A Little Bit about Being a Baptist

On June 11-12, messengers from Southern Baptist churches across our country will gather for the annual business meeting of the largest evangelical denomination in the United States. Being Southern Baptist is a part of my heritage. I grew up in the home of a Southern Baptist pastor, went to Southern Baptist schools for my education, and pastor a Southern Baptist Church.

We are far from perfect as a denomination, and I expect that the annual meeting will result in a fair amount of politics and controversies. Being millions of member strong and 50,000 churches, doctrinal and practical diversity are part of what it means to be Southern Baptist. Here are a few general observations about our denomination.

We believe in the gospel and the authority of Scripture. Decades ago grassroots Baptists anchored the denomination on the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture. This doctrinal and political battle waged on the floors of annual meetings in the 1980s, and the result has been that Southern Baptists retain a high view of the authority of Scripture which undergirds the gospel that saves.

Missions is the reason we cooperate. The reason we give, gather, and go is for the spread of the gospel to the nations. The cooperative program has been around nearly 100 years and combines giving from churches across the US to support missions across the globe. When giving from thousands of churches is combined, missionaries can go to the nations with the gospel and not have to fundraise for their income. While we don’t always agree on everything (see below), we do agree that cooperation for the spread of the gospel is the primary reason we exist.

Church autonomy and doctrinal latitude have resulted in Southern Baptists being a big tent. At the annual meeting, messengers gather from cooperative churches for two days. The convention is only for two days with messengers making up the decision-making body of the denomination. In Southern Baptist life, there is no church hierarchy or governing body that decides for the convention messengers. If you’ve ever been to a church business meeting, the SBC annual meeting functions similarly. This means that votes will happen about business (budgets and denominational entities), leadership, and even theological issues when we gather next week. The messengers attending, the votes cast, and the decisions made will vary. Church autonomy means that each local Southern Baptist Congregation is responsible for governing itself and decides whether or not it will cooperate with the convention. The convention can separate its cooperation from churches whose practice or doctrine does not function within the parameters of the Baptist Faith and Message. Some of the decisions at this year’s annual meeting reflect these tensions. For example, the messengers will vote on an amendment to the denomination’s bylaws establishing who is eligible to pastor Southern Baptist churches and remain cooperative within the denomination. Positions on this issue vary even though the prevailing doctrinal position of Southern Baptists has a strong consensus that the role of pastor/elder is reserved for qualified males. Even so, how this doctrinal consensus will be applied at the denominational level has a variety of perspectives and will receive attention at the upcoming meeting.

If you are reading this as a member of a Southern Baptist church, like Wilkesboro Baptist, I would encourage you to pray for the upcoming annual meeting. Pray that Christ would be honored when we gather and as we interact with one another. Pray that messengers and guests would act in a Christlike manner toward each other. Pray that the decisions made, the budgets passed, and the missionaries commissioned will help to spread the gospel to our neighbors and the nations.

If you would like to learn more about Southern Baptists, here are a few links to follow.

Photo by Joshua Rodriguez on Unsplash

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