The Southern Baptist Convention is currently facing issues that challenge its identity, heritage, and future. In The SBC and the 21st Century, Revised Edition, key leaders address critical issues such as: · Will the SBC grow more unified around shared convictions and mission or will it fragment over secondary concerns and tertiary doctrinal differences? · Will the SBC be able to maintain a distinct Baptist identity while engaging and partnering with the broader evangelical community? · Will the SBC be willing to reimagine its structures, programs, and efforts to effectively reach the world for Christ or will it risk being a past-tense denomination? This volume not only promotes meaningful dialogue, it calls leaders throughout the SBC into action. Extensive thought, research, assessment, and wisdom from some of the SBC’s brightest minds have been poured into this volume with the intent of rendering a helpful contribution to SBC life that will propel forward the collective work of Southern Baptists well into the 21st century.

In this collection of essays, sixteen Southern Baptist leaders address key issues of theology, polity, and practice to ascertain the future of the Southern Baptist Convention in particular and evangelicalism in general.

This book takes the mask off of the Southern Baptist Convention and shows that the Convention has not been taken over by fundamentalists or conservatives. It will give a very clear account of information which has never before been made public to the world. Without question, it is the most up-to-date account of the core problems within the SBC in particular, and the broader evangelical movement as a whole. -- Amazon

Between the Civil War and the turn of the last century, Southern Baptists gained prominence in the religious life of the South. As their power increased, they became defenders of the racial, political, social, and economic status quo. By the beginning of this century, however, a feisty tradition of dissent began to appear in Southern Baptist life as criticism of the center increased from both the left and the right. The popular belief in a doctrine of "once saved, always saved" led progressive Baptists to claim that moderates, once saved, did not address the serious social and political problems that faced many in the South. These Baptist dissenters claimed that they could not be "at ease in Zion." Led by the radical Walter Nathan Johnson in the 1920s and 1930s, progressive Baptists produced civil rights advocates, labor organizers, women's rights advocates, and proponents of disarmament and abolition of capital punishment. They challenged some of the most fundamental aspects of southern society and of Baptist ecclesiastical structure and practice. For their efforts and beliefs, many of these men and women suffered as they lost jobs, experienced physical danger and injury, and endured character assassination. In A Genealogy of Dissent, David Stricklin traces the history of these progressive Baptists and their descendants throughout the twentieth century and shows how they created an active culture of protest within a highly traditional society.

The Baptist Way is an introduction to the principles that distinguish Baptists from other Christians. In some cases these ideas were once peculiarly Baptists, though they are now more widely held among other groups. For Stan Norman, healthy Baptist churches intentionally and diligently adhere to their Baptist distinctives.

"This multiauthor volume represents a far-ranging effort to bring women into our understanding of recent Baptist history, thereby opening up the historiography of Baptist studies, which the editors argue has been too insular for far too long. This interdisciplinary approach extends the latest feminist scholarship to embrace racial issues within the denomination, the role that women had in the SBC takeover, Baptist women during the Progressive Era, a couple of essays on the Woman's Missionary Union, Baptist women in feminism (specifically the ERA), Beth Moore, and other topics"--

The daughter of one of the South’s most famous Baptist preachers discovers a shocking secret about her father that puts her at odds with both her faith and her family in this debut novel. “Spellbinding…Revival Season should be read alongside Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.” —The Washington Post A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Every summer, fifteen-year-old Miriam Horton and her family pack themselves tight in their old minivan and travel through small southern towns for revival season: the time when Miriam’s father—one of the South’s most famous preachers—holds massive healing services for people desperate to be cured of ailments and disease. But, this summer, the revival season doesn’t go as planned, and after one service in which Reverend Horton’s healing powers are tested like never before, Miriam witnesses a shocking act of violence that shakes her belief in her father—and her faith. When the Hortons return home, Miriam’s confusion only grows as she discovers she might have the power to heal—even though her father and the church have always made it clear that such power is denied to women. Over the course of the following year, Miriam must decide between her faith, her family, and her newfound power that might be able to save others, but if discovered by her father, could destroy Miriam. Celebrating both feminism and faith, Revival Season is a “tender and wise” (Ann Patchett) story of spiritual awakening and disillusionment in a Southern, Black, Evangelical community.