Colonial era in
Charleston, South Carolina Most early Baptists in the British colonies came from England in the 17th century, after conflict with the
Church of England for their dissenting religious views. In 1638,
Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church in
British America at the
Providence Plantations, the first permanent European American settlement also founded by Williams in Rhode Island. The oldest Baptist church in the South,
First Baptist Church of
Charleston, South Carolina, was organized in 1682 under the leadership of
William Screven. A Baptist church was formed in
Virginia in 1715 through the preaching of
Robert Norden and another in
North Carolina in 1727 through the ministry of
Paul Palmer. The Baptists adhered to a
congregationalist polity. They operated independently of the state-established
Anglican churches in the Southern United States at a time when states prohibited non-Anglicans from holding political office. By 1740, about eight Baptist churches existed in the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, with an estimated 300 to 400 members. New members, both black and white, were converted chiefly by Baptist preachers who traveled throughout the Southern United States during the 18th and 19th centuries, in the eras of the
First and
Second Great Awakenings. Black churches were founded in Virginia, South Carolina, and
Georgia before the
American Revolution. Some black congregations kept their independence even after whites tried to exercise more authority after
Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831.
American Revolution period Before the American Revolution, Baptist and
Methodist evangelicals in the Southern United States promoted the view of the common person's equality before God, which embraced enslaved people and free blacks. They challenged the hierarchies of class and race and urged planters to abolish slavery. They welcomed enslaved people as Baptists and accepted them as preachers. During this time, there was a sharp division between the austerity of the plain-living Baptists, attracted initially from yeomen and common planters, and the opulence of the Anglican planters—the enslaving elite who controlled local and colonial government in what had become an enslaved society by the late 18th century. The gentry interpreted Baptist church discipline as political radicalism, but it served to ameliorate disorder. The Baptists intensely monitored each other's moral conduct, watching especially for sexual transgressions, cursing, and excessive drinking; they expelled members who would not reform. In Virginia and most southern colonies before the American Revolution, the Church of England was the
established church and supported by general taxes, as it was in England. It opposed the rapid spread of Baptists in the Southern United States. Particularly, Virginia prosecuted many Baptist preachers for "disturbing the peace" by preaching without licenses from the Anglican Church.
Patrick Henry and
James Madison defended Baptist preachers before the American Revolution in cases considered significant in the history of religious freedom. In 1779,
Thomas Jefferson wrote the
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, enacted in 1786 by the Virginia General Assembly. Madison later applied his ideas and those of the Virginia document related to religious freedom during the
Constitutional Convention, when he ensured that delegates incorporated them into the
United States Constitution. The struggle for religious tolerance erupted during the American Revolution, as the Baptists worked to disestablish the Anglican churches in the South. The Baptists protested vigorously; the resulting social disorder resulted chiefly from the ruling gentry's disregard for public needs. The vitality of the religious opposition made the conflict between "evangelical" and "gentry" styles bitter. Scholarship suggests that the evangelical movement's strength determined its ability to mobilize power outside the conventional authority structure.
National unification and regional division In 1814, leaders such as
Luther Rice helped Baptists unify nationally under what became known informally as the
Triennial Convention (because it met every three years) based in
Philadelphia. It allowed them to join their resources to support
missions abroad. The
Home Mission Society, affiliated with the Triennial Convention, was established in 1832 to support missions in U.S. frontier territories. By the mid-19th century, there were many social, cultural, economic, and political differences among business owners of the North, farmers of the West, and
planters of the South. The most divisive conflict was primarily over the issue of slavery and, secondarily, over missions.
Divisions over slavery The issues surrounding slavery dominated the 19th century in the United States. This created tension between Baptists in northern and southern U.S. states over the issue of
manumission. In the two decades after the American Revolution during the
Second Great Awakening, northern Baptist preachers, as well as the
Quakers and
Methodists, increasingly argued that enslavers must free the people they enslaved. Although most Baptists in the 19th century south were
yeomen farmers and common planters, the Baptists also began to attract major planters among their membership. Many southern ministers interpreted the Bible as supporting slavery and encouraged paternalistic practices by enslavers. They preached to enslaved people to accept their places and obey their enslavers and welcomed enslaved people and free blacks as members; whites controlled the churches' leadership and usually segregated church seating. From the early 19th century, many Baptist preachers in the Southern United States also argued in favor of preserving the right of ministers to be enslavers. was the most prominent Black American congregation within the Portsmouth Association of the
Triennial Convention, preceding the establishment of the Southern Baptist Convention. Black congregations were sometimes the largest in their regions. For instance, by 1821, Gillfield Baptist in
Petersburg, Virginia, had the largest congregation within the Portsmouth Association. At 441 members, it was more than twice as large as the next-biggest church. Before Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831, Gillfield had a black preacher. Afterward, the state legislature insisted that white men oversee black congregations. Gillfield could not call a black preacher until after the
American Civil War and emancipation. After Turner's rebellion, whites worked to exert more control over black congregations and passed laws requiring white ministers to lead or be present at religious meetings. Many enslaved people evaded these restrictions. The Triennial Convention and the Home Mission Society adopted a kind of neutrality concerning slavery, neither condoning nor condemning it. During the "Georgia Test Case" of 1844, the
Georgia State Convention proposed the appointment of the enslaver
Elder James E. Reeve as a
missionary. The
Foreign Mission Board refused to approve his appointment, recognizing the case as a challenge and not wanting to violate their neutrality on slavery. They said that slavery should not be a factor in deliberations about missionary appointments. In 1844,
University of Alabama president
Basil Manly Sr., a prominent preacher and major planter who enslaved 40 people, drafted the "Alabama Resolutions" and presented them to the Triennial Convention. They included the demand that enslavers be eligible for denominational offices to which the Southern associations contributed financially. They were not adopted. Many Baptists in Georgia decided to test the claimed neutrality by recommending an enslaver to the Home Mission Society as a missionary. The Home Mission Society's board refused to appoint him, noting that missionaries were not allowed to take servants with them (so he clearly could not enslave people) and that they would not make a decision that appeared to endorse slavery. Many southern Baptists considered this an infringement of their right to determine candidates. From the perspective of many southerners, the northern position that "slaveholding brethren were less than followers of Jesus" effectively obligated enslavers to secede from the Triennial Convention. This difference came to a head in 1845 when representatives of the northern states refused to appoint missionaries whose families enslaved people. To continue in the work of missions, many southern Baptists separated and founded the Southern Baptist Convention.
Missions and organization in
Augusta, Georgia A secondary issue that disturbed the Southerners was the perception that the American Baptist Home Mission Society did not appoint a proportionate number of missionaries to the South. This was likely a result of the society's not appointing enslavers as missionaries. Baptists in the North preferred a loosely structured society of individuals who paid annual dues, with each society usually focused on a single ministry. Baptists in Southern churches preferred a more centralized organization of churches patterned after their associations, with a variety of ministries brought under the direction of one denominational organization. The increasing tensions and the discontent of Baptists from the Southern United States over national criticism of slavery and issues over missions led to their withdrawal from national Baptist organizations. At this meeting, they created a new convention—the Southern Baptist Convention. They elected
William Bullein Johnson (1782–1862) as its first president. He had served as president of the Triennial Convention in 1841, though he initially attempted to avoid a schism.
Formation and separation of black Baptists in
Lexington, Kentucky African Americans had gathered in
their own churches early on, in 1774 in
Petersburg, Virginia, and in
Savannah, Georgia, in 1788. Some established churches after 1800 on the frontier, such as the
First African Baptist Church of
Lexington, Kentucky. In 1824, the Elkhorn Association of Kentucky, which was white-dominated, accepted it. By 1850, First African had 1,820 members, the largest of any Baptist church in the state, black or white. In 1861, it had 2,223 members. ,
Savannah, Georgia, constructed 1856 Southern whites generally required black churches to have white ministers and trustees. In churches with mixed congregations, seating was segregated, with blacks out of sight, often in a balcony. White preaching often emphasized Biblical stipulations that enslaved people should accept their places and try to behave well toward their enslavers. After the
American Civil War, another split occurred when most
freedmen set up independent
black congregations, regional associations, and state and national conventions. Black people wanted to practice Christianity independently of white supervision. They interpreted the Bible as offering hope for deliverance and saw their exodus out of enslavement as comparable to
the Exodus, with abolitionist
John Brown as their
Moses. They quickly left white-dominated churches and associations and set up separate state Baptist conventions. White Southern Baptist churches lost black members to the new denominations, as well as to independent congregations which freedmen organized. During the
civil rights movement, many Southern Baptist pastors and members of their congregations rejected
racial integration and accepted
white supremacy, further alienating African Americans. According to historian and former Southern Baptist
Wayne Flynt, "The [Southern Baptist] church was the last bastion of segregation." SBC did not integrate seminary classrooms until 1951. In 1995, the convention voted to adopt a resolution in which it renounced its racist roots and apologized for its past defense of
slavery,
segregation, and
white supremacy. This marked the denomination's first formal acknowledgment that racism had played a profound role in both its early and modern history. meets with the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006 in the
Oval Office at the
White House. Pictured with the President are
Morris Chapman, left,
Frank Page and his wife Dayle Page.
Increasing diversity and policy changes was the first African American president of the Southern Baptists. By the early 21st century, the number of ethnically diverse congregations was increasing among the Southern Baptists. In 2008, almost 20% of the congregations were majority African American, Asian, Hispanic, or Latino. SBC cooperating churches had an estimated one million African American members. It has passed a series of resolutions recommending including more black members and appointing more African American leaders. The SBC's increasingly national scope inspired some members to suggest a name change. In 2005, some members made proposals at the SBC Annual Meeting to change the name to the more national-sounding "North American Baptist Convention" or "Scriptural Baptist Convention" (to retain the SBC initials). These proposals were defeated. The messengers of the 2012 annual meeting in New Orleans voted to adopt the descriptor "Great Commission Baptists". The legal name remained "Southern Baptist Convention", but affiliated churches and convention entities could voluntarily use the descriptor. Almost a year after the
Charleston church shooting, the denomination approved a resolution that called upon member churches and families to stop flying the
Confederate flag. The church approved a resolution, "On Refugee Ministry", encouraging member churches and families to welcome refugees coming to the United States. In the same convention,
Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission quickly responded to a pastor who asked why a member should support the right of Muslims living in the U.S. to build mosques. Moore replied, "Sometimes we have to deal with questions that are really complicated... this isn't one of them." Moore said that religious freedom must be for all religions. From February to June 2016, the denomination collaborated with the National Baptist Convention, USA, on racial reconciliation. SBC-GCB and NBC presidents
Ronnie Floyd and Jerry Young assembled ten pastors from each convention in 2015, discussing race relations; in 2016,
Baptist Press and
The New York Times revealed tension among National Baptists debating any collaboration with Southern Baptists, quoting NBC President Young: On November 5, 2017,
a mass shooting took place at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. It was the deadliest shooting to occur at any affiliated church in its history and, in modern history, at an American
place of worship. In 2020, the denomination canceled its convention due to
COVID-19 concerns and eventually rescheduled for June 2021. In a
Washington Post story dated September 15, 2020, Greear said some Southern Baptist Convention leaders wanted to change the official name of the church to "Great Commission Baptists" (GCB), to distance the church from its support of slavery and because it is no longer just a Southern church. Since then, several leaders and churches have begun adopting the alternative descriptor for their churches.
Sexual abuse scandal In 2018, investigations showed that the SBC suppressed reports of
sexual abuse and protected over 700 accused ministers and church workers. In 2022, a report indicated church leaders had stonewalled and disparaged clergy sex abuse survivors for nearly two decades; reform efforts had been met with criticism or dismissal from other organization leaders; and known abusers had been allowed to keep their positions without informing their local churches. On August 12, 2022, the denomination announced that it was facing a federal investigation into the scandal. pastors, and volunteers over the previous 20 years. The
Chronicle compiled a list of records and information (current as of June 2019) listing church pastors, leaders, employees, and volunteers who have pleaded guilty to or were convicted of sex crimes. The Reverend J. D. Greear, president of the convention and pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, called the move a "defining moment". On May 22, 2022, Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the organization's executive committee, released a report detailing that church leaders had stonewalled and disparaged clergy sex abuse survivors for nearly two decades. The new task force will operate for one year, with the option to continue longer. On August 12, 2022, the organization announced that it was facing a federal investigation into the sex abuse scandal. As revelations of sexual abuse and lawsuits continued to emerge in 2023, the SBC's Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force announced continued development of the database of sexual offenders. ==Doctrine==