On Sunday, we voted to leave the Southern Baptist Convention.
It happened at a special, called business meeting that took place in our Fellowship Hall during the Sunday school hour. When I got there, after preaching at the early worship service, the place already was packed and buzzing with nervous energy.
Jim Somerville
Everybody seemed to understand that we were about to make history, they just weren’t sure what kind of history we were going to make. That’s how I felt. I wasn’t anxious; I had a strong sense that the deacons’ recommendation would be approved; but I wondered if we would be able to discuss it in a spirit of brotherly love.
I didn’t want anybody to get hurt.
Deacon Chair Daniel Hocutt kicked things off with a word of welcome, a request for respectful discourse, and a re-statement of the motion, which read: “The board of deacons recommends that Richmond’s First Baptist Church withdraw as a cooperating church in the Southern Baptist Convention in response to the SBC’s proposed constitutional amendment requiring pastors and elders of its cooperating churches to be men.” And then he turned it over to me to provide some historical background.
I shared with the congregation some of the same information I have shared in previous posts, tracing the history of our relationship with the SBC from the very beginning. I hadn’t realized until recently that the very first meeting of the SBC was held at Richmond’s First Baptist Church in 1846, and Pastor Jeremiah Bell Jeter was elected as the first president of the Foreign Mission Board.
“I hadn’t realized until recently that the very first meeting of the SBC was held at Richmond’s First Baptist Church in 1846.”
The roots go deep.
But when I finished talking, Daniel asked if anyone would like to say anything, and one by one people began to raise their hands. Some of them talked about how much we love the retired SBC missionaries in our congregation and how faithfully we have supported the mission enterprise through the years. Others talked about how much we love our female clergy, and how much we want to support women in ministry at every level. Some talked about the mission offerings and wondered where they would send their dollars if we separated from the SBC. Others thought we could leave that discussion until later and simply focus on the matter at hand.
In the end we did. When 10:30 came, I said: “It’s time to bring this discussion to a close. If someone wants to call for the question, we can vote.” Someone did, and someone else seconded, and realizing this was the moment everyone had been waiting for Daniel said, “All in favor, say ‘Aye!’”
The response was loud and enthusiastic. When he called on those who were opposed to say “Nay,” there were only a few responses.
The motion carried.
And just like that, a 179-year-old relationship with the Southern Baptist Convention came to an end.
There were no cheers, no shouts of celebration, and if there were tears I didn’t see them. What I felt from the room was a mixture of quiet grief and gratitude, along with a sense that we had done the right thing. Because we affirm the cherished principle of congregational autonomy.
We believe every Baptist church has the right to determine its own mission and ministry and to ordain whomever it perceives to be gifted for ministry, whether male or female. The Southern Baptist Convention can’t tell us what to do, but it can tell us that it doesn’t want to have anything to do with churches like ours, and it has.
And on Sunday we accepted that.
Jim Somerville serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Richmond, Va.
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