In the Name of the Father: The Rhetoric of the New Southern Baptist Convention.

In the Name of the Father: The Rhetoric of the New Southern Baptist Convention. By Carl L. Kell and L. Raymond Camp. With a Foreword by Kenneth Chafin. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, c. 1999. Pp. xviii, 176. $34.95, ISBN 0-8093-2220-X.)

During the last twenty years much has been written about the conflicts in the Southern Baptist Convention and the struggles between moderates and fundamentalists over theology and denominational control. Studies have focused on social, cultural, and theological issues that have divided America's largest Protestant body. This particular work examines the rhetorical methods and implications of the fundamentalist "take over" of the denomination. It is a unique approach to a complex controversy. The fundamentalists clearly "won" in the effort to control the convention, by electing a series of conservative presidents who used the appointive powers of their office to reshape all convention agencies and boards around issues of biblical inerrancy, theological conformity, and right-wing politics.

Carl Kell, Director of Development and Alumni Affairs at Western Kentucky University, and L. Raymond Camp, professor of communication at North Carolina State University, believe that the rhetoric of Southern Baptist fundamentalists offers clues to the direction of the convention and its conservative-led response to issues of sexuality, politics, and theology. The authors suggest that after twenty years of controversy the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) "is a failed communication system," in which "open and free communication" is undermined (p. 7). They provide an overview of the denomination's history, describe the efforts of fundamentalists to elect convention presidents, and then give specific illustrations of the way in which conservative rhetoric shapes the "new" SBC.

Kell and Camp insightfully observe that Southern Baptists are a people bound together by rhetoric--particularly the male-dominated rhetoric of the pulpit--and insist that "three bodies of rhetoric" shape the fundamentalist-dominated convention (p. 28). These include the rhetoric of fundamentalism itself, the rhetoric of biblical inerrancy, and a resulting rhetoric of exclusion. In other words, as the rhetorical ideologies of fundamentalism and inerrancy came to dominate the convention, the denomination was then led to actions and agendas that produced exclusionary positions relative to women, homosexuals, Masons, and liberals. (More recent actions of the SBC regarding conversion tactics directed toward Jews might also be added to the list.) Exclusionist rhetoric declares that certain "sanctioned, scriptural texts" define group membership and may be used to "rid" the group of certain undesirable elements (p. 33). The book explores sermons, resolutions, and other statements from fundamentalist leaders as they move from inerrancy to public commentaries on the role of women, the evils of homosexuality, the destructiveness of liberalism, and the dangers of groups such as the Masons.

This is a fascinating study less because it offers any new insights into an old controversy than because it takes seriously the depths of SBC rhetoric. Speeches are not simply symbols of orthodoxy; they perpetuate an approach to orthodoxy that has implications for theological and political agendas. It will be particularly helpful to students of rhetoric and speech. It offers students of the SBC another way of understanding how changes in denominational identity influence denominational positions on ethics, politics, and family. Since the publication of this book, the rhetoric of exclusion has continued with Southern Baptists making declarations regarding Jews, Hindus, and evangelism. If Kell and Camp are correct and the Southern Baptists are on a rhetorical crusade, there is no end in sight.

BILL J. LEONARD

Wake Forest University Divinity School