Crossroads -- Are Southern Baptists normal evangelicals in 2024?

SBC convention was full of arguments, but not much news (maybe)

It’s time to make a short trip in the religion-news WABAC machine (that’s “wayback” for youngsters who don’t remember “Rocky and Bullwinkle”), returning to the 2018 national Southern Baptist Convention meeting.

The big news was politics, of course, as in a convention speech by Vice President Mike Pence. The journalism establishment was not amused, as illustrated in this CNN headline: “Pence accused of ‘hijacking’ evangelical meeting.” Various types of Southern Baptist conservatives welcomed him.

Now let’s jump to the present, since Pence was back at the recent SBC meetings. This time, journalists weren’t all that worried about his presence because he was speaking to a luncheon sponsored by the rather mainstream SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

This brings us closer to the topics covered in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.

You see, the ERLC is the kind of group that journalists put on the Religious Right, when it’s raising money for sonogram machines for crisis-pregnancy centers or fighting for parental rights in arguments about LGBTQ+ initiatives in public schools.

However, there are also Southern Baptists who accuse the ERLC of being “woke” when it joins dialogues about climate change or pushes for moderation in discussions of immigration, critical race theory and other hot-button topics.

This time around, the press thought Pence speaking to the ERLC was OK, as seen in this Religion News Service headline: “Mike Pence speaks about politics, prayer to Southern Baptists at Indy event.” Or consider the Tennessean: “Pence warns of GOP shift but stops short of direct Trump criticism.”

What changed? Hint: Maybe Pence is safe since he is no longer a foot-soldier for Donald Trump?

There were SBC headlines this year, such as this from the Associated Press: “Southern Baptists narrowly reject formal ban on churches with any women pastors.” That proposed change in SBC policy fell just short (38.3% against) and there was evidence of lingering debates about drawing lines between “senior pastors,” “pastors,” “ministers” and other leadership roles for women. Also, there were interesting moral-theology complications looming in this double-decker New York Times headline:

Southern Baptists Vote to Oppose Use of I.V.F.

With almost 13 million church members across the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention has long been a bellwether for American evangelicalism.

Here is a key passage from that:

… Going into the vote on in vitro fertilization, some Southern Baptists expressed concerns that the typical Baptist in the pew did not connect fertility treatments with abortion, although they acknowledged that the conversation was evolving. Some pastors said they were wary of the prospect of returning to their home churches and reporting that they voted to condemn a process that created their congregants’ children and grandchildren.

Ah, but recent Pew Research Center numbers show that 63% of white evangelicals back IVF access. With this vote against IVF, there could be tensions ahead between the “bellwether” SBC and the growing, vague world of nondenominational evangelical Protestantism. What are people thinking about this issue, in the pews of thousands of autonomous SBC congregations?

During the podcast, we also discussed this: What are the tensions inside the SBC really about, other than politics in the era when many Southern Baptists are enthusiastic supporters of Trump and many others are reluctant Trump voters who wish they had more choices at the ballot box?

I argued that Southern Baptists, as they try to build coalitions on complex cultural issues, are bumping into old realities described in this passage in a 2022 essay by the Rev. R.C. Sproul, Jr.: “What is ‘second degree separation’?”

When it comes to the fundamentals of the faith, I’m grateful to be considered a fundamentalist. I’d suggest the defining distinction between fundamentalists and evangelicals is that evangelicals have an aching hole in their souls that longs for the world’s approval. To their credit, fundamentalists just don’t care. Good on them I say. That distinction, however, is not the only one there is. At least one distinction is a strike against fundamentalism.

Fundamentalists have long practiced what is called “second degree separation.” This is an ethic that suggests that a person is not only guilty for all that they have done, said or felt, but that they are guilty for all that those they are willing to work with have done, said or felt. … If you’re not completely for us, they argue, you are completely against us.

Think about that.

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