Gordon Clark: [Partial Victory] (The Durham Sun)

1958. [Partial Victory]. The Durham Sun. Nov. 14

James Bulman, Baptist purist, came, he saw, even spoke, and, he asserts, to some extent conquered. He won two victories. He went home to Spencer, N.C., a pleased man. It may be said, therefore, with truth, as indeed, it already has, that the 1958 North Carolina Baptist State Convention, held here, was one of the most harmonious of all time. Perhaps the Baptists should meet in Durham more often.

However, to Bulman's theses. He won one victory, says Mr. Church Autonomy, when he gained the microphone and a hearing. Last year he was, ultimately, ruled off the floor.

He gained another victory, or, to be more exact, he states, had a share in a victory when the Convention was prompted to defer until the May special session a recommendation to empower the president of the Convention, especially on the third day of conventions, to refer all motions he regarded as involving major conventional action to the Committee on Resolutions. The effect, Dr. Bulman contended before the convention, would be to give the president "very considerable power on the first two days of the Convention's annual session - and almost dictatorial power for the third day."

Dr. Bulman does not take credit for the Convention's action in its almost unheard of demurrer to a recommendation by the General Board (through the Committee on Constitution and By-Laws). He rather feels that if the objection had come from him, alone, the Convention in its state of mind where he is concerned might not have acted; but, after Dr. Bulman spoke, Dr. J.C. Canipe, immediate past president of the Convention, voiced doubts as to the wisdom of the proposal and moved that it be tabled. Tabled it was and, whether the Convention had listened to him or was moved by Dr. Canipe, Dr. Bulman departed pleased that a spoke had been put in the wheel of a move which he felt would give the chair in a Baptist convention autocratic powers more often associated with chairmen of political party conventions.

Dr. Bulman was pleased but not jubilant. He still worries over the Rocky Mount decision which says, to quote a non-Baptist critic, Presbyterian Professor Gordon H. Clark, "that a Baptists church cannot withdraw from the Convention and be independent."

The court, states Professor Clark, said that it did not rule on religious beliefs, but, asserts Professor Clark, the court defined what a church is. "Now, certainly," Professor Clark continues, "the definition of a church is a religious belief on which denominations differ. The Baptists, contrary to the Presbyterians, have always held to independency and have claimed that there is no ecclesiastical authority superior to the local congregation."

That's what bothers Dr. Bulman. He believes the church authority is absolute. He opposes the assertion of the Convention's authority over the church. It continues to bother him and, come the next special session and the next regular session of the Baptist State Convention, he is likely to continue to oppose it.