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THE HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
The Southern Baptist (SBC) is a group of Christian believers based in the United States that is generally a conservative Christian denomination. It gets the name Southern from the fact that it was founded and rooted in the south. The Southern Baptist Convention became a separate denomination in 1845 when there was a regional split with northern Baptists over the issue of allocated funds. Although monies and missions were the main reason they split many think slavery was the main reason why the northern and southern Baptists split, there were three other key reasons to why they split as well.
Many Baptists came to the colonies from England In the early seventeenth century. the First Baptist Church in Charleston was, South Carolina was organized in 1632 and is The oldest Baptist church in the South, , there were around eight Baptist churches in 1740 in three colonies and consisted of around four hundred members. The Anglican Church was the official religion of the state and supported by general taxes In Virginia and most of the other Southern colonies before the Revolution; this made it complicated for a brisk spread of the Baptist faith in the South.
A view that the American Baptist Home Mission Society did not place an appropriate amount of missionaries to the southern region of the United States was a dilemma that troubled the Southern churches. This comes about from the result of the Society not assigning southerners as missionaries. Baptists in different regions of the country preferred different types of organization for their denomination. A loosely structured organization with individuals that paid yearly dues was favored by Northern Baptists, with each local society focusing on a single ministry. Baptists in the South had the ideal that their congregations needed to have a more centralized organization composed of churches patterned after their associations, with a mixture of ministries brought under one denominational group.
With the growing anxiety and disappointment of the southern Baptists regarding slavery and the national criticism they were receiving, the Baptists in the South withdrew from the National Baptist organizations. The Southern Baptist convention officially started in May of 1845 at the First Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia. The first president was William Johnson who had also served as president of the Triennial Convention in 1841.
Many events after the 1845 rupture further show how the regional groups of Baptists grew even farther apart. From 1865 and 1900 the economy begin to swing from agriculture to industry following the Civil War. Agriculture continued to be the chief money-making activity in the South. The problem of the revival of agriculture after the damage of the Civil War was the South’s major economic issue. The South’s recovery of the economy depended on the solution of many economic factors: the disruption of its labor system, the destruction of land improvements and capital investments, the competition of foreign cotton and the incapacitating hold of the one crop system. American churches were slow to recognize the significance of the changes going on around them and, for the most, religion constituted a basis of support for the conservative defense.
Another problem that created more tensions was segregation in the social relations between African Americans and whites. The Dover Baptist Association of Virginia wrestled with this problem and approved the division of religious ties between the whites and the African Americans. The Association stated it was “essential to the preservation of social distinctions." (Spain 97)
Southern whites in the post-Civil War era accepted emancipation, but they refused to grand political, social, economical or religion equality. Emancipation “destroyed the shackles of slavery,” (Spain 44) but it did not change the previous mold of race relations which developed over many centuries in the South. The Protestant churches of the South closed ranks after the Civil War in defense of the relationship between the races. Besides recognizing the freedom of the African Americans, Southern Baptists showed no signs of change in attitude from the emancipation. American churchmen have been aware of incongruity of slavery in the Christian faith, but not until the country became divided did it take a definite stand. The Northern churches of the major denominations favored abolition, whereas the Southern branches defended slavery to the end. Along with the Baptists, the Methodists split in 1844 and the Presbyterians split in 1861.
Since the split over slavery in 1845, the consequences of the decision to separate from the other Baptists to defend white supremacy and the institution of slavery have been long lived. African Americans developed their own churches early on to practice their own unique version of Christianity. African Americans also formed separate associations within the Baptist denomination. During the conservative resurgence, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to adopt a resolution called the “Resolution on Racial Reconciliation,” relinquishing its racist roots and asked for forgiveness for its past defense of slavery and white supremacy.
I must say that I did not agree with all the information I got from my sources as some of them were very different from the information we read form out class text and lectures. This was done on purpose as wanted to see some of the different ways people looked at the SBC. It seems that many sill see slavery as an issue.
Works Cited
Baker, Robert. ed. A Baptist Source Book. Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1966.
Baker, Robert. The Southern Baptist Convention and Its People, 1607 1972. Broadman Press, 1974.
Leonard, Bill J.. Dictionary of Baptists in America. Columbia University Press, 2005.
Leonard, Bill J. God’s Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990.
Spain, Rufus. At ease in Zion; social history of Southern Baptists, 1865-1900. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1967.
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