You By Will Hall, Message Editor ALEXANDRIA (LBM)—Southern Baptist history is complicated. Slavery is most often cited as the cause for the split from Northern Baptists that led to the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, and it was a decisive factor. However, Southern Baptists also strongly disagreed with Northern Baptists regarding how they were organized as the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions (also known as the Triennial Convention). In general, Southern members preferred a more centralized structure of operating while Northern members favored the formation of independent societies for home missions, foreign missions and the publication of tracts, according to historian Robert A. Baker. Likewise, Baptists in the South felt they were not being treated equitably in the appointment of home missionaries to the region. But, the records of the first SBC annual meeting indicate the final straw was the approval by the Board of the Triennial Convention, in a Boston meeting, of a new rule that prohibited slave owners from serving as foreign missionaries. W.B. Johnson, the first SBC president, perceived the action not in terms of … [Read more...]