Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On June 16, 2002, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that "some of the many Baptists affiliated with other conventions and associations - as well as some Southern Baptists at the grass-roots level - worry about the image" Jerry Vines presented in his hateful remarks about Islam and its founder at the Southern Baptist Convention. "Vines and other top leaders of the Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, aren't necessarily representative of all the churchgoers at the grass-roots level... Baptist churches generally value their autonomy in a denomination without ecclesiastical authority."