Last Sunday, a week after street preachers and LDS faithful clashed outside the Conference Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pastor Thomas Corkish stood in front of his congregation at Anchor Baptist Church in Holladay and voiced his distress over what had happened.
The Rev. Corkish's concern was not over free speech issues or who should or should not have been arrested, but over the tone of the preaching practiced that weekend by people who, for the most part, are also Baptist. "We don't need to be negative," he told his congregation. "We need to have a spirit of gentleness."
His views, and those of other mainstream Baptist ministers, underscore that the Baptist church, aside from being a monolith, is a collection of hundreds of separate denominations with sometimes radically different beliefs and approaches.
For ministers, at the heart of the division is the question of what preaching is all about. Is it about spreading the "good news" or telling sinners that they're going to hell? Is there a line that shouldn't be crossed? Is there a place where meaning becomes just plain mean?
Another Baptist street preacher, the Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kan., made national headlines this week for his plan to erect a 6-foot-tall granite monument in a city park in Casper, Wyo. The monument includes an engraved picture of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming freshman who was tied to a fence and beaten into a coma five years ago by attackers who did not approve of his homosexuality. Under the picture is Phelps' message: "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell Oct. 12, 1998, at Age 21, In Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."
The Rev. Phelps, who preached against gays in Salt Lake City two years ago, says he is planning to picket today's BYU-University of Wyoming football game. "We've heard through e-mails that there's a hotbed of homosexuality at BYU," the Rev. Phelps said in a phone interview earlier this week. He runs a Web site called godhatesfags.com.
The Rev. Phelps defends the right of street preachers to use LDS garments to "make a point that holds the religion of Mormons in utmost contempt." Is there a line that shouldn't be crossed? "Yes, I suppose so," he says. "We have laws, called 'disturbing the peace' or 'public obscenity.' If you're out there buck naked, they'll probably arrest you." Otherwise, he says, he has a right to say what he wants — and he's disappointed that more preachers don't preach in the old "wrath of God" style. "They used to all preach like that. I get lonesome."
"Please don't put us in the same category," says the Rev. Corkish in an effort to distance himself from both the Rev. Phelps and from the Baptist street preachers who denounced the LDS Church as members walked to and from meetings of the LDS General Conference two weeks ago. Some of these protesters also wore LDS sacred garments around their necks and some reportedly spit on them.
"These folks, they're not us," says a Holladay Baptist Church pastor, the Rev. Rodger Russell. "You don't hold the LDS Church responsible for the things Ervil LeBaron said, even though they came from the same root and both trace back to Joseph Smith. They're separate and don't agree with one another anymore."
In the Salt Lake Valley, Baptist churches are classified as Baptist, ABA Baptist, American Baptist, Baptist Bible Fellowship, Conservative Baptist, Free Will Baptist, Baptist National Convention USA, Southern Baptists and Independent Baptists. Many of the street preachers are Independent Baptists, but not all Independent Baptists think alike either, says the Rev. Pat Edwards of Grace Baptist, an Independent Baptist church in Bountiful.
The street preachers who picketed at the LDS Conference Center "are focused on what I call the bad news. . . . These guys are just out there trying to make (Mormons) realize that they're all going to hell."
"It has to do with what the essence of preaching is," said the Rev. Kurt Van Gorden, director of missions for the Utah Gospel Mission, headquartered in Victorville, Calif. The Rev. Van Gorden travels to Utah about 20 times a year to pass out tracts on Salt Lake streets. "Preaching is supposed to be about the gospel, and the gospel means the good news about Jesus Christ and his grace. Anything less is not preaching the gospel but is merely a man's opinion. Mean-spiritedness has no place in street preaching."
Baptist street preacher Lonnie Pursifull, who preached and picketed outside the Conference Center, defends his preaching style. "Southern Baptists have sold out," he said. "They go around with their sugar-coated method."
"Sometimes our message is a little harsh. But if anything, we'll heat it up next time," said Pursifull, Utah director of the World Wide Street Preachers Fellowship.
At next April's LDS General Conference, he says, "We'll be dressed in full (LDS) temple get-up."
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com