1995 SBC restructuring and 2000 faith statement signaled maturity of theological movement.

They said it couldn’t be done. For that matter, it shouldn’t be done.

Former Southern Baptist Convention entity heads doubted the long-term impact of electing a conservative, Adrian Rogers, to the SBC presidency in 1979, writing it off as a political maneuver “loyal Southern Baptists” would reject.

Twenty-five years later many of the conservative challengers are leading SBC ministries, influenced by lessons learned amid the controversy between theological conservatives and moderates. Theological integrity was at the center of the reformation conservatives sought in the denomination. From hiring seminary faculty holding to a high view of Scripture to examining the doctrinal beliefs of missionaries serving at home and abroad, the priority of applying Bible-based convictions can’t be overstated in understanding the conservative resurgence.

Two recent developments?a restructuring of the denomination’s bureaucracy in 1995 and passage of a revised Baptist Faith and Message confessional statement in 2000?completed the reformation. The former reaffirmed the local church as the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention. The latter clarified doctrinal guidelines in precise language on issues of biblical inerrancy, church officers and the traditional family?thus removing slack for doublespeak when stating one’s views on the nature of Scripture, for example.

IN TOUCH WITH GRASSROOTS

Every SBC entity leader elected after their trustee body gained a conservative majority recognized the importance of grassroots connection. “Having been part of the conservative resurgence from the beginning, I was very much aware of the fact that many of the agency heads had either purposely or unconsciously insulated themselves from a huge constituency within the convention,” said Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land. “They either ignored them or were unaware of them.”

He recalled a related conversation he had with former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Duke McCall while the two were attending a Baptist World Alliance meeting early in Land’s tenure. Land quoted McCall as saying, “‘Well, there’s no question, we got so busy running the machinery of the convention that we lost touch with the rank and file.'”

Land determined the ethics entity would not lose touch, pledging the staff was “there to serve the local church.” He keeps a certain number of Sundays open in case smaller churches invite him to preach. “Bigger, multi-staff churches do more planning. By the time smaller churches invite you to preach you’re booked up.”

James T. Draper accepted a similar challenge when he followed Lloyd Elder as head of the Baptist Sunday School Board. The editor of the Indiana Baptist challenged Draper and department leaders to seek and accept chances to preach and worship in places like Gas City, Ind., or Goshen, Ark., so to “remember how gritty it can be in a small-town, single-staff church.” Within a few weeks, Draper accepted an invitation arranged by an Arkansas trustee of the Sunday School Board to preach at the church’s Goshen mission.

Draper also changed how the trustees interacted with Sunday School Board staff. “I inherited a debriefing session,” he explained, referring to a meeting his predecessor held with about 20 key administrators after each board meeting. Staff would be asked to share anything they’d heard trustees say about their work.

“Trustees had been told not to talk to staff and the staff had been told not to talk to trustees. I never saw so much smoke and mirrors in all my life. Why not just give straight answers?” Draper questioned. “Problems were pushed aside rather than being dealt with.” He immediately changed protocol to encourage interaction and problem solving between trustees and staff.

OTHER LESSONS LEARNED

SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman appealed to Southern Baptists to encourage understanding of time-honored principles of cooperation for God’s Kingdom expansion. “Our convention may be doctrinally pure, but without cooperation, without trusting one another, our convention shall cease to have the dynamic missions enterprise that reaches to the far corners of the earth.”

Chapman told a recent conference at Union University: “When those of us who participated in leadership roles in what has been called the Southern Baptist conservative resurgence gather for the silver anniversary celebration, it is something to celebrate. Our beloved Southern Baptist Convention was saved from theological and numerical decimation known to most mainline American denominations in the last half of the 20th century because of the conservative resurgence.”

He added that “thoughtful, aggressive, prayerful politics was integral to its success,” defining politics as the art of working with people. “However, one of the challenges we now face, in my opinion, is how to move beyond aggressive partisan politics to a model of denominational decision making that is more normative for Southern Baptists and more beneficial.”

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Theological schools formed prior to conservative resurgence continue to serve Southern Baptists

Conservatives began several theological schools in the 1960s and 1970s, including Luther Rice Seminary, Mid-America Seminary and The Criswell College. All three have continued–even after Southern Baptist seminaries were reformed under conservative leadership.

A Baptist missionary by the same name provided the philosophical basis on which Luther Rice Seminary was built. “He believed in missions, cooperation between churches, Christian education, the authority of the Bible, the power of the Holy Spirit, and Bible preaching,” said LRS President James L. Flanagan on the school’s website.

The school was chartered in 1962 in Jacksonville, Fla., first utilizing a nontraditional, external educational format and received accreditation from Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. In 1991 LRS moved to Lithonia, Ga., offering bachelor, master of ministry, master of divinity and doctoral degrees. According to the website (www.lrs.edu), a fundamental premise of LRS is that all teaching and learning must submit to the authority of the Bible, God’s inerrant word.

Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary’s Emeritus President, Gray Allison, told the TEXAN the Memphis-based seminary began as a place for students to come with the assurance that the faculty and staff would “believe all of the Bible was true all the way through.”

“At that time (of the founding of Mid-America) we didn’t have a seminary like that,” Allison said. Over the years, the enrollment has climbed and even though the Southern Baptist Convention has become more conservative, Mid-America is still meeting the needs of more than 500 students in Tennessee and also in New York, where a branch campus began in 1989 and has an enrollment of 59 students.

While not supported by the Cooperative Program, the requirements of Mid-America are that the faculty must be an active member of a local Southern Baptist church and every professor “have an open heart, an open door, and be a soul winner.” Students also are required to be active in ministry and winning souls.

During the first years of Mid-America, Allison recalled the seminary was criticized. “Our purpose was to get students prepared for Southern Baptist ministry. We’ve always stayed positive, not criticizing other seminaries. Over the years, we gradually won acceptance.”

Allison said the SBC conservative resurgence has been a positive for Mid-America. “The North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board, the Sunday School Board, now LifeWay, all want our graduates. We have a great relationship with the SBC entities.”

During the 1970s and 80s, Allison stated they experienced many transfers from other seminaries of students to Mid-America, students who wanted a strongly biblical theological education. The seminary has roots back to 1971 as “The School of the Prophets” in Louisiana, and relocated to Little Rock, Ark., where the name was changed to Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Classes began in 1972 with 28 students.

The seminary moved to Tennessee in 1975. Despite the theological change in the Southern Baptist landscape, Allison says the seminary is “still in the business to prepare Southern Baptist folks for the ministry.” Michael R. Spradlin is the current president of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. More information is available at the school’s website at www.mabts.edu.

W.A. Criswell, legendary pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, cast the vision for The Criswell College in 1969, proposing a place where people would be trained in the infallible word of God. Two years later it was born.

“The great preacher of the First Baptist Church of Dallas had a heart for preachers as well as for the word of God,” said Chancellor Mac Brunson, now pastor of First Baptist.

“The Criswell College stands today on the foundation of its founder with a commitment to excellency in the classroom, a dedication to the infallibility of the word of God, and a love for missions and evangelism,” Brunson wrote on the school’s website, www.criswell.edu.

“This College is literally a laboratory of conservative evangelicalism dealing with the original languages of Scripture, teaching biblical and church history with expertise and depth, guiding men and women through the gospels, the Old Testament and the New testament, all with a passion and preciseness. All of this and more is accomplished in a urban environment, connected to the most historic Baptist church in America.”

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Daniel Akin is one of the many Criswell graduates serving in a leadership role within the Southern Baptist Convention.

“The entire theological playing field was laid out before me, but again and again I was shown why it is the word of God and truth that will stand forever,” Akin said. “I will never be able to repay the debt I owe to The Criswell College.”

The school progressed from a night institute begun in 1971 to a college offering diploma, associate, bachelor and master’s level studies, preparing students for the pastorate, missions, evangelism, Christian education, communications, your ministry, worship leadership, women’s ministry, or other related Christian ministries.

TCC Academic Affairs Vice President James Bryant was involved in Criswell Bible Institute as founding dean and returned two years ago. He questions whether any Southern Baptist-related college or seminary can affirm that all of their professors believe and teach according to three convictions that are true of The Criswell College–belief in the stated full inerrancy of the Bible, belief in the premillennial return of Christ and belief in the primacy of missions and evangelism.

“Those who require professors to sign The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 are not signing anything that uses the word inerrancy,” Bryant noted. “The eschatological article of the BF&M in the 1925 statement, the 1963 statement, as well as the 2000 statement is in no sense premillennial,” he added, making TCC unique among Southern Baptists, whose views vary on the particulars of the end times.

Bryant added, “While other institutions may claim belief in the primacy of missions and evangelism, I am not sure any other college requires a cross-cultural mission trip of each student before graduation. I also doubt that any other college or seminary requires students to do ministry weekly and report on it.”

Another aspect of the Dallas school’s uniqueness lies in its commitment to the biblical studies model even for non-ministerial students. “We still require all students to take Greek, Hebrew, two semesters of Old Testament, two of New Testament and three semesters of systematic theology. This may be the only Southern Baptist-related college where non-ministerial students are going to be proficient in those subjects.”

TCC Executive Vice President and Provost Lamar Cooper said the school stands among a small minority of theologically conservative colleges in the Southern Baptist Convention. While the seminaries have changed direction since the resurgence began to take hold, Southern Baptist colleges typically have not, he said, since college trustee boards are not accountable to the SBC and in many cases not to the state conventions.

“While that is the political reality, it is part of the reason that there has been no substantive theological shift in most of the Baptist colleges.” Cooper said.

Cooper points to another issue that sets TCC apart. “The commitment of the college has been to provide a broad-based biblical and theological education. All students in all programs must earn a biblical studies major even if the focal major is evangelism, missions, counseling, humanities, worship leadership, youth ministry or pastoral ministries.”

Cooper said this includes nine hours each in Old and New Testament, three hours of spiritual foundation, nine hours of systematic theology, three hours each of church history, evangelism, missions, philosophy, hermeneutics, six hours each of Hebrew and Greek, and nine hours in humanities, including The Ancient World, The Roman World, and the Postmodern World.

“In effect, we have created a double major for all areas–one in biblical studies and the second in a chosen area of focus.” Cooper said, “We believe this is not only great for vocational ministry but for those going into other vocations as well. Those receiving this foundation will make better doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, etc. They will have a unique and profound Christian worldview,” he insisted, anticipating their contributions to the cause of Christ, their families, churches, communities, denomination and world.

With newly installed TCC President Jerry Johnson committed to training a new generation of leaders, Cooper said the school will continue on the same course. “In short, we are going to keep on doing what we have been doing for 34 years, only better.”

When Baptists think of pro-life movements, they may recall Southern Baptists for Life, an organization which began in 1983 by Southern Baptists such as Rudy Yakym, Kirk Shrewsbury and Larry Lewis.

But there was a precursor organization prior to the conservative resurgence that formed the night the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision was announced.

Bob Holbrook, who was in 1973 a 41-year-old pastor of First Baptist Church in Halletsville (halfway between Houston and San Antonio), recalls that on the night the Supreme Court decision was announced on the news, he turned to his wife and said “Baptists won’t stand for this decision.”

Holbrook did not know the Southern Baptist Convention had already passed a “middle-of-the-road” resolution, two years earlier in 1971, which affirmed both “a high view of the sanctity of human life, including fetal life” but also resolved that Southern Baptists should “work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and ? likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”

For the next five years, Holbrook and a San Antonio geologist named Mo Turner worked to turn both the national and Texas conventions towards a true pro-life stand. Initially, Holbrook said he was amazed by the silence of most Baptist pastors and people on abortion, and also the papers, resolutions and pamphlets the conventions issued.

“It was extremely difficult because the CLC (Christian Life Commission) had presented a resolution which supported both the sanctity of human life and (the option of abortion) in the case of rape, incest and the mental health of a woman.”

Holbrook said that during those years, he did not make much headway in the state convention, and worked alongside Catholic organizations, which jubilantly received a Baptist right-to-life advocate. Southern Baptists had not publicly opposed abortion when Holbrook testified before Congress in 1973; he and other members of Baptists for Life were dismissed as a renegade minority. In fact, one senator had even been briefed that Holbrook was out of the mainstream of Southern Baptists.

Holbrook learned of the senator’s misinformed briefing and told the committee that despite the stands taken nationally by the Southern Baptist Convention, a sizeable number of Southern Baptist members and pastors like Holbrook were decidedly pro-life.

Holbrook never thought he was a minority among Southern Baptists. “I argued over and over that you could go anywhere in the Southern Baptist churches and 90 percent of the people would say that abortion is the killing of a human being. I knew that if we could get away from the leadership and ask the common people, they would answer the right way.”

However, in 1974 the Southern Baptist Convention again affirmed the 1971 “middle ground” resolution. Holbrook accused the CLC at that time of “condemning motherhood” in a paper describing the responsibility of parents to have no more than two children?similar to global population control initiatives at the time?and asking churches to avoid praising mothers with the most children, a common practice in typical Mother’s Day Sunday services. Holbrook’s group shared information about the CLC position in major newspapers just prior to Mother’s Day in 1976.

Louis Moore of Garland, Texas, former religion editor for the Houston Chronicle, remembered a lecture he received from a Baptist Press staff member who told him Holbrook was out of step with the vast majority of the Southern Baptist Convention. “He said Bob and those who agreed with him could hold their meetings in a phone booth.”

Holbrook said he was at the podium supporting a resolution that affirmed the unborn’s right to life at the 1976 convention. When someone asked from the floor if Southern Baptists condemned motherhood, Holbrook said the moderator got between Holbrook and the microphone and categorically denied the ads that Holbrook and the Baptists for Life had run nationally. After the speaker was through, Holbrook went back to the microphone, “I told the man and the convention that it was true.”

Slowly, Baptists for Life began to get more support from Southern Baptists. But at his relatively small church, Holbrook did not have even a full-time secretary to help distribute the Baptists For Life newsletter. Once a month in 1975-76, he was in other pulpits advancing his cause.

“My church was patient and supportive, but there was one time I had driven all night before coming home to preach 15 minutes before the service started.” He also recalls his young teenage daughter asking him why he was always leaving. Around 1977, he said he had to decide whether he w