Baptists Take Heat On Estimate

   BIRMINGHAM, Ala., September 17 (AP) -- God only knows who
gets to heaven, but the Southern Baptists estimate 46.1
percent of people in Alabama risk going to hell.
   Since the figure from church research on potentially doomed
souls was made public, it is Baptists who are feeling the
fire, however.
   The Southern Baptist Convention's county-by-county
breakdown of who's bound for heaven and who isn't -- unless
they are born again and accept Jesus Christ as their savior --
hit The Birmingham News on Sept. 5. It's been the buzz in
some Alabama pews ever since.
   Under the headline: "Baptists count the lost," the front
page story included a detailed map and box listing the 1.86
million "unsaved" by county in precise percentages.
   The Baptists said the numbers were only a guide on where to
establish new churches and find more followers.
   But some of the faithful, Baptists as well as others, are
incensed.
   "It is the pinnacle of presumptuousness to construct a
formula for quantifying the unsaved," Jack Denver of Homewood,
a self-described "practicing Christian" wrote in a letter that
was among about a dozen the newspaper published from irate
readers.
   The Southern Baptists have done such demographic research
for years, said Martin King, a spokesman for the
denomination's Atlanta-based Home Mission Board, which
compiled the study and has national figures he would not
disclose.
   King added that the Baptists don't claim to be passing
judgment.
   "We don't know who's lost and who's saved," King said. "All
we know is that as we understand the doctrine of salvation, a
lot of people are lost."
   But being lost means going to hell, King said, and he
understands why others are upset with the list.
   "People take offense when we say, according to Scripture,
if you have not accepted Jesus as your personal lord and
savior, you are not going to heaven," he said. "They don't
like hearing that they're not going to heaven."
   Still, some are asking whether America's largest Protestant
denomination with close to 15 million followers is trying to
play God instead of preaching the Gospel.
   It seemed especially insulting in this Bible Belt state
where religion may be the only thing more sacred than college
football. As elsewhere in the South, the common salutation on
meeting someone for the first time is "What church do you go
to?"