Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City, then a week with the Presbyterians in Charlotte, N.C., your faithful religion writer is prepared to reveal to the world how to tell them apart:

Southern Baptists are faster than Presbyterians.

It took 8,000 Baptists 20 minutes last week to resolve the eternal issue of gender roles: All in favor of women submitting graciously, raise your hand, and it was done.

It's taken 564 Presbyterians a week to agree not to say anything about whether to ordain gays.

Told that Southern Baptists voted for submission faster than it takes his people to read a resolution, one Presbyterian pastor said, "Must be nice when God's will comes to you so fast."

A joke heard at the Presbyterian convention -- Presbyterians agree that men and women should submit graciously to each other. That means either one can have a headache on any given night.

Baptists like to agree more than Presbyterians.

One nominating speech, one hand up and Paige Patterson is your new Southern Baptist Convention president.

Three nominating speeches, three candidates' speeches, an hour of questions from the floor and two ballots and, finally, former Charlottean Doug Oldenburg could celebrate his narrow victory as Presbyterian moderator. If he wasn't too pooped to party.

Presbyterians are much more organized.

This week, they hauled around committee reports in Charlotte with names like "G -- 6.0106b." Baptists hauled around souvenir T-shirts in Salt Lake City.

Baptists sell more kitsch in their convention bazaar, including Jesus bookmarks and those tasty little candies with Scripture verses on the wrapper -- Testamints.

Presbyterians lean more toward the serious. The tastiest eats I saw were jars of pure plum syrup in the worldwide ministries aisle.

Baptists act more evangelical than Presbyterians.

Take their name tags. JOE SMITH, NORTH CAROLINA is all one said, in great big letters, the better to witness with.

You needed a magnifying glass to read the Presbyterian name tag and an engineering degree to decode what the name tag colors represented. Page three of my 56-page Presbyterian guide lists eight colors for eight levels of participants.

Baptists are more careful about getting their message to the world. They made all their big decisions in the afternoon -- plenty of time for reporters to get the news on TV and in the papers -- the better to share their light.

One of the Presbyterian high points -- the moderator's election -- came around 10 p.m. Saturday. While Oldenburg was smiling on the podium, I was sweating on College Street, running to share his good news with only our final-edition readers. What is that, hiding your light?

Baptists are louder.

Their conventions sound like a family reunion, with lots of fellowship and catching up going on between sessions. They also tend to bring their children, turning the annual trip into a family vacation.

There are fewer guffaws and kids at the Presbyterians' meeting, perhaps owing to the fact that mom and dad are otherwise engaged poring over "therefores" and "pursuants."

Over a hot dog one afternoon in the exhibit hall, a Presbyterian from Arizona told me her week in Charlotte pretty much consisted of hotel, convention center, committee meetings, bed and back again.

If you want to talk theology, she's probably your man.

If you want to expedite the religion stuff and go party, I've got the name of a few Baptists.

---

(Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer. Write to him at: The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28232.)

---

(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

Visit The Charlotte Observer on the World Wide Web at http://www.charlotte.com/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.