The SBC and the Broader Evangelical Community

October 4, 2016 by Andy Naselli Leave a Comment

This is a fascinating new essay:

Collin Hansen and Justin Taylor. “From Babylon Baptist to Baptists in Babylon: The SBC and the Broader Evangelical Community.” Pages 33–49 in The SBC and the 21st Century: Reflections, Renewal, and Recommitments. Edited by Jason K. Allen. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2016.

Their thesis is that (a) evangelicals need Southern Baptist conviction and (b) Southern Baptists need evangelical experience. They show that by examining four overlapping pairs of Southern Baptists:

1. Southern Baptist by Name, Evangelical by Reputation: Carl F. H. Henry and Billy Graham
2. Educational Pioneers Inside and Outside the SBC: David Dockery and Timothy George
3. Southern Baptist Tried and True: Albert Mohler and Russell Moore
4. Baptists for World Evangelism: Matt Chandler and David Platt

Four excerpts:

1. During his lifetime Henry was known more as pioneer of the postwar neoevangelical movement than as a Southern Baptist churchman. … For most of his life, he was a prophet without honor in his chosen denomination …. (p. 36)
2. While serving on faculty with Henry at TEDS, New Testament scholar D. A. Carson served as a carrier for an important letter from Henry to Mark Dever, a Cambridge University student completing doctoral studies on the Puritan theologian Richard Sibbes. Henry wanted Dever to be considered as pastor of his home congregation, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, a couple blocks from the Supreme Court building. Dever would assume the role of senior pastor in 1994, and his subsequent influence as an evangelist, preacher, networker, writer, and ecclesial theologian has extended far beyond the SBC. (p. 37)
3. To illustrate just how much conservative Southern Baptists owed to the broader evangelical movement led by Graham and Henry, consider the schools from which Mohler recruited his new faculty: TEDS, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (cofounded by Graham), Dallas Theological Seminary, Taylor University, and Wheaton College. Mohler and other Southern Baptist conservatives could never have reformed their convention without help from fellow evangelicals. (p. 37)
4. Mohler faced pressure to turn the school into a mainstream evangelical seminary. Some professors lobbied for uniformity on inerrancy but latitude on gender roles. In other words, they wanted a school like Beeson, TEDS, or Gordon-Conwell. (p. 41)

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