The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
For two years pressure from controversies about Critical Race Theory and investigations about sexual abuse built anticipation around the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Finally, in mid-June, the largest gathering of Southern Baptists in decades convened in Nashville. Here’s the upshot of what happened: Southern Baptists took their stand quite clearly on the side of historic evangelical theological and missionary conviction instead of on the side of an emerging hard-edged and suspicious vision of conservatism, one which I believe represents a nascent neo-fundamentalism.
To me, this stand is the most significant theological news following a contentious and close presidential election and debates of various issues (some tremendously important). That election saw four candidates with three leaders, Mike Stone, Ed Litton, and Al Mohler, splitting the vote three ways, Stone garnering 36%, Litton 33%, and Mohler 26% of the vote on the first ballot. Mohler, likely the most well-known living Southern Baptist, surprisingly polled third so that in the runoff on the second ballot the convention voted head-to-head in a contest between Stone and Litton. Stone, a pastor in Georgia, represented a narrower vision of theological (and political) conservatism, and Litton, a pastor in Alabama, represented a more expansive vision for evangelical unity in diversity. Litton prevailed with 52% of the vote. (Although in recent weeks questions and concerns have emerged regarding Litton’s use of sermon material first preached by the immediate past President of the SBC, JD Greear, Litton’s victory nevertheless represents the current triumph of evangelical rather than fundamentalist convictions in the Southern Baptist Convention. The question of preaching and plagiarism is an important one to ask and answer, but it remains beyond the scope of my broader assessment of the current state of the SBC below). Here I want to show three ways that the SBC staked out a clear, if contested, claim for its own form of historic, evangelical convictions.
Southern Baptists are historic evangelicals
Although Southern Baptists voted quite closely to elect Litton over Stone, the actual vote (as some have already pointed out) was 60% in favor of Litton and Mohler. Here we find that a decisive majority of Southern Baptists prefer a more expansive evangelicalism to a more narrow one bordering on (or becoming) a neo-fundamentalism. This neo-fundamentalist impulse trajects toward a suspicious posture toward the surrounding culture, a more tightly held hard-edge in interpretations of contested biblical doctrines, and (perhaps most tellingly) a political conservatism that tends to align quite consistently with GOP politics.
In contrast, Litton and Mohler both represented a more historic evangelical impulse, one defined less by politics and more by historic evangelical theological and missiological convictions. An evangelical has often been defined according to “the Bebbington quadrilateral,” four aspects of evangelical conviction as described by church historian David Bebbington: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism (cf. "What Is An Evangelical"). Evangelicals have historically committed themselves to seeing people become Christians (conversionism), to righting social wrongs (activism), grounding their claims in Scripture as the basic authority (biblicism), and revolving all of life and mission around the cross of Christ (crucicentrism). By refusing to explicitly denounce Critical Race Theory or retract a previous statement about it (the much debated "Resolution 9" of 2019) and outlining, again, the supremacy of Scripture for issues of racial justice and reconciliation, Southern Baptists demonstrated their biblicism and their activism. In demanding overwhelmingly that alleged coverups of sexual abuse be investigated, along with affirming, again, the reality of systemic racism and injustice, Southern Baptists demonstrated their activism beyond lines of simply partisan politics. By adopting an ambitious goal of expanding the missionary impact of Southern Baptists and their churches, Southern Baptists affirmed their commitment to conversionism.
Nearly 75 years ago, Carl Henry published the volume, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. There Henry took aim at the lack of social concern that fundamentalists in the first-half of the 20th century showed toward the social world in which they lived. He outlined a different vision, one that partly catalyzed a resurgence of historic evangelicalism for the next half-century. Although historically Southern Baptists have been unsure about whether or not they have been, in fact, evangelicals, this year was a clear even if implicit affirmation of the contours of a more expansive evangelicalism instead of the narrowing mindset of a nascent neo-fundamentalistism.
Southern Baptists are institutional evangelicals
I have said before that the network of the SBC hangs together on the doubled hook of a shared theological conviction and a shared missionary passion. Southern Baptists believe the gospel, and they want to tell others about it so that those others can believe it as well. Southern Baptist churches, at their best, cooperate together to get the gospel to the neighborhoods (through the North American Mission Board) and the nations (through the International Mission Board), and to equip the emerging generation of pastors and leaders through the six SBC seminaries. I am a convinced rather than a cultural Southern Baptist, meaning that I am a Southern Baptist on purpose and not by accident. Having never been a Southern Baptist, I moved from California to attend a Southern Seminary in Kentucky; and I marveled as I learned about the ways Southern Baptists networked together to accomplish the Great Commission and theological education. I have been a convinced Southern Baptist ever since, graduating with degrees from two SBC seminaries, teaching as an adjunct professor at another, and pastoring two SBC churches, one that is decades older than me and another that I am leading the charge to plant.
Walking the halls of the exhibits and convention center and the aisles of the meeting room reminded me, again, why I am not merely a convictional evangelical, but a convictional Southern Baptist evangelical. Rather than loosely associating with “like-minded” ministries and churches, Southern Baptists have institutions and structures to effectively work in obedience to our Great Commander’s mission of making disciples of the nations. Yes, systems and structures inevitably create systemic and structural problems. I could tweet-thread all day about such systemic problems in the SBC (and some days I have done pretty much that!). But as Yuval Levin in A Time to Build has pointed out, such institutions at their best have a good and formational power for those inside of them; and this, in turn, has a positive impact on those outside of those institutions. It’s said that you can’t make old friends. Likewise, you can’t build old institutions. The Southern Baptist institutional network of ministry and mission was affirmed at the 2021 annual meeting, while many also refused to ignore needed reforms. The triumph of a President who was known to be committed to appointing a task force to investigate alleged failures related to sexual abuse and to pursue racial justice manifests the Southern Baptist Convention’s commitment to both affirming and reforming her institutions.
Southern Baptists are uneasy evangelicals
Every year, with every decision, in ways quiet and small and in ways loud and large, Southern Baptists choose whether to meet the world with missionary and theological conviction or with anger and suspicion. The SBC has a loud and fairly significant group of those inclined less toward historic evangelicalism and more toward a narrower fundamentalism. As outgoing President JD Greear has said, the SBC must continue to decide which part of its name is more significant, “Southern or Baptist.” Greear has said that forty years ago the SBC was in danger of veering away from historic evangelical (and orthodox) Christian conviction and becoming more liberal than Jesus. Now the danger is on the other side of the horse: becoming a convention that is more conservative than Jesus. Southern Baptists staked a historic evangelical claim this summer, but the Southern Baptist conscience remains uneasy with that claim. Each church must continue to choose, and so much the convention as a whole.
I have said a number of times that I believe the most under-rated moment of the convention was a brief statement from Adam Greenway, President of Southwestern Seminary in Texas. Someone asked him about the six SBC seminary Presidents’ statement on Critical Race Theory published late last year, a statement that had devastating effects on the morale of leaders of color in the SBC, with some disassociating with the convention entirely. Greenway said clearly that the statement did not reject the idea of systemic or structural injustice, and in a powerful moment he apologized and asked for forgiveness from brothers and sisters of color. That moment illustrates the prevailing yet contested evangelical conviction of the SBC in this season. For all the smoke and heat, debate and distraction, Southern Baptists basically affirmed historic evangelical theological and missiological convictions. And this is, I believe, a very good thing.
Danny Slavich is the Pastor of Cross United Church in Pompano Beach. He completed his PhD at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His dissertation is entitled “That the World May Know: A Trinitarian Multiethnic Ecclesiology. Danny is a member of the St. John Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
