Baptist Press, a once reliable news service turned into a public relations machine for Southern Baptist Convention leadership, is going all out to justify the proposed withdrawal of SBC funding and participation from the Baptist World Alliance.

The media blitz comes on the heels of an inspirational coast-to-coast tour by BWA President Billy Kim of South Korea — whose conservative credentials are so intact that even SBC leaders avoid criticism — and a 60-voice children’s choir. Kim said he hoped the children would “soften the hearts” of Southern Baptist leaders.

While the children’s music and Kim’s messages were moving, the ambitious goal of softening fundamentalist hearts apparently failed.

As done to fellow Baptists here in their homeland, the primary tactic of SBC leaders is to cry “liberal” whenever someone questions their uncooperative attitudes or fails to jump lockstep into their march toward domination. So, not surprising, we are getting an earful about how BWA is anti-American and harbors European scholars who taint the orthodoxy of the entire global fellowship of more than 200 Baptist bodies.

Baptist Press released a 4,256-word commentary by Don Hinkle of Missouri in defense of the SBC accusations and proposed actions. It would take up four pages in this news journal if we were foolish enough to print it.

Likely, the release was timed to counter any sympathy toward BWA garnered by Kim and his choir. But the writer did not mention the widely respected BWA president -- though word count was clearly not a factor.

The rambling commentary included all the usual claims: SBC leaders are mistreated because of their strong belief in the Bible. And, on the other hand, those who criticize SBC actions must therefore embrace liberalism, communism and homosexuality.

Significant space is given to admonishing the BWA for admitting the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a member body last year, although the SBC study committee report calling for withdrawal from the BWA makes no mention of this action. At least Hinkle points his finger at the real reason for the SBC retreat.

Then, of course, he recounts all the good reasons for not associating with the Fellowship that the BWA membership committee ignored. O.S. Hawkins and Paul Pressler are credited with providing the damning evidence.

The first charge was the tired argument that the CBF has not separated from the SBC, although there are no institutional ties and CBF leaders documented their independence in response to the BWA membership committee. Everyone knows that dual alignment by local churches does not formally link denominational bodies. If so, the American Baptist Churches, USA, and several historically African-American Baptist groups would not be considered distinct denominational entities.

Hinkle then reports a second charge. “Pressler told the committee about a breakout session at the 2003 CBF General Assembly meeting in which a leader gave a lecture titled, ‘The Plan(s) of Salvation: When Conversion and Pluralism Collide,’ which raised questions about whether the CBF holds to the exclusivity and sufficiency of Jesus to save all and is the only way to God.”

Pressler and other SBC leaders should have heard the stimulating presentation in which Wake Forest Divinity School Dean Bill Leonard articulated the struggle of being faithful to one’s personal convictions while living respectfully in a pluralistic society. Instead they relied on a Baptist Press report suggesting that Leonard — and therefore all CBF participants — diminished the exclusive claims of Christianity.

Leonard noted that, in fact, current Southern Baptist leaders accommodate and advocate two distinctively different plans of salvation — one affirming that salvation is available to all who choose and the other that Jesus died for a predetermined few.

The third charge must bring a chuckle to anyone with a hint of humor. Hawkins and Pressler, according to Hinkle, accused the CBF of continually attacking and misrepresenting the SBC. The irony is staggering.

People dropping their offerings in the plates each Sunday have no idea how much of their Cooperative Program missions money and their denominational employees’ energies are spent on trying to discredit those who will not turn a blind eye to their fundamentalist agenda.

Weak theology and unfair representations of other Christians is not something Southern Baptist leaders should be looking for on the outside of their plates.