From abortion and porn to women and race: How Southern Baptist Convention resolutions have evolved

by Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Eastern Illinois University


The Southern Baptist Convention will convene its annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 15, 2021, in what could be the most consequential such get-together in recent memory.

Just 15 years ago, the SBC boasted some 16.3 million members across the United States. However, it is hemorrhaging members. According to data released in May, Southern Baptists have lost over 2 million members since 2006, with over 400,000 defections in the last year alone.

The denomination has also been embroiled in a number of controversies in recent years. A resolution passed at the 2019 meeting condemned critical race theory, a set of ideas that view racism as structural rather than expressed through individual prejudice, prompting several prominent Black pastors to depart. And in March, Beth Moore, a very popular female Southern Baptist author and speaker, publicly announced that she was leaving the group, citing the SBC’s approval of Donald Trump and its views on gender. The widely held perception is that the SBC has lurched farther to the right over the last few years.

As a result, all eyes will be on the resolutions that are debated and subsequently passed at the annual meeting, the belief being they will give tremendous insight into the trajectory of the SBC and more generally American evangelicalism, of which Southern Baptists are the largest group.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/from-abortion-and-porn-to-women-and-race-how-southern-baptist-convention-resolutions-have-evolved-162411