Cain lured his brother out to the field where he “attacked his brother Abel and killed him” (Gen. 4:8). We could describe this first, primal sin after humanity rebelled against God in any number of ways, including the misuse and abuse of power. Cain had the strength—the power—of mind and stature to destroy a life. From marriages to the military, the typology of this tragic tale has replayed itself across the rough cut scenes of history. People with power—strengths of mind, body, authority, resources, and more—all too often neglect the proper use of power and instead mis-use and ab-use it. The last half-decade has displayed such ugly scenes, as #MeToo has trended on our screens and #ChurchToo has reminded us that the bride of Christ is not immune. Stories of powerful pastors and Christian leaders like Bill Hybels, Ravi Zacharias, and Mark Driscoll demonstrate the ways that power can accrue to a person and that person can grossly abuse people with that power. This is a problem, clearly.

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.