Southern Baptist Convention

Southern Baptist Convention
AbbreviationSBC; GCB
ClassificationProtestant
OrientationBaptist
TheologyEvangelical Fundamentalist
PolityCongregational
PresidentBart Barber
RegionUnited States
OriginMay 8–12, 1845
Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
Separated fromTriennial Convention (1845)
Separations
Congregations47,198 (2022)
Members13,223,122 (2022)
Weekly attendance = 3,800,000 (2022)
Missionary organizationInternational Mission Board
Aid organizationSouthern Baptist Disaster Relief
Other name(s)Great Commission Baptists
Official websitesbc.net

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States.[1][2] In 1845 the Southern Baptists separated from the Triennial Convention in order to support slavery, which the southern churches regarded as "an institution of heaven".[3][4] During the 19th and most of the 20th century, it played a central role in Southern racial attitudes, supporting racial segregation and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy while opposing interracial marriage.[5] In 1995, the organization apologized for its history.[6] Since the 1940s, it has spread across the United States, having member churches across the country and 41 affiliated state conventions.[7][8][9]

Churches affiliated with the denomination are evangelical in doctrine and practice, emphasizing the significance of the individual conversion experience, which is affirmed by the person having complete immersion in water for a believer's baptism.[9] The church says that other specific beliefs based on biblical interpretation can vary by congregational polity, and has resolved to balance local church autonomy with accountability against abuses by ministers and others in the church.[10] These claims are disputed by pastors whose churches have been expelled because of their support for LGBTQ inclusion, which contradicts its confession of faith.[11] The denomination forbids women from becoming pastors,[12] and denounces same-sex marriage as an "abomination".[13] Like most other conservative evangelical denominations in the 1960s, the Southern Baptist Convention initially predominantly supported the abortion rights movement,[14] but that changed beginning in the 1970s as a political tactic to incorporate Catholics into the religious right.[15][16]

Self-reported membership peaked in 2006 at roughly 16 million.[17] Membership has contracted by an estimated 13.6% since that year, with 2020 marking the 14th year of continuous decline.[18] Mean denomination-wide weekly attendance dropped about 27% between 2006 and 2020.[17][19]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Johnson 2010, p. 349.
  3. ^ Griswold, Eliza (June 10, 2021). "Southern Baptist Convention: How the Convention's battle over race reveals an emerging evangelical schism". Retrieved August 17, 2023. Founders of the new organization claimed that, according to the Bible, slavery was an institution of heaven. They pushed the idea that Black people were descended from the Biblical figure Ham, Noah's cursed son, and that their subjugation was therefore divinely ordained
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Newman, Mark (2001). Getting Right With God: Southern Baptists and Desegregation, 1945–1995. University of Alabama Press. pp. IX of preface. ISBN 978-0-8173-1060-8.
  6. ^ Carter, Gary L. (June 21, 1995). "An Apology For Racism". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  7. ^ "Southern Baptist Convention", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, Encyclopedia.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference aboutus was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b "Fact box: The Southern Baptist Convention". Reuters. June 10, 2008. Retrieved July 6, 2010.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference autonomy was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Yawn, Andrew J. "A Georgia church, kicked out of the SBC for allowing gay members, wants to make sure 'everybody's welcome'". USA TODAY. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
  12. ^ Diaz, Jaclyn (March 2, 2023). "What's next for the Southern Baptist Convention after it ousted 5 woman-led churches?". National Public Radio. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  13. ^ Merrell, Bill (September 1, 1999). "Redemption – Not Approval". Baptist Press. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
  14. ^ Roach, David (January 16, 2015). "How Southern Baptists became pro-life". Baptist Press. Retrieved April 25, 2023. Three years later, a poll conducted by the Baptist Standard newsjournal found that 90 percent of Texas Baptists believed their state's abortion laws were too restrictive... Support for abortion rights was not limited to theological moderates and liberals. At New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in the early 1970s, some conservative students who went on to become state convention presidents and pastors of prominent churches supported abortion for reasons other than to save the life of the mother...
  15. ^ Edsall, Thomas B. (September 15, 2021). "Abortion Has Never Been Just About Abortion". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 6, 2023. In 1978, the hostile reaction to an I.R.S. proposal to impose taxes on churches running segregated private schools ("seg academies" for the children of white Southerners seeking to avoid federally mandated school integration orders) provided the opportunity to mobilize born again and evangelical parishioners through the creation of the Moral Majority. As Stewart argues, Viguerie, Weyrich and others... were determined to find an issue that could bring together a much larger constituency... After long and contentious debate... [they] came to a consensus, Stewart writes: "They landed upon the one surprising word that would supply the key to the political puzzle of the age: 'abortion.'"
  16. ^ Balmer, Randall (May 27, 2014). "The Real Origins of the Religious Right". POLITICO. Retrieved April 25, 2023.
  17. ^ a b "Annual of the 2006 Southern Baptist Convention" (PDF). Executive Committee, Southern Baptist Convention. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 10, 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
  18. ^ Smietana, Bob (May 21, 2021). "Southern Baptist decline continues, denomination has lost more than 2 million members since 2006". Religion News Service. Religion News Service. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
  19. ^ Howe, Jonathan (May 20, 2021). "Southern Baptists grow in number of churches, plant 588 new congregations amid COVID-19 pandemic – Baptist Press". www.baptistpress.com/. Retrieved June 10, 2021.