RIP, SBC: The Cannibalistic Instincts of the Southern Baptist Convention

The Southern Baptist Convention met this week in Orlando, Florida. More than 11,000 delegates attended the annual meeting, representing over 12 million Southern Baptists. Those delegates represent just 0.09% of the denomination, yet they make decisions that affect every church and member.

The convention elected Florida pastor Willy Rice as its next president with 58% of the vote. Rice is a conservative firebrand, signaling the convention continues moving further right. Last year, he attempted to dissolve the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), citing its acceptance of “progressive” organizations.

The ERLC has long served as a conservative voice within the denomination, holding anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ positions. However, when former ERLC head Russell Moore criticized President Donald Trump’s immoral behavior, many fundamentalists in the convention called for his firing.

Rice recently criticized current leadership, saying the denomination has experienced “decline and drift” away from conservative theology and into a “mushy middle ground.”

He has also suggested the SBC’s sexual abuse crisis was more about “stopping the world’s largest group of conservative Christians.” Former SBC president and Dallas pastor Jack Graham echoed that view, claiming the denomination never had a “systemic sexual abuse crisis” and calling it a “reckless hoax.”

In 2019, the Houston Chronicle reported that Southern Baptist leadership had kept a secret list of more than 700 offenders. One of them was Paul Pressler, a key architect of the conservative takeover of the denomination.

Another major issue at this year’s meeting was women pastors. By a vote of 75%, the convention moved closer to tightening its restrictions on women serving as church leaders and pastors.

The constitutional amendment was introduced by Southern Baptist Seminary president Al Mohler, a longtime critic of women pastors. Mohler said the motion would allow the SBC to “move forward in unity and truth.”

If passed again next year, the prohibition will become permanent. Kansas pastor Colin Smothers voiced support, asking, “What better way to express our countercultural commitment to the goodness of God’s word than to affirm God’s creation order related to the office of pastor?”

In 2020, the SBC revised its statement of faith, The Baptist Faith and Message, to declare that while both men and women are gifted for service, “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” The new amendment would make that prohibition ironclad.

Drifting Further
The continued rightward movement of the 12‑million‑member denomination has taken it into troubling territory. Since the 1980s, the SBC has shifted steadily toward fundamentalist theology and conservative politics. Conservative leaders gained control through coordinated campaigns against moderates within their own ranks.

Using the Bible as a weapon, leaders labeled dissenters “liberal” and questioned their belief in Scripture, while steadily eliminating opposition and consolidating authority.

The strategy proved so effective that scholar Sara Diamond argued in Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States that the SBC takeover became a blueprint for political operatives seeking to capture the Republican Party.

As history watches the ongoing evolution of both the SBC and the Republican Party, one lesson becomes clear: when rigid ideological loyalty overwhelms diversity of opinion, large groups slide toward populism.

An “us versus them” mentality becomes a cancer. The goal shifts from broad welcome to ideological purity. Protecting the in‑group becomes more important than mission.

Eventually, once one group is expelled, attention turns inward again. Loyalists begin devouring their own. The Southern Baptist Convention increasingly displays this cannibalistic pattern.

When exclusion becomes a core value, more and more people are pushed out under the banner of purity—even those who share most of the group’s core beliefs.

The SBC, once the world’s largest Protestant denomination with enormous potential for good, continues drifting toward irrelevance—more concerned with control than contribution.

RIP, SBC.