NEWS FEATURE: Baptist conservative-moderate struggle moves to state level

c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Twenty years after the start of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, the agenda for the upcoming meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination seems relatively mild. The sermons, prayers and reports are all there, but the theological infighting between moderates and conservatives has quieted on […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Twenty years after the start of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, the agenda for the upcoming meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination seems relatively mild.

The sermons, prayers and reports are all there, but the theological infighting between moderates and conservatives has quieted on the national level. Now the ideological struggle in this 15.7 million-member denomination has shifted to Baptist state conventions.


In three states, Baptists are working out new ways to relate to one another _ or not. In Virginia and Texas, there are now two state conventions _ one composed principally of conservatives and the other a moderate-controlled mix of moderates and conservatives. And in North Carolina, conservatives and moderates are using bridge-building terminology as they consider a plan for shared leadership.”I think what we’re seeing emerge is a whole new structure of relationship between state and national levels of this denomination, and right now there is no one single way to do it,”said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

For decades, Ammerman said, Southern Baptists had a fairly simple system of”centralized unity”: individual churches associated with one local association; local associations, in turn, linked with one state convention; and the state conventions related to the national denomination.”It’s all very neat and hierarchical, and it’s now becoming less neat and much more autonomous,”said Ammerman, author of”Baptist Battles,”a 1990 analysis of the conservative resurgence.

When Southern Baptists gather in Atlanta June 15-16, no conventionwide celebration of conservative control has been planned. Instead, the agenda includes SBC Executive Committee recommendations to maintain the denomination’s name and its decision to hold the 2000 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., home of Walt Disney World, one of the Disney conglomerate’s theme parks that is being boycotted by some Southern Baptists.

Paige Patterson, one of the architects of the conservative resurgence, is expected to be elected to a second one-year term as president without opposition.

But on the state level, Baptist divisions remain evident. In Virginia and Texas, there are now two separate and markedly different conventions. Although some churches are dually aligned with the two conventions in their states, some have chosen to be sole members of the convention they believe represents them best. In each state, the newer, conservative-led convention sends more undesignated funds to the Southern Baptist Convention while the moderate-controlled group offers giving options that support moderate and other causes.

Baptists in Virginia were the first to flex their autonomous muscles, with the creation of the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia in 1996. A total of 212 churches have aligned with the new group, many moving from the larger Baptist General Association of Virginia, which now has 1,474 affiliated churches.

The Rev. Doyle Chauncey, executive director of the Virginia conservative group, says the unity within the individual groups is a benefit that’s come from separation.”You can start talking about the stuff that really matters _ how to start new churches, how to win people to Jesus _ rather than talking about each other,”he said.”After all, the enemy is not us. The enemy is the devil.” Despite their theological differences, leaders of the conventions agree that their division has allowed them to refocus on other issues.”I think the changes that have been most apparent have been the sense that people feel they have a home they’re happy with,”said Bob Dale, assistant executive director of the larger Virginia Baptist group.”One of the positive outcomes has been the attention toward starting more churches because now instead of having one (convention) working on church starts and new ministries, we have two.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)


The Rev. David Key, director of the Baptist Studies Program at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, said the unique tension between”the thoughtfulness of the moderates and passion of fundamentalists”has been replaced with some opting for more homogeneous groups.”It’s gotten dysfunctional in the last 20 years,”said Key, whose program is based in Atlanta.

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Last year, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention began when some conservatives felt they could no longer remain in the moderate-led Baptist General Convention of Texas, which continues to be the largest state convention with 2.7 million members.

More than 300 churches have aligned with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, said the Rev. Miles Seaborn, its president emeritus.

Although the state conventions may be somewhat unified within themselves, the moderate-conservative struggles in Texas have drifted to the congregational level.”It has brought the challenge of positionalizing yourself right into each church,”said Seaborn.”They have to vote where their money is going.” The larger Texas group remains strong with about 4,800 churches, said the Rev. Ed Schmeltekops, associate executive director. He says more churches have joined than have departed since the conservative group began.

But Schmeltekops said now that there is a choice of state conventions, some congregations have set up”denominational study committees”to determine their future alignment while others already have split over the issue.”I don’t believe Christ would have us to divide. … Sometimes it happens,”he said.”One result is that both churches will do better if they’re not fussing all the time, if they’re working together in their smaller groups.” There are, of course, dozens of other state conventions where similar divisions are not pending immediately.”There are none poised for that to happen at this particular time,”said the Rev. David Dockery, president of SBC-related Union University in Jackson, Tenn.”Every state is different and some states are quite harmonious and others, like Virginia and Texas, are … conflictual.” Some conservative and moderate North Carolinians hope they can move beyond the fighting by sharing the leadership of Baptist state bodies. Under the plan, conservatives and moderates would alternate as leaders of both the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and its general board, which does the business of the convention throughout the year. At the moment, conservatives are leading the convention and moderates control the general board.

The general board approved the plan in May, but its final adoption will be determined by a vote at the convention’s meeting in November.”We’ve chosen not to go the way of Virginia and Texas,”said the Rev. Greg Mathis, a conservative pastor from Hendersonville, N.C., who co-chairs the Commission on Cooperation, an ad hoc committee of the 1.2 million-member convention.”They’ve split, and we’re trying to work things out and work together as opposed to dividing.” Some hope the plan doesn’t get the two-thirds majority vote necessary from the convention.”In Texas and Virginia, each party declared who they were and went their ways,”said R. Gene Puckett, retired editor of the Biblical Recorder, the convention’s news journal and a moderate opponent of the plan.”Here in North Carolina, we’re making it fuzzy.” But the Rev. David Hughes, a Winston-Salem pastor and moderate supporter of the plan, is more hopeful. He sees it as a way for churches to continue to share statewide evangelistic work, even if they disagree on ordaining women as deacons or close alignment with the SBC.”I really believe that this would be a great witness to the Baptist world _ and maybe to the world at large _ to see two groups building bridges with one another rather than feud with one another,”Hughes said.”I feel it would be very pleasing to God and helpful to the kingdom if this could happen.”


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