Southern Baptist Convention Totally Explained

Everything about The Southern Baptist totally explained

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a United States-based Christian denomination that consists of numerous agencies, including six seminaries, two mission boards and a variety of other organizations such as: the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, which can act for the SBC ad interim between annual meetings; Ethics & Religious Liberties Commission, Southern Baptist Foundation, and GuideStone Financial Resources.
The name "Southern Baptist Convention" refers both to the denomination and to its annual meeting of messengers. Messengers are those who are elected by individual congregations to attend the annual meeting as representatives of the local churches. Though they're similar to delegates, they're not obligated to cast votes representing a particular stance on any issue. All messengers are free to vote according to their consciences. Churches are free to choose messengers based on their loyalty to positions held by the majority in their local church.
The SBC is the largest Baptist association in the world and the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the second largest grouping of Christians in the United States, after the Roman Catholic Church.

History

Arrival in America

Most early Baptists in the colonies came from England in the seventeenth century when the king and the state church persecuted them for holding their distinct religious views. Baptists like Roger Williams and Dr. John Clarke immigrated to New England in the 1630s.
The oldest Baptist church in the South, First Baptist Church, Charleston, South Carolina, was organized in 1682 under the leadership of Rev. William Screven. A Baptist church was formed in the Virginia colony in 1715 through the preaching of Robert Norden, and one in North Carolina in 1727 through the ministry of Paul Palmer. By 1740, there were about eight Baptist churches in the colonies of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, with an estimated 300-400 members.
In Virginia and most southern colonies before the Revolution, the Anglican Church was the state-established church and supported by general taxes, as it was in Great Britain. It opposed the rapid spread of Baptists in the South. Particularly in Virginia, many Baptist preachers were prosecuted for "disturbing the peace" by preaching without licenses from the Anglican Church. Both Patrick Henry and James Madison defended Baptist preachers prior to the American Revolution in cases considered significant to the history of religious freedom. Madison later took his ideas about the importance of religious freedom to the Constitutional Convention, where he ensured they were incorporated into the constitution. Once the Revolution began, Baptists soon became active patriots in the cause.

Birth pains

By the mid-1800s, numerous social, cultural, economic, and political differences existed among business owners of the North, farmers of the West, and planters of the South. By 1840 these differences led to three separate Baptist national societies: the Triennial Convention, the Home Mission Society, and Baptists in the South.
   Slavery was the "most critical" issue among Baptists. Early Baptist and Methodist evangelicals in the South before the Revolution had promoted the view of the common man's equality before God, which embraced African Americans. They challenged the hierarchies of class and race, and urged planters to abolish slavery.
   Baptists struggled to gain a foothold in the South, the next generation of preachers accommodated themselves to the society. Rather than challenging the gentry on slavery, they began to find that the Bible supported its practice. In the two decades after the Revolution, preachers abandoned their pleas for manumission. They even wanted to preserve the rights of ministers themselves to hold slaves. The Triennial Convention and the Home Mission Society reaffirmed their neutrality concerning slavery.
   Georgia Baptists decided to test the claimed neutrality by recommending a slaveholder to the Home Mission Society as a missionary in the South. Home Mission Society's board decided that they wouldn't appoint a slaveholder as a missionary, a decision that the Baptists in the South saw as an infringement of their rights. The SBC didn't officially renounce using the Bible as a justification for slavery and white supremacy until June 20, 1995 when they issued a formal "Declaration of Repentance."
   A secondary issue that disturbed the churches in the south was the perception that the American Baptist Home Mission Society didn't appoint a proportionate number of missionaries to the southern region of the U.S. This was likely a result of the Society's not appointing slaveholders as missionaries.
   Baptists in different regions also preferred different types of denominational organization: the Baptists in the north preferred a loosely structured society composed of individuals who paid annual dues, with each society usually focused on a single ministry. Baptists in southern churches preferred a more centralized organization of congregations composed of churches patterned after their associations, with a variety of ministries brought under the direction of one denominational organization.

Formation

The increasing tensions and discontent of Baptists from the south regarding national criticism of slavery led to their withdrawal from the national Baptist organizations. Meeting at the First Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia in May 1845, they formed a new convention, naming it the Southern Baptist Convention. They elected William Bullein Johnson (1782-1862) as its first president. He had served as president of the Triennial Convention in 1841.
The consequences of the decision to separate from other Baptists in defense of white supremacy and the institution of slavery have been long lived. A survey by SBC's Home Mission Board in 1968 showed that only eleven percent of Southern Baptist churches would admit Americans of African descent. African Americans gathered to develop their own churches early on to practice their distinct form of American Christianity away from attempts by whites at control. Within the Baptist denomination, African Americans established separate associations. During the conservative resurgence, the Southern Baptist Convention of 1995 voted to adopt a resolution renouncing its racist roots and apologizing for its past defense of slavery. The resolution repenting racism marked the denomination's first formal acknowledgment that racism played a role in its early history. Today there are many diverse and even self-consciously ethnic churches within the convention.

Historical controversies

During its history, the Southern Baptist Convention has had several periods of major internal controversy. The denomination's lack of a hierarchical form of government (polity) lends itself toward public displays of disagreement, including:

Landmarkism, which led to the formation of Gospel Missions and the American Baptist Association, as well as many unaffiliated independent churches.

The "Whitsitt controversy" (1896–1899), in which Dr. William H. Whitsitt, professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, set forth his theory that the English Baptists didn't begin to baptize by immersion until 1641, when a part of the Anabaptists, as they were then called, began to practice immersion.

The "SBC Conservative Resurgence/Fundamentalist Takeover"— In 1979 the most notable recent disagreement captured national attention. The resurgence has been described by one Baptist leader as having fragmented Southern Baptist fellowship and as being "far more serious than a controversy." This leader wrote that "it was a self-destructive, contentious, one-sided feud that at times took on combative characteristics." Southern Baptists have become polarized into two major groups — moderates and conservatives. After 1979, all of the leaders of Southern Baptist agencies were replaced with fundamentalist leaders- as the majority of messengers in the convention voted that way.

Today

The SBC has grown from its regional, sectionalist roots to a major force in American and international Christianity. There are Southern Baptist congregations in every state and territory in the United States, though the greatest numbers remain in the Southern United States, its traditional stronghold.
The national scope of the Convention inspired some members to suggest a name change. In 2005, proposals were made at the Annual Meeting of the Convention, to change the name from the regional-sounding '"Southern Baptist Convention"' to a more national-sounding "North American Baptist Convention" or "Scriptural Baptist Convention" (to retain the SBC initials). The proposals were defeated.

Statistics

The SBC claims to have more than 16.6 million members in 44,000 churches throughout the US. One internal study by the SBC shows that on average, 38% of the membership (6,138,776 members, guests and non-member children) attend their church's primary worship meeting.
   It has 1,200 local associations, 41 state conventions and fellowships covering all 50 states and territories of the United States. Through their "Cooperative Program," Southern Baptists support thousands of missionaries in the United States and worldwide. They fielded over 10,000 missionaries in 2005.
   There are more Southern Baptist congregations in America than of any other religious group, including the Roman Catholic Church. In terms of members, there are three times more Catholics in the United States than Southern Baptists).
   Data from church sources and independent surveys indicate that since 1990, membership of SBC churches has declined as a proportion of the American population. Historically, though, the Convention has grown throughout its history.

Year	Membership
1845	350,000
1860	650,000
1875	1,260,000
1890	1,240,000
1905	1,900,000
1920	3,150,000
1935	4,480,000
1950	7,080,000
1965	10,780,000
1980	13,700,000
1995	15,400,000
2000	15,900,000
2005	16,600,000
Source

Theology and practice

The general theological perspective of the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention is represented in the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M). The BF&M was first drafted in 1925. It was revised significantly in 1963 and again in 2000, with the latter revision being the subject of much controversy. The BF&M isn't considered to be a creed, such as the Nicene Creed. Members are not required to adhere to it. Churches belonging to the SBC are not required to use it as their "Statement of Faith" or "Statement of Doctrine" (though many do in lieu of creating their own Statement). Despite the fact that the BF&M isn't a "creed," faculty in SBC-owned seminaries and missionaries who apply to serve through the various SBC missionary agencies must "affirm" that their practices, doctrine, and preaching are consistent with the BF&M.

Position statements

The official Web site of the Southern Baptist Convention lists ten "Position Statements" on various contemporary issues.

Priesthood of all believers—Laypersons have the same right as ordained ministers to communicate with God, interpret Scripture, and minister in Christ's name

Soul competency—the accountability of each person before God

Creeds and confessions—Statements of belief are revisable in light of Scripture. The Bible is the final word.

Women in ministry—Women are an integral part of Southern Baptist boards, faculties, mission teams, writer pools, and professional staffs. Pastoral leadership is assigned exclusively to men.

Church and state—a free church in a free state. Neither one should control the affairs of the other.

Missions—We honor the indigenous principle in missions. We cannot, however, compromise doctrine or give up who we're to win the favor of those we try to reach or those with whom we desire to work.

Autonomy of local church—We affirm the autonomy of the local church.

Cooperation—The Cooperative Program of missions is integral to the Southern Baptist genius.

Sexuality—We affirm God's plan for marriage and sexual intimacy—one man and one woman, for life. Homosexuality isn't a valid alternative lifestyle.

Sanctity of life—At the moment of conception, a new being enters the universe, a human being, a being created in God's image.

Ordinances and sacraments

Southern Baptists, as the Baptist Faith and Message these additions to the Baptist Faith and Message represent the first time such statements have been integrated into the statement of faith of a major American body of Baptists.

Pastorate

While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

By explicitly defining the pastoral office as the exclusive domain of males, the 2000 BF&M provision becomes the SBC's first-ever official position against women pastors.
   Since 1961, Progressive African American Baptists have developed a different tradition and practice in which women may serve as pastors.
   Autonomous local congregations are not required to adopt male-only pastors as their theological position. Neither the BF&M nor the SBC provides any mechanism to trigger automatic expulsion of congregations that adopt practices or theology contrary to the BF&M. However, going against the SBC's official gender protocol that SBC defends on biblical grounds, opens a local Baptist congregation to severe criticism and even further penalties. Some SBC churches that have hired a woman as pastor have been excluded from fellowship and membership in their local associations of Baptist churches. Fewer such expulsions have taken place within annual meetings of state conventions.
   While this "male-only pastors" language is indeed new to BF&M, it doesn't represent an innovation in Southern Baptist thought. At the time the Baptist Faith and Message was revised in 2000, only .08% of all SBC churches were pastored by women. (By contrast, 6.2% of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) churches and 9.1% of American Baptist Churches, USA (ABC-USA) churches are pastored by women.)

Marriage

The 2000 BF&M describes the family as:

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to his people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

Worship services

Most Southern Baptists observe a low church form of worship that's less formal and uses no stated liturgy. Worship services usually follow a "Revivalistic" liturgy including: hymns; prayer; choral music by a choir, soloist, or both; the reading of Scripture; the collection of offerings; a sermon; and an invitation to respond to the sermon. Recently, many churches have incorporated various instruments and styles of music into their worship services (see contemporary worship). People may respond during the invitation by receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and begin Christian discipleship, to enter into vocational ministry, to join the church, or make some other public decision.

Polity and organization

As is true of most Baptists, Southern Baptists' typical form of government is congregationalist: each local church is autonomous, without formal lines of responsibility to organizational levels of higher authority. Deacons of each church are elected by the congregation. In some Baptist congregations, deacons function much like a board of directors or executive committee authorized to make important decisions, although these congregations typically retain the right to vote on major decisions such as purchasing or selling property, large spending and the hiring or firing of pastors and other paid ministers.
In recent decades, many congregations have shifted the role of deacons from being a governing board to pastoral and nurturing responsibilities. One such model is the Deacon Family Ministry Plan in which the number of families in a local church is divided roughly among the active deacons. Each deacon is assigned responsibility for providing pastoral care and other spiritual nurture for the families assigned.
Because Baptist churches believe strongly in the autonomy of the local church; the Convention is conceived as a cooperative association by which churches can pool resources, rather than as a body with any administrative control over local churches. It maintains a central administrative organization in Nashville, Tennessee. The Executive Committee, as it's called, has no authority over its affiliated state conventions, local associations, individual churches or members. It does exercise authority and control over seminaries and other institutions owned by the Southern Baptist Convention. The Convention's confession of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message,

California Southern Baptist Convention

Florida Baptist Convention

Illinois Baptist State Association

Kentucky Baptist Convention

Louisiana Baptist Convention

Missouri Baptist Convention

Mississippi Baptist Convention

State Convention of Baptists in Ohio

Tennessee Baptist Convention

Baptist General Convention of Texas (dually aligned with both the SBC and the CBF)

Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) (convention formed as a conservative response to the more moderate Baptist General Convention of Texas)

Baptist General Association of Virginia (dually aligned with both the SBC and the CBF)

Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (convention formed as a conservative response to the more moderate Baptist General Association of Virginia)

State Convention of Baptists in Indiana

Georgia Baptist Convention

Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma

National convention

The "highest" level of organization is the national convention (usually called the "Convention") made up of individual churches, associations, and state conventions, which meets annually in early June. The following quotation from the SBC Constitution explains the membership and description of "messengers" to each annual meeting:

Article III. Membership: The Convention shall consist of messengers who are members of missionary Baptist churches cooperating with the Convention as follows:

One messenger from each church which: (1) Is in friendly cooperation with the Convention and sympathetic with its purposes and work. Among churches not in cooperation with the Convention are churches which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior. And, (2) Has been a bona fide contributor to the Convention's work during the fiscal year preceding.

One additional messenger from each such church for every two hundred and fifty members; or for each $250.00 paid to the work of the Convention during the fiscal year preceding the annual meeting.

The messengers shall be appointed and certified by the churches to the Convention, but no church may appoint more than ten.

Each messenger shall be a member of the church by which he's appointed. Article IV. Authority: While independent and sovereign in its own sphere, the Convention doesn't claim and will never attempt to exercise any authority over any other Baptist body, whether church, auxiliary organizations, associations, or convention.

Affiliated organizations

Missions agencies

The Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845 primarily for the purpose of creating a mission board to support the sending of Baptist missionaries. The North American Mission Board, or NAMB, (founded as the Domestic Mission Board, and later the Home Mission Board) in Alpharetta, Georgia serves missionaries involved in evangelism and church planting in the U.S. and Canada, while the International Mission Board, or IMB, (originally the Foreign Mission Board) in Richmond, Virginia sponsors missionaries to the rest of the world.

National educational institutions

The national Convention supports six educational institutions devoted to religious instruction and ministry preparation:

Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Mill Valley, California

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana (founded in 1916, first seminary created as a direct act of the SBC)

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky (founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, and the oldest of the six institutions)

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas

State educational institutions

The Education Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention used to deal with all matters concerning education. But since its recent dissolution all Baptist educational institutions are handled by their respective states.

For example, Criswell College in Dallas, Texas, is a Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) affiliated college. It is Southern Baptist in its doctrinal foundation but is supported by the state convention instead of the national one.
There are 52 state convention-supported higher educational institutions in their respective states. State conventions also support many prominent boarding academies.

Other organizations

Baptist Men on Mission, formally known as Brotherhood, BMEN is the mission organization for men in Southern Baptist Churches.

Baptist Press, the largest Christian news service in the country, was established by the SBC in 1946.

Guidestone Financial Resources (founded in 1920 as the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention) exists to provide insurance, retirement, and investment services to ministers and employees of Southern Baptist churches and agencies. It underwent a severe financial crisis in the 1930s.

LifeWay Christian Resources, founded as the Baptist Sunday School Board in 1891, which is one of the largest Christian publishing houses in America and operates the "LifeWay Christian Stores" chain of bookstores.

Women's Missionary Union, founded in 1888, is an auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention, and helps facilitate two large annual missions offerings: the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

Alliance of Baptists, founded in 1987, is an association of Baptist congregations favoring more liberal policies.

Prominent Southern Baptists

This list doesn't assume that all are active in the SBC or living their lives according to Southern Baptist principles. The following well-known individuals identified themselves as Southern Baptists at some time:

Former members

Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States. Carter left the SBC for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship because of his differences with the direction of the SBC leadership and beliefs.

Bill Clinton, former President of the United States. Raised Southern Baptist, but left the Convention due to disagreement with its positions. Working with Jimmy Carter to conduct "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant" meeting of approx. 30 Baptist denominations and organizations in the US and Canada: Atlanta, January 30 February 1, 2008.

Al Gore, Vice-President of the United States (1993–2001); Democratic presidential candidate in 2000. Gore was raised as a Southern Baptist, but like Carter and Clinton, he formally left the Southern Baptist Convention due to his disagreements with many of the SBC's positions.

Bill Moyers, raised a Southern Baptist and educated at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Now a member of The Riverside Church in New York City, a dually-aligned American Baptist-United Church of Christ congregation. Press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, later publisher of Newsday, and well-known journalist and TV commentator (CBS and PBS).

Continuing members

Billy Graham, preacher and educator

Franklin Graham, evangelist and missionary (son of Billy Graham)

Zach Johnson, professional golfer

Jack Graham, Former President of the Southern Baptist Convention and current pastor of mega-church Prestonwood Baptist Church.

Rick Warren, pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in California and author of The Purpose-Driven Life

Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas, and Republican candidate in the 2008 Presidential primaries

Duncan Hunter, US Congressman from San Diego County

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