|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Southern Baptist roots go all the way back to the Reformation in England in the
sixteenth century. Various dissenters called for purification of the church and a
return to the New Testament Christian example. These dissenters also called for strict
accountability in their covenant with God. One of the prominent dissenters who arose in
the seventeenth century was John Smyth. Smyth was a strong proponent of adult baptism
and 1609 went as far as to rebaptize himself and others. Smyth's action was a sign of
the first English Baptist church. Smyth also introduced the Arminian view that God's
grace is for everyone and not just predestined individuals.
By 1644, due to the efforts of Thomas Helwys and Smyth, there were 50 Baptist churches.
Some Baptists were General Baptists because they believed people choose to be saved and
they saw atonement, as general not just limited. Others were referred to as Particular
Baptists because they thought redemption was limited to a chosen few. Both groups
strengthened the Baptist movement in England.
As the English Baptists struggled with recognition, some began to come to America.
They came to America, like other counterparts, to escape religious persecution in
England. Roger Williams was one of the Baptists to come over and in 1639 he established
the First Baptist Church in America in Providence, Rhode Island. Baptists were even
persecuted in the New World because of their idea of baptism. By the early eighteenth
century Baptists had a strong standing in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
By the mid eighteenth century Baptist numbers grew even more due to the Great Awakening
pioneered by Jonathan Edwards. In 1755, a man named Shubael Stearns headed to North
Carolina to spread Baptist belief and this led to the establishment of 42 churches in
the North Carolina area. Stearns' people believed in emotional conversion, membership
in a community where one was accountable, and adult baptism by immersion. They were
referred to as Separate Baptists. The Regular Baptists who resided primarily in the
north were more urbane and valued education more. The Separates had great success in
less civilized frontier regions of the south in recruiting members.
By 1790, liberty for Baptists had been won and they now began to organize and expand.
At this time Baptists organized missionary societies to spread the Christian lifestyle
to others. It was these mission societies that led to other organizational structures
that would eventually define and make a denomination of Southern Baptists. In 1814, a
convention for organizing the first national Baptist missionary society was held in
Philadelphia.
"Camp meetings" held in the Kentucky and Tennessee frontiers laid the foundation for
the denomination in the South. These "camp meetings" were simply places where Baptists
spread their beliefs. Strong appeal and evangelistic activity spurred growth for the
Baptists during the nineteenth century, especially in the south.
By the 1830's tension began to mount between the Northern and Southern Baptists. Baptists in the South were embracing slavery because it was the core of their social and economic order. Baptists of the North were saying that God would not condone treating one race as superior to another while Southerners said that God intended for races to be separate. In around 1835, the Southern states began complaining that they weren't receiving money for mission work.
In 1844 the issues of missionary work and slavery came to a peak. The Home Mission
Society gave a statement saying that a person could not be a missionary and wish to keep
his slaves as property. This caused the Home Mission Society to separate northern and
southern divisions. As a result of this the Baptists in the south met in May of 1845
and organized the
Southern Baptist Convention
.
The first annual convention of the Southern Baptists was held in 1845. In this
convention the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board were
established. The purpose of each board is still to "the propagation of the gospel,"
with one board focusing on national issues and the other on foreign issues.
In the decade following the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention the Landmark movement took place. This movement wanted to establish certain landmarks of the faith and said that people without these landmarks were not worthy of shared communion, of preaching in churches, or giving baptism.
Sociologically speaking, Landmarkism was a process and struggle which helped Southern
Baptists to gain identity separate from the Northern Baptists. One of the greatest
arguments for Landmarks was the church should be autonomous because they viewed
organization beyond the local churches as unbiblical. This caused many churches not to
contribute to the cause of the SBC and today some of these same churches still have
nothing to do with the SBC.
After Reconstruction of the South the Southern Baptists began to thrive. Dr. I. T.
Tichenor became head of the Home Mission Board. He dedicated his efforts to make the
Home Mission Board as Southern as possible. Tichenor strongly urged Baptists in the
south to reject alliances with Northern Boards and Support Southern causes. At this
time many Baptist churches in the south called themselves southern but they still had
ties to northern boards and alliances. Tichenor rallied support for the South and in
Fort Monroe, Virginia in 1894 the Northern and Southern Baptists agreed to a territorial
arrangement, that established the states of the south as exclusive territory for the
Southern Baptist Convention. Thus did the Southern Baptists end their struggle with the
north and gained their own identity and their separateness from the Northern Baptists.
Women began making great strides in 1872, when Henry Tupper of the Foreign Mission
Board appointed Edmonia Moon for missionary service. She was the first woman to receive
this honor.
From Reconstruction to the end of World War I, Southern Baptists had gone from a bunch
of unorganized and scattered churches with little in common into a denomination of an
even larger number of churches and people sharing both culture and program, and training
and mission. By the twentieth century Southern Baptists were a cultural establishment
influencing many people all over the country and world.
Southern Baptists are evangelical and view the Bible as their ultimate authority in shaping their lives. They believe in only one God who reveals Himself as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Southern Baptists believe in a heaven and hell. The only way to get into heaven is salvation through Jesus Christ. To achieve salvation one must confess their faith that God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of mankind. It is only through faith that Jesus died for mankind and that He is the one and only God that people gain entrance into heaven. People who fail to recognize God as the one and only are sentenced to eternity in hell.
Southern Baptists see baptism and the Lord's Supper as two very important rituals. Baptism is viewed as a symbol of obedience that stands for one's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, one's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and a new life in Jesus Christ. They believe baptism can only be correctly be performed by immersing the believer in water in the name of the Lord. Southern Baptists perform the Lord's Supper to memorialize the death of Christ.
Southern Baptists take the Bible very seriously. They believe one ought to abide by
the Ten Commandments. In a resolution released in 1998, Southern Baptists see all
people as equal in God's eyes, but they say that the husband or man has authority in the
household and he has a responsibility to protect his family. Therefore, the wife or
woman ought to respect and love her husband and submit graciously to his demands.
Southern Baptists have recently taken stands against issues such as homosexuality and
abortion, but this has not come without objection from people outside and even inside
the denomination.
The major organizational divisions of Southern Baptists fall under the Cooperative Program. The Cooperative Program began to take shape in 1919. At this point the Southern Baptists were in great need of money and something had to be done. Many people started donating time and money to the Seventy-Five Million Campaign, a plan to raise seventy-five million dollars. When all the pledges came in more than 90 million had been pledged but receipts only totaled 58 million. When the national economy collapsed in the late 1920s the Southern Baptist Convention was left in worse shape than it was originally.
The Cooperative Program was proposed to the SBC by M.E. Dodd and commenced in 1925.
Today, the Cooperative Program is a financial network in which state conventions and the
SBC work together to help and encourage people to support their church by giving gifts
to missionary, education, and other work in their state convention and the SBC.
The Cooperative Program funds several programs of the Southern Baptist Convention which include:
Two other organizations involved in the Southern Baptist Bureaucracy include the
Executive Committee
and the Sunday School Board. The Executive Committee plans, coordinates, budgets,
and handles the legaland public relations matters for the SBC as a whole. The
Sunday School Board
develops church programming, publishes support materials, and provides support
services for churches to use that are part of the SBC.
The Southern Baptist Convention has been steeped in controversy on many occasions over their lifetime. As a basically southern institution, they were embroiled both in external criticism and internal conflict during the Civil Rights movement. But the most serious controversy of the twentieth century was a struggle to control the resources and ideological direction of the convention.
There is a sense of irony in all of the conflict since all Southern Baptists would be viewed as conservative by those outside the tradition. From the late 1970s forward, they came to veiw themselves as fundamentalists and moderates (those against the fundamentalists). Doctrinally they were not terribly different, but the differences were enough to cause a great conflict that even today threatens to cause a schism that would divided the largest Protestant denomination in the United States into two groups.
The biggest issue on which the two sides differed was biblical authority. Both sides saw the Bible as the central authority in one's life but the fundamentalists believed the history and religious teachings to be without error, while the moderates believed only the religious truths to be without error.
Dividing the two sides was also the issue of pastoral authority. The fundamentalists believed in a pattern of authority where a husband has authority over his wife and a pastor over his church. Due to this hierarchy fundamentalists saw it inappropriate for a woman to be ordained as a pastor. The moderates thought any believer should have a right to be an ordained pastor.
The two sides also tended to differ on various social and political issues as well. Fundamentalists were not supportive issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and the Equal Rights Amendment. The fundamentalists strongly believed in the issues they took a stand on and would fight diligently to see these issues implemented in the SBC. On the other side the moderates did not have anywhere close to a unanimous decision on any of these political or social issues.
The two sides differed dramatically on what they believed to be important about being a
Baptist. The key for the fundamentalists was that they needed a way to get their views
and ideas into the SBC, which was dominated by the moderate people who were leading the
SBC in a direction, which they didn't want to go.
This controversy began to unfold within the Southern Baptist Convention during the late 1970's and continued to dominate the denomination's attention for the balance of the century. The conflict was presaged by a doctrinal controversy that erupted over a book published by Midwestern Seminary Professor named Ralph Elliott in 1961. Elliott argued that the book of Genesis was not to be taken literally.
Conservative Baptists believing that every word in the Bible is true and should be
taken literally, Elliott's book sparked considerable controversy. Tensions mounted and
grew during the 1970's, but during this period the fundamentalists did not control the
majore bureaucratic structures of the SBC and, thus, were viewed as a minority. During
the 1970's they made their views known, but had to maintain a stance of loyal
opposition.
During the late 1970's fundamentalist, Paul Pressler, a Baptist layman and distinguished Houston judge, thought he figured out how the denomination's power structure could be wrestled from the control of the denominations moderates. He shared his views with Paaige Patterson, the youthful president of the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies, who agreed to join him in a crusade to win control of the Southern Baptist Convention for fundamentalism.
Their efforts would change the fundamentalist movement from one of loyal opposition to a movement focused at taking over the offices and key positions inside the denomination so that their ideas and beliefs could be spread throughout Southern Baptist thought.
The most basic idea underly Pressler's strategy was for the fundamentalists to successfully elect presidents from year to year. By doing so they could gain control of the appointive and nominating powers, control the boards and agencies of the SBC, and influence the SBC with their thoughts and beliefs.
In the late 70's Pressler and Patterson set their sights on 1979 as the year to win the
presidency. In the years prior to this convention in 1979, the fundamentalists began
organizing a way to win this election. Since the messengers at the convention vote on
the president, the fundamentalists simply spread the word to others that had
fundamentalist ideas to come to the convention and vote for the president. The
fundamentalists basically brought more people to vote than there were moderates and as a
result fundamentalist Adrian Rogers won the presidency in 1979. This signaled the
beginning in the fundamentalist takeover and from here on in the moderates would never
really come close to defeating the fundamentalists.
With Rogers as president, the fundamentalists began laying out the groundwork for their takeover of the SBC. The messengers who attended the convention elected the president of the SBC. The fundamentalists simply had to go to fundamentalist churches and convince people to attend and vote for their desired president.
From here the president of the SBC appointed a Committee on Committees and this
committee then nominated a Committee on Nominations and this committee nominated people
to fill the vacancies of standing committees and boards of trustees. When the
fundamentalists won the presidency year after year the president simply would stack the
Committee on Committees with people who had fundamentalist ideas and from here
fundamentalists would be appointed and nominated to head boards, agencies and any other
vacancies. By doing this, within ten years the SBC was under complete control of the
fundamentalists. They could easily appoint the necessary people to whatever position
and could pass almost Resolution they so desired.
As fundamentalists rapidly took control of the SBC they began making the necessary
changes they deemed appropriate. In 1984, a resolution was passed at the convention in
Kansas City, which excluded women from pastoral roles because the woman was first in the
Edenic fall. By 1985, the fundamentalists had been appointing trustees for boards who
were proven to be inerrantists to institute their policies. The fundamentalists were
convinced that agencies were not being governed under biblical principals and they
wanted the right people in office to ensure biblical principles would be applied.
Despite the efforts of the moderates to combat the takeover by the fundamentalists they lost the battle for several reasons. First of all, when Rogers first won the presidency in 1979 many of them simply brushed it off as a fluke. Many of them believed that such a takeover would never succeed so they never took the takeover as anything serious. In 1980, when Pressler gave his "Going for the Jugular" speech in which he planned to takeover the convention by electing presidents and controlling appointments, the moderates finally took this takeover seriously. Even this wouldn't help the moderates much. The fundamentalists were simply more powerful and motivating speakers. They had the ability to move crowds and persuade huge churches to listen to what they had to say. It was partly this reason that allowed Pressler and Patterson to gather the large crowds of messengers necessary to help them elect presidents.
The inability of the moderates to gather support for their cause also contributed to a fundamentalist victory. The moderates could not gather enough support because only the older people who had dedicated their lives to the SBC were willing to take on the fight. Younger people simply were not willing to dedicate their lives to a fight with the fundamentalists.
Moderates also lacked the understanding of the presidential election process. They viewed nomination for presidency as a great achievement in itself and would sometimes nominate two or three people making it impossible to win the presidency with that many candidates.
Each side constituted about 35 percent of all Southern Baptists so they each faced the challenge of trying to win the support of the other 30 percent. The fundamentalists won over the majority of these people because they were such excellent speakers. They were better speakers and tended to speak to larger crowds. The fundamentalists also had the support of well-known people like Billy Graham and Ronald Reagan. Fundamentalists also were the first to mass mail their literature to all the SBC churches in hopes of winning their support.
Fundamentalists were also deeply dedicated to their cause as a clear majority went to
the conventions only to vote for the president while the moderates attended for other
reasons like to hear the sermons or just out of habit. Dedication to establishing
biblical inerrancy throughout the Southern Baptist Convention led the fundamentalists to
fight long and hard for their cause. Even today fundamentalists continue to take firm
stands on their beliefs and they will continue into the future.
It took ten years, as Pressler and Paige strategized, for the fundamentalists to
successfully control the bureaucracy of the Southern Baptist Convention. They
controlled virtually every aspect of the SBC and the decisions made throughout the
1990's showed this dramatically. In 1992, two churches were disfellowshipped from the
SBC. One for approving the ordination of a gay man and the other blessing the union of
two gay people.
The fundamentalists have pursued a number of tactical programs that continue to
generate internal conflict and keep the SBC in high profile the broader culture. One
very controversial decision the Southern Baptists was the decision to boycott the Walt
Disney Company in 1997. They objected to Disney's so-called anti-family and anti-
Christian direction. They objected to Disney giving benefits to same sex partners and
for having "Gay Days", where gays could come to their theme parks and celebrate openly.
Another controversy arose in the late 1990s when the Southern Baptists, having selected to meet in Salt Lake City, angered the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by pursuing an aggressive program of proselytization among Mormons before and during the convention.
For a good many years it has seemed like a split or schism in the Southern Baptist
Convention could be near. As early as 1987, some moderates, disappointed by their
inability to stop the fundamentalist takeover, formed the Southern Baptist Alliance.
The Alliance, formed with the goal of being an opposition group within the denomination,
has attracted a substantial following. There has been talk of forming a separate
denomination but it is not clear this will happen, but it is not clear that such a split
in the SBC will ever happen.
In 1997, the largest state convention, the Baptist General Convention of Texas split
from the SBC. This led people to believe that a schism within the SBC could be closer
than previously thought.
Still, a schism within the SBC is probably not likely. A major reason for this is the
high degree of autonomy that each local congregation maintains. Ministers, and their
congregations may disagree with the leadership direction of the SBC, but what happens at
the national level has little, if any, affect them. Thus, if churches feel that the
convention is irrelevant to them, there is little initiative to leave. In the late
1980's Nany Ammerman, the leading scholar of Southern Baptists conducted a study and
concluded that most churches anticipated no changes at all in their church despite the
fundamentalist takeover. If people today still feel that they and their church are
autonomous from the national convention then a schism is very unlikely to occur.
North American Mission Board
International Mission Board
Cooperative Program
Baptist Press
Annuity Board
Woman's Missionary Union
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
Executive Committee
Lifeway Christian Resources
Southern Baptist Convention Entities
Cooperative Program
Links to SBC websites
Southern Baptists
Triumph of Southern Baptists
Baptist Origins
Edgar Young Mullins
Resolution on Priesthood of the Believer
Baptists view of Homosexuality
Calvinism and the SBC
History of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
SBC and the Denominational Center
SBTS Faith and Task
SBC Conflicts
SBC Journals and State Conventions
Jewish
Controversy
Southern Baptist Convention Homepage
This is the official Homepage of the Southern Baptist Convention. You can find out
aboutrecent events, history, and what Southern Baptists offer. Also found at this
website are various links to boards and agencies of the SBC. You can find Southern
Baptists eternal plans and you can even contact them.
http://www.sbc.net/
This is the official site of the Southern Baptists North American Mission Board. In
here you will find out about church planning, evangelism, mission education, and
resources of the North American Mission Board. There is also a place where you can
learn how to get involved with the Mission Board.
http://www.namb.net
This webpage gives you the most recent news of the International Mission
Board. You can find information such as prayer needs, the annual report, and even
information on how to become an overseas missionary. Links are established so you can
contact and even ask questions to the International Mission Board.
http://www.imb.org
This official page of the Cooperative Program allows you to access information
about what the Cooperative Program is. It gives you information as to where money goes
that you donate to the program and allows you to see the Cooperative Program at work.
Users are allowed to contact the Cooperative Program and even make donations if they
wish.
http://www.dddweb.com/cgibin/coop/coop.cgi
This is the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention. The
page gives information on the latest news affecting Southern Baptists. You can access
the past weeks news on this page, download articles, and even view a photo library.
http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org
This is the official website of the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist
Convention. Various departments of the Annuity Board like retirement and insurance can
easily be accessed. The plan of the Annuity Board and a daily and quarterly update can
also be found here.
http://www.annuityboard.org
The official website of the Woman's Missionary Union gives information about
what is new with the union, information on the organizations and language, and various
other resources. Actual missionaries have a link located just for them, there is an
online bookstore and a listing of ministry opportunities that are available.
http://www.wmu.com/wmu
This page allows you to access the latest
information of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. You can let you voice be
heard on certian ethical topics such as drugs, gambling, and pornography by emailing
your concerns to certains representatives.
http://www.erlc.com
This site offers links to the Cooperative Program, the annual meetings of the
SBC, and the Baptist Press. You can also find out about SBC life and email the
Executive Committtee with questions.
http://sbc2.namb.net
This site allows you to access various bibles and bible stories along with
books, devotionals, magazines, music, videos, and various other matierals that your
church or Sunday School can use. You can order Sunday School information for the fall
of 2000 and use can even use their filtered online service provider.
http://www.lifeway.com
This site offers links to various boards
and agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention. You can access the sites of the
Annuity Board, the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board and
various others. The websites of all the Southern Baptist Seminaries and the radio and
television program websites can be accessed as well.
http://sbcsearch.founders.org/agencies.html
This page gives a very brief summary of the
Cooperative Program and what it is about.
http://www.tnbaptist.org/cooperativeprogram.htm
This page gives various links to Southern
Baptist Boards and Agencies, Seminaries, and Baptist State Conventions.
http://www.wmu.com/wmu/hotlinks.html
This page has several links to various
other Southern Baptist resources. It also gives a
good description about the various ideals and beliefs of Southern Baptists.
http://suncoastbaptistassoc.com
This page talks about origins
of Southern Baptist and offers a brief history and insight into early conflicts.
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/south/thirteen.html
This page gives four
differing perspectives on the origins of Baptists.
http://www.yellowstone.net/baptist/history.htm
This page gives a historical
and life perspective of Southern Baptist Edgar Young Mullins.
http://www.sbts.edu/mohler/fidelitas/mullins.html
This page gives the 1998
Resolution on the Priesthood of the Believer.
http://www.baptiststart.com/priestB_quotes.htm
This page is an article by
Tom Turner on the Southern Baptists view of homosexuality and the church.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/scotts/bulgarians/church.html
This page discusses Calvinism and the role
that it plays today in the modern day Southern Baptist Convention
http://jjbooks.com/CalvinismSBC.htm
This web page gives a brief historical
account of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
http://members.home.net/dlature/itseminary/wischris/sbts.html
This page gives Bill Leonard's report on
why the denominational center does not hold for the Southern Baptists.
http://www.louisville-institute.org/rptleonard.html
This web page gives the Faith and Task of
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
http://www.sbts.edu/wwb/covenant.html
This page talks about past splits and
controversies between the fundamentalists and moderates and predicts a formal breakup
soon.
http://adherents.com/adh_rb.html
This page gives the journal of the Baptist
State Convention of North Carolina with links to other websites.
http://www.biblicalrecorder.org
This page is a news article declaring Jewish outrage after Paige Patterson prayed for
Jews to be converted.
http://www.adl.org/presrele/ChJew_31/3472_31.html
Created by
Richard Moore
For Soc 257: New Religious Movements
Spring Term, 2000
University of Virginia
Last modified 07/16/01