Condensed Chronology of the Southern Baptist Convention Takeover

The following is a condensed outline of the step-by-step resurgence/ Takeover of the SBC by an element within the Convention. Dr. Leon McBeth, a noted Baptist historian, says Fundamentalism “tends to be unable to tolerate diversity and often seems determined to 'rule or ruin' its group.?

1976: Paul Pressler, a Houston judge, and Paige Patterson, then president of Criswell College in Dallas, met in New Orleans and planned a political strategy to elect a president who would nominate like-minded people to the Convention's Committee on Committees. This Committee would nominate like-minded people to the Committee on Nominations. This second committee would nominate like-minded trustees and directors to Southern Baptist agencies and institutions who would hire only like-minded staff members. Pressler called this strategy "going for the jugular.? Fundamentalist candidates have won the Convention presidency every year since 1979. By early 1989 nearly every one of the SBC boards had a majority of Takeover people on it.

(In 1998: the same Takeover strategy was used successfully to Takeover the Missouri Baptist Convention. Along the way it was also used in Georgia and Kentucky .

(In North Carolina , Fundamentalists secured control of the state convention’s Board of Directors and its powerful Executive Committee, but the convention-related agencies and institutions have so far avoided a Fundamentalist Takeover of their boards of trustees.

(Other state conventions have more peacefully transitioned “from free to subjected?? Florida , Louisiana , Mississippi , South Carolina , and Tennessee .

(The strategy failed in Virginia and Texas where Fundamentalists then set up new state conventions.)

1984: The SBC voted in Kansas City to adopt a strongly worded resolution against women in church leadership roles "because man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall."

1987: The president of Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest , North Carolina , resigned after the trustees voted to hire only faculty members who follow their interpretation of the Baptist Faith and Message.

1987: The SBC voted in St. Louis to adopt a report from “The Peace Committee?that had been set up in 1985.

1988: The Baptist Faith and Message became a creed for hiring new staff members rather than a guideline ?a stark deviation from historical Baptist roots.

1988: At the SBC Convention in San Antonio , a resolution was passed critical of the cardinal Baptist belief in the “priesthood of the believer?and “soul competency?and elevated the pastor to the position of authority in the church he serves. W. A. Criswell told a group of pastors that “the man of God who is the pastor of the church is the ruler."

1990: Roy Honeycutt, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was accused by a twenty-five-year-old new trustee of “not believing the Bible.?A new president, Al Mohler, was appointed in 1993 and hailed as “a hero of SBC Fundamentalism.?lt;o:p>

1990: Al Shackleford and Dan Martin of the Baptist Press, the official news service of the SBC, were fired for "persecuting?the Fundamentalists in their news coverage. Don McGregor, editor of the Baptist Record of Mississippi , wrote: “Today we have seen the final destruction of freedom of the press among Southern Baptists.?Immediately the Associated Baptist Press was established to offer free-flowing, objective, and accurate news coverage.

1991: At their October meeting, the Foreign Mission Board trustees voted to defund the Baptist Theological Seminary in Ruschlikon , Switzerland , thus breaking a contract the SBC had with the seminary.

1992: After years of trying to please Fundamentalist trustees, Keith Parks, president of the Foreign Mission Board, resigned under pressure. In his thirteen years as president, missionaries entered forty new countries with a total of 3,918 missionaries.

1992: Lloyd Elder, president of the Sunday School Board, resigned under pressure and was replaced by a Fundamentalist Texas pastor, Jimmy Draper. A total of 159 employees retired (voluntarily or involuntarily) in November 1992 alone.

1994: Russell Dilday, president of Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth for fifteen years, was fired abruptly and trustees changed the locks on the president's office immediately, thus denying him access. The day before, these same trustees gave Dilday a favorable job performance evaluation. These trustees sent 40,000 letters to pastors and directors of missions to explain their reason for firing Dilday. They said he failed to support the Takeover in the Convention and that he "held liberal views of the scripture.?The Seminary faculty refuted all these charges against Dilday.

1997: In October a forty-year staff member was fired at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for writing a private letter to the President of the SBC disagreeing with a statement he had made while speaking in chapel. Also in October 1997, a professor of systematic theology at Southwestern Theological Seminary was relieved of his teaching duties because he “voiced dissent about actions of the administration of the institution.?Obviously there is still no room for diversity or disagreement.

1998: In June, Paige Patterson was elected president of the SBC without opposition. The man who helped plot the Takeover strategy of the Southern Baptist Convention was now its leader. Jerry Falwell, a long-time critic of Southern Baptists, attended his first SBC Convention as a messenger along with others from his church in Lynchburg , Virginia .  Falwell has become the most visible SBC spokesperson. Also the SBC amended the Baptist Faith and Message statement by adding a wife is to “submit herself graciously?to her husband.

2000: The SBC adopted a new Baptist Faith and Message statement. It eliminated the preamble that had been part of the 1963 statement. This version, used as a creedal statement by SBC agencies, elevates the Bible to a position above that of Jesus himself and downplays the doctrines of priesthood of each believer and local church autonomy.

It is now used as a creedal statement by SBC agencies.

2002: Jerry Rankin and the IMB trustees undermined missionary morale by requiring them to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.

2004: SBC withdrew as a member of the Baptist World Alliance.

2005: The SBC voted to discontinue its boycott of Disney.

2005: The Baptist World Alliance celebrated its 100^th Anniversary in Birmingham , England , with 13,000 Baptists from throughout the world, and minus its former largest member group. BWA leaders prayed “that unity may one day be restored.?lt;/font>

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