Conservative ResurgenceEdit

Conservative Resurgence refers to a strategic reform movement within the Southern Baptist Convention aimed at restoring doctrinal clarity and governance to the denomination. Spanning roughly from the late 1970s into the early 1990s, the effort brought together pastors, church leaders, and lay activists who believed that key institutions—especially the denomination’s seminaries and its network of boards and agencies—had drifted away from a strict commitment to biblical authority. Proponents described the shift as a return to foundational convictions, with Scripture seen as the ultimate standard for faith, doctrine, and practice.

Supporters argued that restoring this doctrinal baseline was essential not only for the integrity of the SBC’s message but also for preserving the mission of churches to proclaim the gospel, disciple believers, and plant new churches. The movement’s leaders and participants believed that institutional reform would translate into more faithful preaching, clearer theology, and a more effective public witness. The changes they pushed for would shape the direction of the denomination for decades and help determine how the SBC engaged with culture, politics, and social questions.

Origins and Context

The SBC had grown substantially in the postwar era, founding a number of seminaries and agencies that trained pastors, deployed missionaries, and published religious literature. By the 1960s and 1970s, critics within the denomination charged that liberal or moderating viewpoints were gaining influence in some centers of influence, including several Southern Baptist Theological Seminarys and related institutions. Those concerns centered on questions of biblical authority, inerrancy, and the interpretation of Scripture, as well as the direction of church-state relations, evangelism strategies, and social issues. The movement positioned itself in opposition to a perceived drift away from a strict, gospel-centered stance and toward a more expansive liberal agenda in theological education and denomination governance.

A turning point occurred when conservatives organized around a core program to take control of key denominational levers—boards, committees, and seminary leadership—so that their interpretation of Scripture and church practice would set the standard for the entire SBC. Central figures and local congregations aligned around a shared conviction that the SBC’s life should be governed by the authority of the Bible, the centrality of the local church, and a mission-first mindset that prioritized missions, church planting, and sound doctrine. The effort leveraged elections to trustee boards and leadership positions at major institutions, and it sought to articulate a clear doctrinal statement that could guide all SBC entities Baptist Faith and Message.

Leadership and Strategy

Adrian Rogers emerged as a prominent national voice for the movement, helping to galvanize supporters and articulate a program for reform. His leadership, along with other conservatives within the denomination, emphasized predictable governance, accountability, and doctrinal standards as the antidote to what they described as doctrinal ambiguity and managerial drift. The strategy focused on:

Replacing de facto moderates on Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and seminary boards with conservatives who would adhere to the agreed-upon doctrinal framework.
Reconstituting leadership at the flagship seminaries, including Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, along with other schools such as Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary near Wake Forest.
Establishing and enforcing a clear doctrinal baseline, framed in part by the convention’s confessional statement Baptist Faith and Message and its understanding of biblical inerrancy.
Aligning denominational policy with a mission-driven agenda that emphasized evangelism, church multiplication, and global outreach.

These moves were pursued not as a political coup but as an effort to restore what supporters viewed as a biblically faithful framework for church life and denominational polity.

Institutional Reforms and Doctrinal Foundations

A core aim of the Resurgence was to realign the SBC’s institutions around a shared commitment to biblical authority. This included:

Strengthening the authority of the Bible as the rule of faith and life, frequently framed in terms of biblical inerrancy and the trustworthiness of Scripture.
Codifying doctrinal expectations through the Baptist Faith and Message as the standard for what it means to be in good standing with the SBC, and aligning seminary curricula with that standard.
Reconfiguring governance at major seminaries to ensure that training for ministry and church leadership reflected a conservative, evangelical interpretation of Scripture.
Emphasizing the centrality of evangelism, missions, and church growth as the practical outworking of doctrinal fidelity.

The movement also interfaced with debates on gender roles in ministry, promoting a complementarian view that certain leadership roles in the church were reserved for men. This stance was typically presented as a biblically based conclusion about church governance and the use of spiritual gifts in ministry, and it became a defining piece of the SBC’s identity in subsequent years. Related discussions linked to these questions included Complementarianism and the interpretation of biblical passages on church leadership.

The Reform also influenced how the SBC handled publishing, education, and publishing boards, with a push to ensure doctrinal coherence across denominational communications and resources. The aim was to produce a consistent gospel-centered voice in pulpits, classrooms, and mission fields.

Debates and Controversies

The Conservative Resurgence was not without controversy. Critics argued that the reform movement used organizational power to advance a narrow theologically conservative agenda, potentially limiting scholarly inquiry, open debate, and the pluralism of viewpoints within the denomination. Detractors often described the shift as a move away from the pastoral, locally owned church in favor of centralized control and a dictated doctrinal line. The heated dynamics around seminaries, publishing houses, and regional associations led to long-running tensions within the SBC.

From a defender’s perspective, the controversy was framed as a defense of doctrinal integrity against what they saw as a drift toward relativism or liberal theology in influential institutions. In this view, the adjustments in governance and doctrine were necessary corrections to preserve the authority of Scripture, the centrality of the gospel, and the mission of the church in a changing culture. Critics sometimes labeled the movement as overly exclusive or reactionary, while supporters argued that the reforms simply re-centered a Christian witness on the timeless authority of the Bible and the imperative to reach the world with the gospel.

Woke criticisms directed at evangelical reform movements in later decades sometimes target this era as evidence of fear-driven consolidation or doctrinal rigidity. Proponents of the Resurgence typically respond by arguing that the criticisms mischaracterize the effort as hostility to reform rather than a principled defense of biblical truth, and that the movement sought to preserve doctrinal clarity without suppressing legitimate inquiry or local church autonomy.

Legacy and Impact

The Conservative Resurgence left a durable imprint on the shape of the SBC. It helped to:

Reorient the denomination’s leadership and, in many cases, its educational institutions around a shared doctrinal core.
Strengthen the concept of biblical inerrancy as a non-negotiable standard for teaching and leadership within the SBC.
Influence the direction of denominational programs, mission strategies, and the training of pastors, new ministers, and church leaders across the country.
Contribute to ongoing debates about gender roles in ministry, authority structures within churches, and the balance between theological commitments and broader cultural engagement.
Shape how the SBC approached issues of publishing, publishing boards, and the dissemination of doctrinal and missional literature through Southern Baptist Convention channels and affiliated media.

The movement laid groundwork that continued to influence the SBC in the following decades, including how it navigated internal disagreements, social questions, and the global mission enterprise. It also intersected with broader currents in evangelical life, influencing how similar denominations approached doctrinal definition, institutional reform, and the relationship between theology and public witness. The long-term effects can be seen in subsequent discussions around the denomination’s identity, governance, and strategy for outreach to a diverse and changing American religious landscape, including ongoing engagement with global missions and theological education.