They got involved in right wing extremist politics, now the "largest Protestant Denomination in America" is dying.

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-largest-protestant-denomination-in.html

The denomination is facing issues that, thirty years ago, it never imagined it would face, when fundamentalists, who were not in the majority, but who had a significant following in the denomination, began an effort to affect the election of officers who controlled appointments on two of the most powerful committees, in order to change the makeup of trustee boards at all of the denomination's six seminaries, two mission boards, publishing house and commissions, to place it under fundamentalist control. The claimed objective was to enforce a doctrinal position on Biblical Inerrancy that fundamentalists believed, and claimed that those who didn't were liberals who were subverting the Christian gospel.

But one of the distinguishing characteristics of Baptists, that make them different from other Protestants, is that they don't gather in denominations to force doctrinal unity on independent, autonomous churches. In reality, the leaders of this fundamentalist takeover, known as the "Conservative Resurgence," were introducing Christian Reconstructionism into the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, to bring about political change leading to the imposition of Christian nationalism on the country, culminating in what we now know as Project 2025.

It was at that moment that the Southern Baptists reached the peak of their influence and set events in motion that would lead to the denomination experiencing its steepest declines in membership and attendance since Reconstruction. I believe it was at that moment in 1979, clearly explained by Bill Moyers in the documentary linked above, that the Southern Baptist Convention destroyed itself.

Southern Baptists were founded by churches in slave states who objected to the increasingly abolitionist perspective of the Triennial Baptist Convention, which refused to appoint a slave owner nominated as a "test case" by a group of Baptists in Georgia as a missionary. So their "roots" are found in their support for the enslavement of black people, based on the false doctrinal belief in their inferiority to white people. It was not until 1995, 150 years after the denomination was formed in Augusta, Georgia, that any formal apology for their role in the enslavement of human beings came about.

Think about that. The largest Protestant denomination in the United States was founded on beliefs and convictions of people claiming to be Christian in a false, inhumane, unChristian doctrine and practice. And it took them 150 years to realize the error of their ways.

So it should not be surprising that another false doctrine would be at the core of a "Conservative Resurgence" aimed at using the voting strength of this same denomination to bring about radical political reform leading the United States down the path to Christian nationalism. Nor should it be surprising that this movement has led to the largest collapse of attendance and membership in this same denomination since Reconstruction.

[Skittles]

1. the most glaring way to prove your "faith" is pure bullshit

is by embracing right wing politics

yes INDEED

[The Wizard]

2. Bigotry is not

a positive character trait.

[Oeditpus Rex]

9. They don't realize they're bigots

And they'll deny it to their last breath.

[RockRaven]

3. They've also got their own raft of systematic/widespread sex abuse and coverups.

One would like to think that also contributes to the membership decline, but frankly I cannot because I do not believe that their one-time members had that high of standards.

[marble falls]

4. They forgot the Beatitudes and they forgot that Father G*D separated state and faith: Render unto Caesar ...

... what is Caesar's and render unto Him what is His.

[AndyTiedye]

5. They Intend to Solve their Declinining Membership Problem by Making it Compulsory for All

They'll have plenty of members if they can force everyone to join their church.

[stage left]

6. Good

They deserve it.

[czarjak]

7. Southern Baptists agreeing with Catholics on The Supreme Court?

It's like a miracle. Or something.

[patphil]

8. They're dying from a lack of love.

Jesus taught a gospel of love, and they don't want to adhere to it. This is a losing position for a religion that purports to follow the teachings of Jesus.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
You can't claim a gospel of love, but practice a gospel of hate, and expect to thrive.

[Seinan Sensei]

10. Southern Baptist Convention was always divided

There were Fundamentalists. There were Mainstreamers. And there were Scholars.

Owing to political strategizing of Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson (architects of SBC's Conservative Resurgence), the Fundamentalists took over everything.

By the way:
1) Paul Pressler died in disgrace, after it came to light he liked hot-tubbing with naked boys.
2) Paige Patterson was fired (and blacklisted) after allegations he mishandled incidents of sexual assault on the seminary campus where he was president.
3) Patterson also was accused of theft.

Sound familiar?
Right-Wing Politics and Religious Fundamentalism go hand-in-hand

[Incanus]

11. Jimmy Carter famously told the SBC where they could stuff their bigotry.

He broke with the church publicly because of their stance on women's rights (they didn't think women should have them). I'm sure it was a very difficult decision for him and the fact that he did so publicly was admirable and courageous.

[lees1975]

13. His "break" was a little different than leaving a mainline denomination.

Baptist churches are not connectional, they are independent and autonomous. Carter's church, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, was formed by a group of members from the Plains Baptist Church, when that congregation continued to refuse to change its bylaws to allow blacks to join. It wasn't a large congregation to begin with but a number of families agreed to start Maranatha Baptist around 1970 or so, the Carters being one of them. And a Baptist congregation in that part of the country open to blacks being members was already far to the left on other theological and doctrinal issues, and not fundamentalist. While in Washington, the Carters belonged to Washington's First Baptist Church, which was dually affiiated with both the American Baptists, formerly the Triennial Convention, and Southern Baptists. But when fundamentalists took over the SBC in 1979, FBC Washington dropped its Southern Baptist affiliation and shortly after the Carters returned to Georgia, Maranatha Baptist did as well, joining the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which was interracial and friendly to women in ministry. In Carter's later years, his pastor at Maranatha was black.

So while he broke with the denomination, he remained a member of the same church, because the church broke with the denomination. The Southern Baptist denomination is not a "church" in the sense that United Methodists are, or the Catholic church is.

[Incanus]

14. Good info, thank you.

I remember his opposition was mentioned again after he died, I'm an atheist but Carter walked the walk.

[lees1975]

15. Carter was a true Christian, in the traditional and historic Baptist sense of the practice.

He was never part of the fundamentalist/Christian Reconstructionist movement that began intruding into the Southern Baptist churches, mostly in the deep south, in the early 1920's which produced individuals like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Baptists are known for their belief in soul freedom, the ability of each individual to determine his or her own theology and doctrine from their own understanding of the Bible, guided by the leaders of their church and their own mentors. During the controversy among Southern Baptists, they were labelled as "moderates" but a better term would be "progressives," and even before the fundamentalist group planned their tactics to take over the denomination's boards and committees, and control its institutions, they were leading their congregations to welcome members of all races, and ordain women to serve in all ministry roles. They are polar opposites from the more conservative, Evangelical members who eventually gained control of the denomination. Carter simply remained true and faithful to his Baptist roots, and remained in the membership of a liberal, progressive church that preached the true Christian gospel, and not the system of rules and regulations the fundamentalists tried to maintain.

[sinkingfeeling]

12. I can only hope for their continuing decline.