With 16.3 million members and 44,000 churches, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Baptist group in the world, and the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Unlike the so-called mainstream Protestant denominations, Southern Baptists have remained stubbornly conservative, refusing to adapt their beliefs and practices to modernity's individualist and populist values. Instead, they have held fast to traditional orthodoxy in such fundamental areas as biblical inspiration, creation, conversion, and miracles. Gregory Wills argues that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has played a fundamental role in the persistence of conservatism, not entirely intentionally. Tracing the history of the seminary from the beginning to the present, Wills shows how its foundational commitment to preserving orthodoxy was implanted in denominational memory in ways that strengthened the denomination's conservatism and limited the seminary's ability to stray from it. In a set of circumstances in which the seminary played a central part, Southern Baptists' populist values bolstered traditional orthodoxy rather than diminishing it. In the end, says Wills, their populism privileged orthodoxy over individualism. The story of Southern Seminary is fundamental to understanding Southern Baptist controversy and identity. Wills's study sheds important new light on the denomination that has played - and continues to play - such a central role in our national history.

Auteur

Professor of Church History, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Contenu

References and Notes Chapter 1 - Boyce's Seminary Chapter 2 - Making Bricks without Straw: War, Disruption, and Sacrifice Chapter 3 - Modernism's First Martyr: Crawford H. Toy and the Inspiration Controversy Chapter 4 - All Things Made New: The End of the Heroic Age Chapter 5 - William H. Whitsitt, Academic Freedom, and Denominational Control Chapter 6 - E. Y. Mullins, Southern Seminary, and Progressive Theology Chapter 7 - Reasserting Orthodoxy: Mullins and Denominational Leadership Chapter 8 - Orthodoxy, Historical Criticism, and the Challenges of a New Era Chapter 9 - Duke K. McCall and the Struggle for the Seminary's Direction Chapter 10 - Losing Trust : Liberalism and the Limits of Realist Democracy Chapter 11 - Declaring Holy War: Roy L. Honeycutt and Popular Control Chapter 12 - The Conservative Takeover Chapter 13 - R. Albert Mohler and the Remaking of Southern Seminary Index