3rd Leader Joins Southern Baptist Dissidents
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RICHMOND, Va. — A third Southern Baptist missions leader has switched his allegiance to the missions agency of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, an organization of Southern Baptist dissidents opposed to fundamentalist control of the 15 million-member denomination.
The most recent switch became official with the appointment of the Rev. Harlan E. Spurgeon on July 28 as a leader of the Global Missions Ministry Group of the Fellowship, based in Atlanta. Spurgeon retired from the Southern Baptist Foreign Missions Board on June 30, citing conflicts with fundamentalist trustees.
Spurgeon, 62, was appointed to his new post by the Rev. Keith Parks, who formerly headed the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, based here, and now heads the fellowship’s mission group.
Like Spurgeon, Parks resigned from the Southern Baptist organization because of differences with trustees.
In addition, Betty J. Law, vice president for the Americas, retired and joined the fellowship as associate coordinator.
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