By Allie Martin and Jody Brown
February 28, 2003

(AgapePress) - The founder of a nationally known Christian ministry, along with several Baptist leaders, is blasting NBC Nightly News for a story which said a prominent Baptist pastor was intolerant for speaking out against Islam.

The story Tuesday on NBC Nightly News featured Dr. Jerry Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida, who last June described the prophet Mohammed as "a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, and his last one was a nine-year-old girl." Featured in the story were Muslims from the Jacksonville area who said such comments frightened them and made them fear for their safety.

Preceding the report, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw charged Vines, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), with "preaching a dangerous message" of "hate" against Islam.

Dr. Don Wildmon is founder and chairman of the Mississippi-based American Family Association. Wildmon says NBC did not even try to run an objective story.

"The report did the very thing that NBC was saying some Christians were doing," Wildmon says. "They didn't question the truth of what [Vines] said, and they didn't question anybody who was on his side. It was totally, totally biased."

Calling the story an example of "yellow journalism," Wildmon says the broadcast is proof that the national media have an anti-Christian agenda.

"I've learned over the years really not to trust the networks," he says. "You see their bias [which] at times turns into bigotry. I think this is a case in which it turned into extreme bigotry. It was most unfortunate that a network would do such a hatchet job on a minister."

More Reaction
Baptist Press quotes several Baptist leaders who reacted strongly to the broadcast. Dr. Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says NBC was "irresponsible in the extreme" and "ought to be ashamed of such unprofessional reporting."

Land also points out that while Muslim fundamentalists conducted the 9/11 terrorist attacks and have called for a "holy war," Baptists -- who are involved in mission relief to Muslims around the world -- are decried as "Christian fundamentalists" in the same vein as Muslim fundamentalists.

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says the segment was "an exercise in journalistic distortion" for which NBC owes Vines an apology.

"Telling persons that they are lost and in desperate need of the Savior is not hatred, but the most loving message any human could speak to another," Mohler told Baptist Press.

And Dr. Jack Graham, current SBC president, has this to say about the NBC story: "Once again the secular press is unable to understand the uniqueness of the Christian faith and message, and therefore chose to attack the messenger." Graham also describes the segment as "a disingenuous attempt to slander" Vines.

In a written statement, Vines said NBC did not use a single line in which he affirmed his belief in religious freedom, his love for people of all faiths, and his desire that people come to salvation -- which is available only through Christ. He also told the network that he has seen no scholarly rebuttal to his statements, which he says are based on Islamic writings known as the Hadith.

A statement on his church's website says: "It is certainly not hate to tell the truth about any religion based upon its own authoritative documents."

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