FORT WORTH — A Southern Baptist leader and teacher has a message for women: Taking birth control pills is "murder" and a "sin."

The opinion of Dr. Thomas White is reverberating around Baptist circles, and causing at least one Tarrant County pastor to publicly disagree.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth shapes the Baptist pastors of tomorrow, determining the future of the church.

That's why Dr. White's sermon earlier this month is getting so much attention.

Dr. White is a mentor at the seminary, charged with helping future pastors make the right decisions. But earlier this month, a repentant Dr. White addressed those students.

He confessed that he and his wife had employed birth control pill years earlier.

"The reason that we did it was my own selfishness," he said. "I wanted kids, but I wanted kids — not in God's timing, but in my timing."

Dr. White now condemns the use of birth control pills, saying, "It's murder of a life."

Dr. White declined a request for an on-camera interview Tuesday, citing a busy schedule. In an e-mail message, he said he's not against all forms of birth control.

In his sermon, however, that point was not made. Instead, he went further, speaking against the attempt to control conception.

"Some of you are involved in that exact same sin," Dr. White said.

"This is fundamentalism run amok, and I'm concerned that once was the world's largest theological seminary is degenerating into a Baptist fundamentalist indoctrination camp," said Dwight McKissic, Senior Pastor at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington and a former trustee of the seminary.

"I want the world to know that Baptists have never adopted a position that taking birth control pills are sinful or wrong." Pastor McKissic says, however, that he does agree with part of Dr. White's message: That life is sacred, and children are a blessing.

E-mail chawes@wfaa.com