Posted on Jan 10, 2002 | by Staff

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--What was W.A. Criswell's most important sermon?

Criswell, in a personal letter to Jerry Sutton, author of "The Baptist Reformation," singled out his sermon, "Whether We Live or Die," at the June 1985 Pastors' Conference in Dallas prior to the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting there, attended by more than 45,000 Baptists.

Sutton, pastor of Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn., recounts that Criswell said he thought it was his most important sermon because, as Sutton puts it, the sermon "set forth the two directions and the implications of those directions in the Southern Baptist Convention."

"Whether We Live or Die" can be accessed at http://www.wacriswell.com/Transcripts.cfm?sermon=1517 in the Criswell Sermon Legacy Project of the W.A. Criswell Foundation in Dallas.

The project's Internet home address is www.wacriswell.com.

Sutton's 2000 book chronicled the "conservative resurgence" within the Southern Baptist Convention that began at the 1979 SBC annual meeting in Houston.
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