Note: Just prior to the start of last months Southern Baptist Convention,
some 600 persons gathered for a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the
conservative resurgency. The following two articles relate to that anniversary.
Note: Just prior to the start of last months Southern Baptist Convention,
some 600 persons gathered for a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the
conservative resurgency. The following two articles relate to that anniversary.
Twenty-five years ago this summer, some 15,000 Southern Baptists gathered
in Houston for their annual meeting.
That 1979 convention featured a special mission emphasis (Bold Mission Thrust)
as well as a sermon by evangelist Billy Graham. However, today, the meeting
is best remembered for one thing – the beginning of the conservative resurgence.
Messengers elected then-47-year-old Adrian Rogers with 51 percent of the vote
on the first ballot, marking the first of a long string of conservative victories
and signaling the denominations shift to the right.
But it did not happen overnight.
From 1979 to 1990, conservatives and moderates struggled for control of the
denomination, nominating opposing candidates for convention president each year.
Attendance swelled. Media interest grew.
In 1985, a record 45,000 messengers attended the convention, spilling into
overflow seating. The controversy was featured on talk shows, including ABCs
“Nightline.”
In the years leading up to the resurgence, conservatives had charged that seminary
professors were espousing unorthodox and even heretical beliefs.
Nevertheless, little changed.
In the early 1960s, Broadman Press – the SBC publishing house – released
a book by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Ralph Elliott in
which he denied the historicity of Adam and Eve, said the Genesis flood was
not worldwide and asserted that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by natural
occurrences.
A controversy ensued, and Elliott was told not to republish the book. He did
so anyway and was fired.
In part a reaction to the Elliott controversy, the 1925 Baptist Faith &
Message was revised. While the new 1963 statement said the Bible had “truth
without any mixture of error,” it included an addition that later drew
the criticism of conservatives.
The addition read: “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted
is Jesus Christ.” While some said it was intended to emphasize Jesus
affirmation of Old Testament teachings, some used it to pit Jesus words
against the rest of the Bible – for instance, the words of Paul.
The controversy was just beginning.
In 1969, Broadman Press published the Genesis-Exodus volume of the Broadman
Bible Commentary – and it was critical of a literal historical interpretation
of the Bible.
The volume resulted in messengers to the 1970 convention passing calling for
the withdrawal of the volume – and a rewrite.
There was more to come.
In 1971 – two years before the Roe v. Wade decision – convention
messengers passed a resolution supporting legalized abortion in cases of “severe
fetal deformity” and in cases where the pregnancy could damage the “emotional,
mental, and physical health of the mother.”
Three years later – after Roe v. Wade – messengers reaffirmed the
position.
Meanwhile, the battle regarding the direction of the conventions seminaries
was a focal point of conservative concerns. They charged that seminaries were
destroying the faith of their students.
Conservatives maintained a change in leadership could rescue the convention.
But it all had to start with the president.
In Southern Baptist life, the national convention president appoints several
committees. One of those is the Committee on Committees, and it has the most
power. That committee nominates the Committee on Nominations, which in turn
nominates the members of the boards of trustees for all the entities (including
the seminaries).
By carefully appointing likeminded individuals to the Committee on Committees,
the president can – in time – impact nearly every element of Southern
Baptist life.
The strategy was championed by Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler, two men who
had met in the late 1960s and discovered they shared concerns about the convention.
Of course, Southern Baptists had elected conservative presidents in the past
– but they did not yet understand the power of the office. Now, conservatives
understood – but the strategy would work only if messengers showed up at
the conventions.
They did – and conservatives did not lose a single election during those
years.
They even won in 1988, when messengers elected Jerry Vines by 692 votes out
of 32,000 cast – the closest election during the conservative resurgence.
And at New Orleans in 1990 – the last year that moderates nominated an
opposing candidate – messengers chose Morris Chapman by 57 percent of the
vote.
“I remember one family from South Bend, Ind. – they had five children
and drove non-stop to Los Angeles to the Southern Baptist Convention in 1981”
Pressler said. “They voted and (then) drove non-stop back (home), eating
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They didnt spend a night in a motel
because they didnt have the money.
“Thats the type of sacrifice that won.”
Meanwhile, debate about the source of the controversy was itself a controversy.
Moderates charged that conservatives were after power. However, conservatives
asserted that biblical authority was the source of dispute and that the convention
had strayed from its biblical, historical roots.
In the end, a Peace Committee was formed to investigate the claims. The committees
1987 report sided mostly with conservatives. It said the primary source of the
controversy was “the Bible; more specifically, the ways in which the Bible
is viewed.”
The conservative strategy worked, although it took time.
The first conservative entity head was William Crews, elected president of
Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in 1987. The last entity to see a conservative
leader was Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1994.
Eventually, every entity saw a change in leadership – from the six seminaries
to the two mission boards to the denominations publishing house. Also,
seminary professors today are required to teach within the boundaries of biblical
inerrancy. Leadership is required to affirm inerrancy as well.
Meanwhile, the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (formerly
the Christian Life Commission) is a staunch pro-lifer and champion of pro-life
causes.
Twenty-five years later, conservatives look at the national denomination landscape
and wonder – Where would the SBC be without the conservative resurgence?
“Look where the mainline denominations are,” said Albert Mohler Jr.,
president at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “You have the Episcopalian
church ordaining an openly homosexual bishop. The United Methodist Church (recently)
refused to even admit that homosexuality is dealt with clearly in their standards.
Do you have the sense that if the conservative resurgence had not happened,
thats exactly where we would be?
“I am absolutely certain its right.”