ASHEVILLE, N.C. (ABP) — A self-described “comrade in arms” in the Southern Baptist Convention controversy in the 1980s remembered Cecil Sherman as one who “stood on a higher hill” than other moderate Baptist leaders.
“Cecil Sherman was right more times on more occasions on more issues than anyone else in the fundamentalist/moderate controversy,” Walter Shurden, retired director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer University, said April 23 at a memorial service honoring the first coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship at First Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C. “He stood on a higher hill than the rest of us, and he saw more.”
“He was plain spoken,” Shurden said. “If you heard Cecil Sherman speak and you did not understand it, either one of two things had gone wrong. One, you didn’t understand the English language or number two you had grown hard of hearing. He spoke so that he could be heard.”
“Because of his plain-spokenness, especially in the blue flames of controversy, he was often accused, even by his friends, of being shrill and at times harsh and at other times brash,” Shurden said. “I honestly never thought he was. I thought the way Cecil spoke truth intimidated his adversaries and scared the daylights out of his friends.”
The Asheville memorial service capped a week of tributes to the moderate Baptist leader who died April 17 at age 82 from complications of a massive heart attack he suffered two days earlier. Sherman was pastor of First Baptist Church from 1964 until 1985. During his ministry he led the church to accept African-Americans into membership, supported the NAACP after the assassination of Martin Luther King and led the congregation to select women deacons in 1981.
Sherman’s memorial service coincided with a visit to Asheville by President Barack Obama and his family, snarling traffic in the city and complicating travel for those seeking to attend the service.
Guy Sayles, the current pastor of First Baptist Church, noted at the beginning of the service that the cover photo on the order of service program was taken during Sherman’s time in Asheville at the request of the local NAACP to recognize his leadership in the area of civil rights.
“It seems right that our gathering here coincides with the arrival of our nation’s first African-American president in our town,” Sayles said. “Complications aside, I think Cecil would have delighted in the irony of it all. He would have encouraged us to stand at the overpass to greet Barack Obama and then to gather for this service.”
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.