Twelve years ago in a kinder, gentler era of presidential politics, the late J. Marse Grant argued with some eloquence that "America be spared the mean-spirited name calling between now and Nov. 5."
Grant, who died Friday at the age of 88, was editor emeritus of The Biblical Recorder, North Carolina's state Baptist newspaper. He seemed to be addressing himself primarily to other Southern Baptists, whose leadership he felt had lost its way by making the Southern Baptist Convention a political adjunct to the Republican Party.
Today the general issue of dangerously divisive overstatement is an inescapable national concern -- one well-addressed by Grant's comments.
Grant quoted the Rev. O.S. Hawkins, then pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, as a clear example of what should not be said, and how it should not be said.
Grant wrote:
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