Gallons of ink — physical and digital — have been spilled writing about the transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention at the hands of Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson. While they were, indeed, the architects of the “takeover” of the…
Ralph Elliott, author of Genesis commentary that began the SBC’s battle for the Bible, dies
Ralph Elliott, the seminary professor whose commentary on Genesis became symbolic of the battle over biblical literalism in the Southern Baptist Convention, has died at age 97. Elliott died Sunday, Oct. 23, in Paoli, Pa. A family funeral service was…
Bill Self in 1984: ‘Babylonian Captivity of the Convention’
Editor’s note: In 1984, the Southern Baptist Convention met in Kansas City for what was the sixth year of the so-called “conservative resurgence” that in time captured the leadership structure of the SBC and turned it rightward. The next year,…
Randall Lolley, key figure in resisting SBC’s conservative shift, dies at 90
Editor’s note: This story will be updated as new information becomes available. Randall Lolley, one of the pivotal figures in the late-20th-century schism in the Southern Baptist Convention and an early leader in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, died March 21…
Conservative Baptist Network launches attack on James Merritt for saying something nice about his son
One of the groups aiming to take the Southern Baptist Convention in a more conservative direction continues to sound the alarm about liberalism in the nation’s largest non-Catholic Christian denomination and now has attacked one of the icons of the…
A ‘heretic’ returns to a formative place that once was home – the campus of Southern Seminary
I wanted to view a display that chronicled the founding, theological drift, depths of heresy and resurgence of the seminary as interpreted by the current administration. Apparently, I figured prominently in the tableau as exemplar of the HEResy that required my dismissal.
Liberty University rescues two windows honoring SBC’s rightward shift scrapped by Southwestern Seminary
Two of the stained-glass windows removed in April from the chapel of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have a new home in Lynchburg, Virginia, at the Jerry Falwell Museum at Liberty University.
Seminary removes stained glass windows celebrating conservative takeover of SBC
Stained-glass windows immortalizing individuals who helped move the Southern Baptist Convention to a more theologically and socially conservative position in the late 20th century have been quietly removed from the chapel of one of the convention’s six seminaries.
SBC president who said God hears only Christian prayers dead at 79
Bailey Smith, the former Southern Baptist Convention president best known for saying God does not hear the prayers of a Jew, died Jan. 14 after a 21-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Smith, 79, was the youngest man ever elected SBC…
Celebrating 25 years in job, seminary president remembers rocky start
Celebrating Albert Mohler’s 25th anniversary as president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, former Southern Baptist Convention president James Merritt recalled the journey’s rocky start. “When he came here, there were very few exceptions, almost everybody hated Dr. Mohler,” Merritt, lead…
Son of Francis Schaeffer calls out Trump’s evangelical enablers on Twitter
The son of the late theologian and author Francis Schaeffer challenged evangelical supporters of Donald Trump to try to defend the president’s reported foul-mouthed description of Haiti and African nations which he made during a White House meeting with a bipartisan group of senators Jan. 11.
30 years later, SBC leader says Peace Committee was destined to fail
An effort in the 1980s to investigate and resolve conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention was an initial failure that in the long run helped establish the nation’s largest Protestant body as the conservative evangelical denomination it is known as…