Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian body in the United States.[1][2] In 1845, the Southern Baptists separated from the Triennial Convention in order to support slavery, which the southern churches regarded as "an institution of heaven".[3][4] During the 19th and most of the 20th century, it played a central role in Southern racial attitudes, supporting racial segregation and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy while opposing interracial marriage.[5] In 1995, the organization apologized for its history.[6] Since the 1940s, it has spread across the United States, having affiliated churches across the country and 41 affiliated state conventions.[7][8][9]
Southern Baptist Convention
SBC; GCB
Evangelical Fundamentalist
May 8–12, 1845
Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
Triennial Convention (1845)
47,198 (2022)
13,223,122 (2022)
Weekly attendance = 3,800,000 (2022)
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief
Great Commission Baptists
Churches affiliated with the association are evangelical in doctrine and practice, emphasizing the significance of the individual conversion experience, which is affirmed by the person having complete immersion in water for a believer's baptism.[9] Other specific beliefs based on biblical interpretation can vary by congregational polity, to balance local church autonomy with accountability against abuses by ministers and others in individual churches.[10] These claims are disputed by pastors whose churches have been expelled because of their support for LGBTQ inclusion, which contradicts its confession of faith.[11] The association forbids women from becoming pastors,[12] and denounces same-sex marriage as an "abomination".[13]
Self-reported membership peaked in 2006 at roughly 16 million.[14] Membership has contracted by an estimated 13.6% since that year, with 2020 marking the 14th year of continuous decline.[15] Mean organization-wide weekly attendance dropped about 27% between 2006 and 2020.[14][16]
Name[edit]
The official name is the Southern Baptist Convention. The word Southern in "Southern Baptist Convention" stems from its having been organized in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, by white Baptists in the Southern United States who supported continuing the institution of slavery and split from the northern Baptists (known today as the American Baptist Churches USA), who did not support funding slave-holding evangelists from the South.[4]
In 2012, the organization adopted the descriptor Great Commission Baptists after the election of its first African American president.[17] Additionally, in 2020, some leaders of the Southern Baptists wanted to change its name to "Great Commission Baptists" to distance itself from its white supremacist foundation, and because it is no longer a specifically Southern church. Several churches affiliated with the denomination have also begun to identify as "Great Commission Baptists".[18][19][20][21]
Missions and affiliated organizations[edit]
Cooperative Program[edit]
The Cooperative Program (CP) is the organization's unified funds collection and distribution program for the support of regional, national and international ministries; the CP is funded by contributions from affiliated congregations.[189]
In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, the local congregations of the denomination reported gift receipts of $11.1 billion.[190] From this they sent $548 million, approximately five percent, to their state Baptist conventions through the CP.[190] Of this amount, the state Baptist conventions retained $344 million for their work. Two hundred and four million dollars was sent on to the national CP budget for the support of denomination-wide ministries.[190]
Mission agencies[edit]
The denomination was organized in 1845 primarily for the purpose of creating a mission board to support the sending of Baptist missionaries, albeit slaveholding missionaries. The North American Mission Board, or NAMB, (founded as the Domestic Mission Board, and later the Home Mission Board) in Alpharetta, Georgia serves missionaries involved in evangelism and church planting in the U.S. and Canada, while the International Mission Board, or IMB, (originally the Foreign Mission Board) in Richmond, Virginia, sponsors missionaries to the rest of the world.
Baptist Men is the mission organization for men in the convention's churches, and is under the North American Mission Board.
The Woman's Missionary Union, founded in 1888, is an auxiliary to the national convention, which helps facilitate two large annual missions offerings: the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering (for North American missions) and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering (for international missions).
