Baptist Faith & Message

NASHVILLE (BP) – “The hour of magnetic concern” had arrived at the SBC Annual Meeting, as the Tennessee Baptist and Reflector put it. The Convention’s confession of faith was the topic at hand. Messengers were debating whether to tailor it specifically to address a cultural flashpoint or whether that would do more harm than good.

The Baptist Faith and Message, when adopted in 1925, was not intended to be the last word on SBC beliefs. Confessions of faith are periodically revised in response to changes in culture or theological challenges from without and within. Following its adoption, the subject of denominational beliefs was not revised for nearly 40 years.  

Sanford Miller Brown Jr. was a Baptist preacher’s son from Kansas City and a recent graduate of Missouri State University. He was beginning a career in business.

The rural South was struggling in 1925. The boll weevil had invaded cotton fields, wreaking economic havoc and misery across the region. During those difficult days, one of the people’s most cherished sources of hope, their faith, came under attack by another institution they had come to trust – science. The Baptist Faith and Message was a response to those attacks and a defiant defense of their faith. It was not a hastily composed statement; it was the thoughtful product of years of work.

Yale University was founded because Harvard University was deemed too liberal. 

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. – A Kentucky Baptist pastor has penned a question-and-answer book about the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 to encourage other pastors and teach church members more about the contents of Southern Baptists’ statement of faith.

The Southern Baptist Convention messengers arriving in Memphis in May 1925 came with a sense of urgency. The entire nation had been caught off guard, two weeks earlier, when it was announced that a trial challenging a Tennessee law against teaching evolution in the public schools had been set for July. The so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial” would pit science against religion in the courts of law and public opinion. Messengers felt a need to respond and adopting a confession of faith would be their answer.

Baptists seldom go through the effort of preparing a confession of faith unless pressured or prodded, which may explain why the SBC waited 80 years to adopt one. In the mid-19th century, pressure began mounting which developed into what became known as the Modernist Fundamentalist Controversy in the early 20th century. This was the environment which prodded Southern Baptists to prepare and adopt the Baptist Faith in Message in 1925.

Nearly a century has passed since the Southern Baptist Convention adopted the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) in May of 1925. Its debate and adoption was the most passionate, time-consuming issue of that year’s SBC meeting in Memphis. By comparison there was relatively little debate and far less media coverage of the adoption of what became the Cooperative Program at the same convention.

DALLAS – The Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) Executive Board adopted a new agreement with the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board regarding church-starting in Texas and approved the initial reserve investment, officers and board for the Texas Baptist Insurance Program.