When Jesus became exasperated with the religious leaders of his day, he called them “blind guides” who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” In the wake of the recent searing public revelations of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, that description applies to the leadership of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
In the history of the Southern Baptist Convention, two dates stand out. The first is 1845, when the denomination was formed. Southerners resented the push from Baptists in the North to end the scourge of slavery, so they seceded to form the Southern Baptist Convention. Hardly an auspicious beginning.
The second pivotal date was 1979, when conservatives mobilized to wrest control of the denominational apparatus from those they considered too liberal. I contend that the label “liberal Southern Baptist” has always been an oxymoron, but several powerful interests, led by two men, Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler, thought otherwise.
