Baptists

==Controversies==
Baptists have faced many controversies in their 400-year history, controversies of the level of crises. Baptist historian Walter Shurden says the word ''crisis'' comes from the Greek word meaning 'to decide.' Shurden writes that contrary to the presumed negative view of crises, some controversies that reach a crisis level may actually be "positive and highly productive." He claims that even [[Schism in Christianity|schism]], though never ideal, has often produced positive results. In his opinion, crises among Baptists each have become decision moments that shaped their future.<ref name="Shurden crises">{{Cite book | last = Shurden | first = Walter B | title = Crises in Baptist Life | access-date = 16 January 2010 | url = http://www.baptistdistinctives.org/crises.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050112160105/http://www.baptistdistinctives.org/crises.pdf | archive-date = 12 January 2005 |url-status = dead }}</ref>

===Missions crisis===
Early in the 19th century, the rise of the modern [[Christian mission|missions]] movement, and the backlash against it, led to widespread and bitter controversy among the American Baptists.{{Sfn | Christian | 1926 | pp = 404–20}} During this era, the American Baptists were split between missionary and anti-missionary. A substantial secession of Baptists went into the movement led by [[Alexander Campbell (minister)|Alexander Campbell]] to return to a more fundamental church.{{Sfn | Christian | 1926 | pp = 421–36}}

===Slavery crisis===
{{see also|Christian views on slavery}}

====United States====
[[File:Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site August 2016 01 (Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary).jpg|thumb|[[Ebenezer Baptist Church]] in [[Atlanta]], affiliated with the [[Progressive National Baptist Convention]]]]

Leading up to the [[American Civil War]], Baptists became embroiled in the controversy over [[slavery in the United States]]. Whereas in the [[First Great Awakening]], [[Methodist]] and Baptist preachers had opposed slavery and urged [[manumission]], over the decades they made more of an accommodation with the institution. They worked with slaveholders in the [[Southern United States|South]] to urge a paternalistic institution. Both denominations made direct appeals to slaves and free Blacks for conversion. The Baptists particularly allowed them active roles in congregations. By the mid-19th century, northern Baptists tended to oppose slavery. As tensions increased, in 1844 the Home Mission Society refused to appoint a slaveholder as a missionary who had been proposed by Georgia. It noted that missionaries could not take servants with them, and also that the board did not want to appear to condone slavery.<ref>Robert E. Johnson, ''A Global Introduction to Baptist Churches'', Cambridge University Press, UK, 2010, p. 150</ref>

In 1845 a group of churches in favor of slavery and in disagreement with the [[abolitionism]] of the Triennial Convention (now American Baptist Churches USA) left to form the Southern Baptist Convention.<ref>Samuel S. Hill, Charles H. Lippy, Charles Reagan Wilson, ''Encyclopedia of Religion in the South'', Mercer University Press, US, 2005, p. 796</ref> They believed that the Bible sanctions slavery and that it was acceptable for Christians to own slaves. They believed slavery was a human institution which Baptist teaching could make less harsh. By this time many [[Planter class|planters]] were part of Baptist congregations, and some of the denomination's prominent preachers, such as [[Basil Manly Sr.]], president of the [[University of Alabama]], were also planters who owned slaves.

As early as the late 18th century, Black Baptists began to organize separate churches, associations and mission agencies. Blacks set up some independent Baptist congregations in the South before the Civil War. White Baptist associations maintained some oversight of these churches.

In the postwar years, [[freedmen]] quickly left the white congregations and associations, setting up their own churches.<ref>{{citation|first=Leroy|last=Fitts|title=A History of Black Baptists|pages=43–106|place= Nashville, TN | publisher = Broadman Press|year=1985}}</ref> In 1866, the Consolidated American Baptist Convention, formed from Black Baptists of the South and West, helped southern associations set up Black state conventions, which they did in [[Alabama]], [[Arkansas]], [[Virginia]], [[North Carolina]], and [[Kentucky]]. In 1880, Black state conventions united in the national Foreign Mission Convention to support Black Baptist missionary work. Two other national Black conventions were formed, and in 1895 they united as the [[National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.|National Baptist Convention]]. This organization later went through its own changes, spinning off other conventions. It is the largest Black religious organization and the second-largest Baptist organization in the world.<ref>Fitts (1985)</ref> Baptists are numerically most dominant in the Southeast.<ref>{{citation|publisher=Department of Geography and Meteorology, [[Valparaiso University]] |format=[[GIFF]] |url=http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/religion/baptist.gif |title=Baptists as a Percentage of all Residents, 2000 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100522053048/http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/religion/baptist.gif |archive-date=22 May 2010 }}.</ref> In 2007, the [[Pew Research Center]]'s Religious Landscape Survey found that 45% of all African Americans identify with Baptist denominations, with the vast majority of those being within the historically Black tradition.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Religious Portrait of African-Americans| publisher = Pew forum | url= http://www.pewforum.org/A-Religious-Portrait-of-African-Americans.aspx| date = 2009-01-30 }}</ref>

[[File:Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mathew Ahmann in a crowd.) - NARA - 542015 - Restoration.jpg|thumb|[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], a Baptist minister and civil rights leader, at the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C. The [[Civil Rights movement]] divided various Baptists in the U.S., as slavery had more than a century earlier.]]

In the American South, the interpretation of the Civil War, abolition of slavery and postwar period has differed sharply by race since those years. Americans have often interpreted great events in religious terms. Historian [[Wilson Fallin]] contrasts the interpretation of Civil War and [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]] in White versus Black memory by analyzing Baptist sermons documented in Alabama. Soon after the Civil War, most Black Baptists in the South left the Southern Baptist Convention, reducing its numbers by hundreds of thousands or more.{{Citation needed|date=July 2018}} They quickly organized their own congregations and developed their own regional and state associations and, by the end of the 19th century, a national convention.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brooks|first=Walter H.|date=1922-01-01|title=The Evolution of the Negro Baptist Church|journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume=7|issue=1|pages=11–22|doi=10.2307/2713578|issn=0022-2992|jstor=2713578|s2cid=149662445}}</ref>

White preachers in Alabama after Reconstruction expressed the view that:

{{blockquote|God had chastised them and given them a special mission – to maintain orthodoxy, strict biblicism, personal piety, and "traditional" race relations. Slavery, they insisted, had not been sinful. Rather, emancipation was a historical tragedy and the end of Reconstruction was a clear sign of God's favor.}}

Black preachers interpreted the Civil War, [[Emancipation Proclamation|Emancipation]] and Reconstruction as "God's gift of freedom." They had a gospel of liberation, having long identified with the [[Book of Exodus]] from slavery in the Old Testament. They took opportunities to exercise their independence, to worship in their own way, to affirm their worth and dignity, and to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Most of all, they quickly formed their own churches, associations, and conventions to operate freely without white supervision. These institutions offered self-help and racial uplift, a place to develop and use leadership, and places for proclamation of the gospel of liberation. As a result, Black preachers said that God would protect and help him and God's people; God would be their rock in a stormy land.<ref>Wilson Fallin Jr., ''Uplifting the People: Three Centuries of Black Baptists in Alabama'' (2007) pp. 52–53</ref>

The Southern Baptist Convention supported [[white supremacy]] and its results: [[Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|disenfranchising most Blacks and many poor whites]] at the turn of the 20th century by raising barriers to voter registration, and passage of [[racial segregation]] laws that enforced the system of [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Hassan|first=Adeel|date=2018-12-12|title=Oldest Institution of Southern Baptist Convention Reveals Past Ties to Slavery|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/us/southern-baptist-slavery.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/us/southern-baptist-slavery.html |archive-date=2022-01-01 |url-access=limited|access-date=2020-06-18|issn=0362-4331}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Its members largely resisted the [[civil rights movement]] in the South, which sought to enforce their constitutional rights for public access and voting; and enforcement of midcentury federal civil rights laws.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hankins|first1=Barry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b59T47P8CaUC|title=Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture|publisher=University of Alabama Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-8173-1142-1|location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama|page=74|language=en|quote=One scholar has called the proslavery racism that gave birth to the SBC the denomination's original sin. He argued that the controversy of the 1980s was part of God's judgment on a denomination that for most of its history engaged in racism, sexism, and a sense of denominational superiority. Whatever the merits of this particular argument, the Southern Baptist Convention, like most southern institutions, reflected, manifested, and in many instances led the racism of the region as a whole. Nowhere was this more prevalent than during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, when most of the leaders of the opposition to desegregation were Southern Baptists. For just one example of a fairly typical Southern Baptist attitude, one can turn to Douglas Hudgins, pastor of one of the South's most prominent churches in the 1950s and 1960s, First Baptist, Jackson, Mississippi. Hudgins used the moderate theology of E. Y. Mullins, with its emphasis on individualism and soul competency, to argue that the Christian faith had nothing to do with a corporate, societal problem like segregation. He, therefore, refused to speak up for African Americans and, in more ways than he could have known, helped inspire a whole generation of Southern Baptists to rest comfortably in their belief that segregation was natural and that the Civil Rights movement was a perversion of the gospel.}}</ref>

In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that recognized the failure of their ancestors to protect the civil rights of African Americans.<ref>Marisa Iati, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/12/southern-baptist-conventions-flagship-seminary-admits-all-four-its-founders-owned-slaves/ Southern Baptist Convention's flagship seminary details its racist, slave-owning past in stark report] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211221055908/https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/12/southern-baptist-conventions-flagship-seminary-admits-all-four-its-founders-owned-slaves/ |date=21 December 2021 }}, washingtonpost.com, US, 12 December 2018</ref> More than 20,000 Southern Baptists registered for the meeting in Atlanta. The resolution declared that messengers, as SBC delegates are called, "unwaveringly denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin" and "lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest." It offered an apology to all African Americans for "condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime" and repentance for "racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously or unconsciously." Although Southern Baptists have condemned racism in the past, this was the first time the convention, predominantly White since the Reconstruction era, had specifically addressed the issue of slavery.

The statement sought forgiveness "from our African-American brothers and sisters" and pledged to "eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry." In 1995, about 500,000 members of the 15.6-million-member denomination were African Americans and another 300,000 were ethnic minorities. The resolution marked the denomination's first formal acknowledgment that racism played a role in its founding.<ref>"SBC renounces racist past – Southern Baptist Convention", ''The Christian Century''. 5 July 1995</ref>

====Caribbean islands====
{{blockquote| A healthy Church kills error, and tears evil in pieces! Not so very long ago our nation tolerated slavery in our colonies. Philanthropists endeavored to destroy slavery, but when was it utterly abolished? It was when [[William Wilberforce|Wilberforce]] roused the Church of God, and when the Church of God addressed herself to the conflict—then she tore the evil thing to pieces! – [[Charles Spurgeon|C.H. Spurgeon]] an outspoken British Baptist opponent of slavery in 'The Best War Cry' (1883)<ref name="CHS">{{cite web| last =Spurgeon |first= Charles | url= http://www.newsforchristians.com/spurgeon/chs1709.html| title= The Best War Cry | date= 4 March 1883 | access-date= 26 December 2014}}</ref>}}

Elsewhere in the Americas, in the Caribbean in particular, Baptist missionaries and members took an active role in the anti-slavery movement. In Jamaica, for example, [[William Knibb]], a prominent British Baptist missionary, worked toward the emancipation of slaves in the [[British West Indies]] (which took place in full in 1838). Knibb supported the creation of "[[Free Villages]]" and sought funding from English Baptists to buy land for freedmen to cultivate; the Free Villages were envisioned as rural communities to be centered around a Baptist church where emancipated slaves could farm their own land. [[Thomas Burchell]], missionary minister in [[Montego Bay]], was active in this movement, gaining funds from Baptists in England to buy land for what became known as Burchell Free Village.

Prior to emancipation, Baptist deacon [[Samuel Sharpe]], who served with Burchell, organized a general strike of slaves seeking better conditions. It developed into a major rebellion of as many as 60,000 slaves, which became known as the Christmas Rebellion or the [[Baptist War]]. It was put down by government troops within two weeks. During and after the rebellion, an estimated 200 slaves were killed outright, with more than 300 judicially executed later by prosecution in the courts, sometimes for minor offenses.

Baptists were active after emancipation in promoting the education of former slaves; for example, Jamaica's [[Calabar High School]], named after the port of [[Calabar]] in Nigeria, was founded by Baptist missionaries. At the same time, during and after slavery, slaves and free Blacks formed their own [[Spiritual Baptist]] movements—breakaway spiritual movements which theology often expressed resistance to oppression.<ref>{{citation|first=Jean|last=Besson|title=Martha Brae's Two Histories | place= Chapel Hill | publisher = University of North Carolina |year=2002}}</ref>

===Landmark crisis===
Southern Baptist [[Landmarkism]] sought to reset the [[Ecclesiastical separatism|ecclesiastical separation]] which had characterized the old Baptist churches, in an era when inter-denominational union meetings were the order of the day.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ashcraft |first=Robert |title=Landmarkism Revisited |publisher=Ashcraft Publications |year=2003 |place=Mabelvale, [[Arkansas|AR]] |pages=84–85}}</ref> [[James Robinson Graves]] was an influential Baptist of the 19th century and the primary leader of this movement.<ref>{{cite book | first = Ben M.|last=Bogard|title=Pillars of Orthodoxy| url = https://archive.org/details/pillarsoforthodo00boga|page=[https://archive.org/details/pillarsoforthodo00boga/page/199 199]|place=Louisville|publisher= Baptist Book Concern|year= 1900}}.</ref> While some Landmarkers eventually separated from the Southern Baptist Convention, the movement continued to influence the Convention into the 20th and 21st centuries.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smith |title=American Christianity: An Historical Interpretation With Representative Documents |last2=Handy |last3=Loetscher |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |year=1963 |volume=II: 1820–1960 |page=110}}</ref>

===Modernist crisis===
{{further|Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy}}
[[File:Spurgeon.png|thumb|left|upright|[[Charles Spurgeon]] later in life]]

The rise of theological modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also greatly affected Baptists.{{Sfn | Torbet | 1975 | pp = 424–45}} The Landmark movement has been described as a reaction among Southern Baptists in the United States against incipient modernism.<ref>{{citation|title=History of the American Baptist Association|editor1-first=Robert|editor1-last= Ashcraft|pages= 63–6|series= Texarkana|publisher= History and Archives Committee of the American Baptist Association|year=2000}}</ref> In England, [[Charles Spurgeon]] fought against modernistic views of the Scripture in the [[Downgrade Controversy]] and severed his church from the Baptist Union as a result.{{Sfn | Torbet | 1975 | p = 114}}<ref name="downgrade">{{Cite book|last=Spurgeon |first=Charles |title=The "Down Grade" Controversy |publisher=Pilgrim Publications |location=Pasadena, Texas |page=264 |date=2009 |url=http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/dwngrd.htm |isbn=978-1561862115 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140623204825/http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/dwngrd.htm |archive-date=23 June 2014 }}</ref><ref name="Nettles">{{Cite book | last = Nettles | first = Tom | title = Living By Revealed Truth The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon | publisher = Christian Focus Publishing| location = Ross-shire | pages = 700 | date = 21 July 2013 | isbn =9781781911228 }}</ref>

The [[Northern Baptist Convention]] in the United States had internal conflict over modernism in the early 20th century, ultimately embracing it.{{Sfn | Torbet | 1975 | pp =395, 436}} Two new conservative associations of congregations that separated from the convention were founded as a result: the [[General Association of Regular Baptist Churches]] in 1933 and the [[Conservative Baptist Association of America]] in 1947.{{Sfn | Torbet | 1975 | pp =395, 436}}

Following similar conflicts over modernism, [[Southern Baptist Convention conservative resurgence|the Southern Baptist Convention adhered to conservative theology]] as its official position.<ref>Hefley, James C., ''The Truth in Crisis, Volume 6: The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention'', Hannibal Books, 2008. {{ISBN|0-929292-19-7}}.</ref><ref>James, Rob B. ''The Fundamentalist Takeover in the Southern Baptist Convention'', 4th ed., Wilkes Publishing, [[Washington, Georgia]].</ref> In the late 20th century, Southern Baptists who disagreed with this direction founded two new groups: the liberal [[Alliance of Baptists]] in 1987 and the more moderate [[Cooperative Baptist Fellowship]] in 1991.<ref name = BrackneyBNA138>{{cite book| last =Brackney | first = William H.|title=Baptists in North America: An Historical Perspective|publisher=Wiley |year=2006|isbn=978-1-4051-1865-1 |page=138|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=elSI3WJy1kMC&pg=PA138 | access-date = 16 May 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| last1 = Mead | first1 = Frank Spencer | first2 = Samuel S | last2 = Hill | first3 = Craig D | last3 = Atwood|title= Handbook of Denominations in the United States|publisher= Abingdon Press |year= 2001 | isbn = 978-0-687-06983-5|page= 46}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Leonard|first=Bill J.|title=Baptists in America|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-231-12703-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/baptistsinameric0000leon/page/228 228]|url=https://archive.org/details/baptistsinameric0000leon/page/228}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |access-date=16 January 2010 |url=http://www.thefellowship.info/About-Us/FAQ |title=CBF History |publisher=Cooperative Baptist Fellowship |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101130075936/http://thefellowship.info/About-Us/FAQ |archive-date=30 November 2010 |url-status = dead }}</ref> Originally both schisms continued to identify as Southern Baptist, but over time they "became permanent new families of Baptists."<ref name =BrackneyBNA138 />

===Criticism===
In his 1963 book, ''Strength to Love'', Baptist pastor [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] criticized some Baptist churches for their [[anti-intellectualism]], especially because of the lack of theological training among pastors.<ref>Lewis Baldwin, ''The Voice of Conscience: The Church in the Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr.'', Oxford University Press, US, 2010, p. 16</ref>

In 2018, Baptist theologian [[Russell D. Moore]] criticized some Baptists in the United States for their [[moralism]] emphasizing strongly the condemnation of certain personal sins, but silent on the social injustices that afflict entire populations, such as racism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Samuel |date=2018-09-13 |title=Moore on MacArthur's Social Justice Statement: 'Bible Doesn't Make These Artificial Distinctions' |url=https://www.christianpost.com/news/russell-moore-john-macarthur-social-justice-statement-bible-doesnt-make-these-artificial-distinctions.html |access-date=2023-05-09 |website=The Christian Post |language=en-US}}</ref> In 2020, the [[North American Baptist Fellowship]], a region of the Baptist World Alliance, officially made a commitment to social justice and spoke out against [[institutionalized discrimination]] in the American justice system.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Camp |first=Ken |date=2020-06-04 |title=Baptist groups lament and decry racial injustice |url=https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/baptists/baptist-groups-lament-and-decry-racial-injustice/ |access-date=2023-05-09 |website=Baptist Standard |language=en-US}}</ref> In 2022, the Baptist World Alliance adopted a resolution encouraging Baptist churches and associations that have historically contributed to the sin of slavery to engage in [[restorative justice]]. <ref>Ken Camp, [https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/world/bwa-resolutions-condemn-racism-commend-reparations/ BWA resolutions condemn racism, commend reparations], baptiststandard.com, USA, July 16, 2022</ref>