The Conservative Resurgence

By Nathan Finn

Published: June 24, 2008

It was my intention to take a short break from blogging. I have decided to interrupt that break with this post. The following thoughts are my own. Though I know many conservative Southern Baptists who share these sentiments, I am not speaking on behalf of anyone except myself.

This means at least two things. First, this means it is superfluous to insist that anybody with whom I share other commonalities should have to express their disagreement with my sentiments on this issue-they are, after all, my sentiments, not the sentiments of another.

Second, this means if anyone attempts to impute my opinions to someone else, it will be for reasons other than the pursuit of clarity, since imputing my opinions to others would actually result in confusion. And I think we all agree that confusion would be most unhelpful at this juncture in SBC history.

1). The battle for the Bible will never end.

I agree with Danny Akin that the battle for the Bible-or better, the battle for God's Word-began in the Garden of Eden. There are individuals in every generation who call into question the integrity of God's Word. This was true millennia before there was a Southern Baptist Convention, let alone a 1979. The battle for the Bible will continue until Christ makes all things new. We must be ready to defend the Word of God against whatever new threats may arise.

2). The Conservative Resurgence was one manifestation of the battle for the Bible and it is now over.

Though some Southern Baptists questioned the truthfulness of Scripture in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was in the generation after World War II that the problem became widespread in our Convention. Every Southern Baptist seminary employed professors who denied biblical inerrancy. These seminaries trained all of our missionaries, most of our denominational servants, and a good many of our pastors, especially those who occupied the pulpits of the historic "First Churches."

Most Convention bureaucrats were either sympathetic to the progressive theology or unconcerned with it, choosing to focus instead on promoting Convention programs and preserving the status quo. This irked many conservatives. Some of them left the Convention for the Independent Baptist movement. Others exercised conservative dissent by withholding Cooperative Program funds, forming alternative entities like Mid-America Seminary and Southern Baptist Advocate, and voting for a revision to the first volume of the Broadman Bible Commentary.

In the mid-1970s, conservative dissenters came together with a specific plan to capture the Convention's bureaucracy for the purpose of reorganizing the denomination's entities around conservative theological principles. Their plan worked. The Convention's bureaucracy was changed. Most of the moderates disengaged. The denomination was restructured. A new confession of faith was adopted. The Conservative Resurgence was a resounding success, and as a unique manifestation of the battle for the Bible within the SBC, it was over around the year 2000.

3). State Convention versions of the Conservative Resurgence were launched in the 1980s and continue to this day in some places.

I differentiate between the Conservative Resurgence proper-which was about the SBC-and related movements in the state conventions. I do so for several reasons. First, strictly speaking, the state conventions are not "part" of the SBC in the same sense our seminaries and mission boards are "part" of the SBC. The state conventions are autonomous entities that voluntarily cooperate with the SBC through the Cooperative Program.

Second, the various attempts to enact state-level conservative movements that were in sympathy with the Conservative Resurgence started at different times during the 1980s; it was a cluster of like-minded movements, not a single movement. Third, the state movements were and are sometimes led by different people than the SBC Conservative Resurgence. Finally, the state movements have a mixed track record of success, unlike the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC, which accomplished its stated task.

Some of our state conventions are still in need of a conservative renovation. That is the case with at least a half dozen than I can think of off the top of my head. Conservative Baptists in those state conventions must remain diligent to contend for the control of those states so that they can embrace BF&M 2000, possibly be restructured, witness a disengagement of moderates, and ultimately cooperate more closely with the SBC.

But those movements are not the Conservative Resurgence proper; they are movements inspired by the Conservative Resurgence and, in most cases, modeled after the Conservative Resurgence. I hope every one of them is ultimately successful.

4). Despite the complete success of the Conservative Resurgence, there are still theological problems that arise from time to time within the SBC.

Simply put, though we now have a thoroughly conservative Southern Baptist Convention, there are still periodic assaults on the Bible's truthfulness or sufficiency. The battle for the Bible in the Southern Baptist Convention will continue despite the fact that the Conservative Resurgence was a success. But we will not need another Conservative Resurgence unless we face another Convention-wide theological downgrade like the one we faced during the mid-20th century.

I pray that never happens.

5). Because the Conservative Resurgence is over, any agenda we embrace in the Southern Baptist Convention is necessarily post-Conservative Resurgence.

By "post-Conservative Resurgence," I certainly do not mean "anti-Conservative Resurgence." Rather, I mean "after" the Conservative Resurgence, though by God's grace deliberately in continuity with the Conservative Resurgence. To say it another way, within the entities of the SBC, the Conservative Resurgence has given us a solid foundation upon which to build. Despite some of our doctrinal differences, we share greater theological commonality than we have in several generations.

The Conservative Resurgence has brought conservative Southern Baptists together and provided us with vital ministry resources in our various entities and boards. The time is ripe to capitalize on the gains of the last three decades. I hope the Conservative Resurgence bears great fruit in the present Southern Baptist Convention.

Conclusion

I well recognize that some will choose not to characterize our recent past and present circumstances in exactly the way I do. That said, I sincerely hope that we all have the same foundation and the same basic goals, even if we exegete the details of the history in different ways. No conservative Southern Baptist is calling or will call for a reversal of the Conservative Resurgence.

No conservative Southern Baptist is calling or will call for a "relaxing" of our Convention-wide commitment to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. No conservative Southern Baptist is arguing or will argue that any present or future agenda should be disconnected from the foundation secured between 1979 and 2000.

For my part, I am thankful for the Conservative Resurgence. By God's grace, the Southern Baptist Convention did not follow the path of so many mainline denominations by capitulating to culture and rejecting our biblical foundation. There is still much work to be done in many of our state conventions (and associations). And there is still much work to be done for the kingdom. And the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, Lord willing, will provide us with both the foundation and the inspiration to accomplish these things and all things that God would have us do, to His glory.

Dr. Nathan Finn is the Assistant Professor of Church History at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Finn currently teaches courses in Church History and Baptist History at The College at Southeastern, the undergraduate program at SEBTS. He along with his wife, Leah, are members of the First Baptist Church of Durham, North Carolina. You can find Dr. Nathan Finn blogging at http://nathanafinn.wordpress.com.

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