I don’t often comment on matters related to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). First, many people I admire know far more about the SBC than I do, so I’m inclined to defer to their wisdom, experience, and well, battle scars.
Second, commenting on matters Southern Baptist always feels like I’m stepping into the middle of a circular firing squad. Besides, the various characters seem to be having so much fun shooting at one another that I’m loath to disrupt their revelry.
But I’ll suspend my misgivings because I’ve mentioned the Southern Baptist Convention twice this past week in each of the courses I’m teaching this summer.
In my “Religion in North America” class, I often refer to the Southern Baptist Convention as one of only two major examples of religious groups in American history that elected to diminish their numbers in fidelity to doctrinal purity.
The first example is the Society of Friends in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. As the old saw goes, the Quakers came to America to do good, and they did well. That is to say that by the middle decades of the eighteenth century, Quakers had succeeded both economically and politically.
They became the majority political party in the Pennsylvania Assembly and the dominant force in the colony’s politics.
But the exercise of political power entailed compromises— as it invariably does. In this case, Quaker members of the Assembly were asked to appropriate funds for the Seven Years’ War. The war raged on both sides of the Atlantic, including Pennsylvania, compromising the pacifist scruples that had come to define Quakerism.
Working through the painstaking Quaker process of attaining consensus, the Society of Friends eventually decided that fidelity to pacifism was more important than exercising political power. The Society of Friends demanded that Quakers withdraw from politics or leave its ranks, and the consequence was a radical downsizing within the Society of Friends.
The conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979 provides the second example of a religious group electing to purge its ranks in deference to what the leaders regarded as doctrinal purity.
In this case, the issues were adherence to biblical inerrancy and opposition to women in leadership roles— matters of far lesser consequence, in my view. However, I have no interest in entering that circular firing squad.
Last year, the Southern Baptist Convention saw what was reportedly its largest annual decline in membership, from 13.680 million to 13.223. No worries, though. Women have been shoved aside, and biblical inerrancy (whatever that means) prevails.
In my other course this summer, a class on the sixties, I called attention to the famous 1967 meeting at Café du Monde in New Orleans between Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler. The meeting set in motion the aforementioned takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.
It took a dozen years and more than a little shifty maneuvering, but Pressler, a Texas judge and Patterson, then a seminary student, finally succeeded.
Those familiar with the history of the Southern Baptist Convention know the rest of the story all too well. It took several years and the election of a succession of conservatives to the presidency of the Convention, but the conservatives – some say fundamentalists— prevailed.
But the collateral damage was extensive.
Careers were jettisoned, and lives were ruined in the purge that ensued. Ordination, historically the province of Baptist congregations, was rejigged to prevent women from being ordained. Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, to cite only one example, was expelled for the crime of ordaining women as teaching pastors.
Most consequential in my view, Southern Baptists, marching in lockstep with the Religious Right, abandoned their historic role of patrolling the wall of separation between church and state. This provided an opening for the heresy of Christian nationalism.
The conservative takeover, on its face, was a success. Pressler, sometimes described as the Steve Bannon of the Southern Baptist Convention, lived to see the fruits of his labors, an utter eradication of “liberalism” in Southern Baptist institutions (although I’ve long contended that the term “liberal Southern Baptist” is an oxymoron).
At an anniversary celebration marking twenty-five years since the takeover, Pressler recalled, “It was like Gettysburg, but this time the right side won.”
Patterson went on to serve as president of Criswell College, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was also elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1998.
At every stop, he enforced his understanding of conservative orthodoxy. The Southern Baptist Convention was changed forever.
Is it churlish to point out what happened to these so-called visionaries who met long ago at Café du Monde?
Patterson was ousted from his post at Southwestern Seminary for his persistent misogyny and his mishandling of sexual abuse accusations. Pressler faced credible charges of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by seven young men dating back at least to 2003.
At the time of his death on June 7, several suits against him were pending. During the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, which convened four days after Pressler’s death, no one publicly mentioned his passing.
An Episcopal priest, Balmer is John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College and the author of more than a dozen books, with commentaries appearing in newspapers across the country. He is a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
