Southern Baptist Convention

Overview

The Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845 by Baptist congregations in the American South and is today the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with over 40,000 autonomous churches cooperating through the Cooperative Program in missions, six SBC seminaries, and a broad range of ministry agencies. The SBC holds the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, affirms biblical inerrancy, practices believer's baptism by immersion, and ordains only men to the office of pastor. AskCredo places the SBC in the A-tier as a broadly evangelical Baptist body in the Reformational stream, with ongoing internal variation on soteriology (Calvinist to Arminian).

Confession / Standard

Baptist Faith and Message 2000

Governance

congregational

Soteriology

mixed

Key Beliefs

• Biblical inerrancy
• Believer's baptism by immersion
• Congregational polity
• Complementarian majority

Distinctives

• Historically Reformed in its founding generation; recent decades have seen intentional inclusion of both Calvinist and Arminian theologies
• Soteriology varies church-by-church and pastor-by-pastor — from 5-point Calvinism (Founders Ministries, portions of SBTS) to classical Arminianism
• Perseverance of the saints vs. the ability to lose salvation is a key point of contention between factions
• Baptist Faith & Message 2000 is a minimalist confession compared to the 1689 LBCF; many churches hold it loosely
• Attractional-ministry influence in some congregations

Background

North America · Founded 1845

Official Website

https://sbc.net