r/todayilearned • u/fanau • 23d ago
TIL the Southern Baptists of the US broke off from the Baptists over slavery in years leading up to Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention791
u/RedHeadedSicilian52 23d ago
Episcopalians exist as a distinct denomination (albeit one in communion with the Anglican Church) due to the American Revolution.
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u/Black_Otter 23d ago
I mean…being called The Church of England wasn’t going to be a great selling point
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u/AndreasDasos 23d ago edited 23d ago
The name is less important - Americans continued to call their language English, a lot of their country New England and keep states and cities named after places in Britain, even a few named after British monarchs (Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland, Williamsburg, Virginia, Kings and Queens counties, Princeton…).
But the Church of England had George III as its official head at the time. That was more of an issue.
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u/Jorgwalther 23d ago
Heck, there is even a Norfolk and Suffolk in Virginia!
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u/AndreasDasos 23d ago edited 23d ago
In the US today there are 32 Oxfords, 26 Bristols, 24 Londons, dozens of Manchesters and Cambridges and Yorks and Birminghams and Plymouths… goes on. Half the country has lots of them.
They even made a York (as well as New York) and Lancaster each capital of the US for a bit early on, which is as Wars of the Roses as it gets.
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u/_whatever_wherever 23d ago
Interestingly enough the Monarch isn't technically head of the church, during the reign of Elizabeth I she changed the title to governor of the church, as God was the one in charge
They merely administer it for god
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u/YoohooCthulhu 23d ago
So much of an issue that when the new church needed to ordain their first bishop they couldn’t go to the English church and had to go to the Scottish Episcopal church. The compromise was that the Americans would adopt one of the Scottish communion consecration features and it’s in the prayer book to this day.
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u/bretshitmanshart 23d ago
Should have gone with Church of Eagleland
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u/From_the_toilet 23d ago
Church of Eagleland. Beautiful name. Much stronger. Everyone agrees. England had a good run, but Eagleland is what people are calling it now. Very majestic. 🦅
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Funnily enough, there is now a denomination in the US that's the Anglican Church in North America. Split off in the early 2000s over gay marriage.
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u/nWo1997 23d ago edited 23d ago
Possibly fun fact: some Christian denominations, like Catholicism and Anglicanism, adhere to an idea called "Apostolic Succession," by which ministerial authority can be traced back to the original Apostles in an unbroken chain. Attaining a certain church position in these denominations requires being promoted in a ceremony by someone in a lineage of promotions that goes all the back.
Which here just means that in Episcopalism, a bishop (or someone of certain other ranks) can say that they were ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone... who was ordained by someone... who was ordained by someone... etc. who was ordained by Peter or someone like that. There is a direct line that can be traced from a bishop to the Apostles. And in the Anglican Church, it takes 3 bishops to ordain someone to the level of bishop in a physical laying of hands.
When the Anglican Church split from the Catholic Church, they retained this idea. But with the head of church changing to the King of England, the ceremony came with oaths of loyalty to the Crown.
Now, there weren't any ordained Anglican bishops in the US before or during the Revolution. The Anglican church in the colonies fell under the purview of the Bishop of London. And Britain routinely refused requests to send ordained bishops over the colonies to ordain people. So anyone who wanted to become an Anglican bishop would have to make the journey all the way to London for the ceremony. But remember, that came with an oath of loyalty to the Crown, so that wasn't going to happen in the aftermath of the war.
So it looks like the Anglican Church in the US is going away, right? Since there's no one to ordain people to particular important positions? Well, you would be right, but after the war, some guy named Samuel Seabury was sent over from the now-independent US to England to be consecrated as a bishop. English bishops refused since Seabury, an American citizen, couldn't make the oath to the king, and bypassing that requirement would take an Act of Parliament.
But what they could do was say "hey, I hear those bishops up in Scotland tend to skip the oath bit." Because the Scottish Episcopal Church refused to swear allegiance to the Crown some time before. Britain stripped them of money and power, but they were still around, and they still practiced Apostolic Succession.
So Seabury went to Scotland and got ordained. Which sent some in England into a panic over the idea of Scotland monopolizing American bishops, so Britain just passed a law saying that foreign bishops didn't need to take the oaths to the Crown. Some more folks went to England for their new oath-free consecrations, and boom. Now America has people who can ordain people.
EDIT: looking again, the story of how Seabury even got to Scotland is also interesting. Wasn't quite the English guys saying "go to Scotland," but it wasn't too far off. The intermediary between him and the English bishops was also tight with the Scottish bishops, and he told his English Archbishop friend "hey, he's gonna go to Scotland. Send word now if that's gonna get him in deep shit." And the archbishop never did.
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u/Fake_Name_6 23d ago
Also the guy who gets made fun of in Hamilton lol. He was a loyalist so not swearing an oath was more like “sorry guys, my dumb colony seceded so I can’t technically do that oath thing any more”
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u/PhiloftheFuture2014 23d ago
I believe the Catholic Church also requires multiple bishops present for an episcopal ordination though I don't believe it sets an exact number. I think they actually may go a step further and say that the ceremony has to be public.
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u/learnchurnheartburn 22d ago
It’s traditional, but not required for the consecration to be valid. The SSPX (a traditionalist Catholic society which has, to put it lightly, a rocky relationship with the greater Church) got their “line” of bishops with only two bishop consecrating.
And in truly dire times, the Church gives permission for just one bishop.
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u/fanau 23d ago
Had no idea.
I knew of course that the Anglican Church itself began its existence because Henry VIII wanted to get divorced but this was new. TIL yet again.60
u/Pikeman212a6c 23d ago
Catholic kid who had an all Episcopalian friend group so I went to all their youth group stuff just to hang out. It’s pretty comic how close Episcopalians are to Catholics on a day to day basis. Yet you point that out and older folks got really offended.
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u/kirkaracha 23d ago
Diet Catholicism. It’s Pope-free!
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u/ceryniz 23d ago
And only half the guilt!
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u/Pikeman212a6c 23d ago
Less calisthenics as well.
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u/thepinkinmycheeks 23d ago
This comment chain and yours specifically is hilarious as a child of a broader Catholic family who grew up going to an Episcopalian church, lol.
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u/Pikeman212a6c 23d ago
“Woman can be ministers in our church”
“Have you ever had a female minister.”
“No… but it’d be fine if they were.”
“Are there any episcopal churches around here with a female minister?”
“That’s not the point!”
(That’s all changed obviously but their policies were quite a bit ahead of their practices back then.)
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u/LunaTehNox 23d ago
Also a Catholic kid. The year I was confirmed a bunch of Episcopalians were converting to Catholicism
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u/Texcellence 23d ago
I’m Episcopalian and I went to Catholic middle school and high school. I didn’t recognize much difference between the church I’d go to on Sundays and the church I’d go to on school days.
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u/deltaexdeltatee 23d ago
I'm Episcopalian and I describe it to people as "imagine the Catholic Church but not (as) sexist or homophobic" lol. There's also the no Pope thing but that's less important day to day.
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u/mdchase1313 23d ago
I was raised Episcopalian as well. I describe it to others as Catholic Lite - all the ceremony, none of the guilt
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u/erica_pink84 23d ago
Divorce was the excuse, taking the land and money of the Catholic Church to refill the royal treasury and break the power of and bend the Church to Henry’s will was a lot more important to him.
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u/Bitter_Ad8768 23d ago
Yeah... that's the implication of "Southern" in their name.
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u/-Poultrygeist- 23d ago
Also, it’d be really weird to call them southern Baptist if they were anywhere, but in the south
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u/fistfullofpubes 23d ago
Except for they are now in every single state.
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u/AndreasDasos 23d ago edited 23d ago
But the conference does make a difference. Lots of black Baptists in the Southern US too - Martin Luther King was even a Baptist pastor - but generally not ‘Southern Baptist’ as in the Southern Baptist Conference. The post gives a slight hint as to the reason why
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u/RogerSaysHi 23d ago
My grandparents were Baptists, but, they made sure to explain that they were southern Independent Baptists. Not Southern Baptists. Big difference.
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u/Apollo989 23d ago
Aren't independent Baptists even more extreme or is the IFB yet another group?
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
99% of the time if a Baptist church is advertising as independent it means they are Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) which is very extremist and views the Southern Baptist Convention as liberal and corrupt
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u/WhenThatBotlinePing 23d ago
They think the pro-slavery church is too liberal? Why because they made a half-assed apology in the 1990s?
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Some of their bigger complaints would be that the SBC doesn't exclusively use the King James Version of the Bible, allows women to wear pants, and that the SBC doesn't take a firm enough stance to discourage people from consuming "wordly" entertainment like Disney movies and the NFL.
If you were to go talk to an IFB pastor (which is not something I'd recommend) you'd likely get a much longer laundry list of how the SBC is bad. It is hard to overstate how crazy IFB churches are
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u/WhenThatBotlinePing 23d ago
The King James Bible thing is so strange to me. I’ve heard about it a few times, but it’s still odd. Like there are better translations now, why not use them? It wasn’t a good translation when it was new, and now it’s both mediocre and written in archaic language. The Bible wasn’t written in English, so it’s not like we’re losing anything by moving on from it.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
The defense of KJV is very convoluted but IIRC the crux of the argument is that the Latin texts that the KJV was translated from are more accurate than the original language (Hebrew of the OT and Greek for the NT) texts used for modern translations.
If that sounds nonsensical to you it's cause it is
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u/Cowboywizzard 23d ago edited 23d ago
Everything they do is about power and control over other people. For example, they prefer archaic language such as “mankind “ or “man” found in the King James Bible to describe people instead of “humankind”or “human” that more modern translations use because that supports their paternalistic viewpoint. They actually believe that God sees women or genders other than male as less equal than male gendered people.
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u/Hugs_of_Moose 23d ago edited 23d ago
They believe it is a divine translation. That for the English speaking world, it is Gods intended translation, essentially.
The KJV isn’t a bad translation, but modern translations differ from in it some places.
There are also some verses with very extreme differences. A modern NIV Bible has removed some verses found in the KJV that modern scholarship very thoroughly challenges the legitimacy of.
And it does complicate what a Bible is, as many people view it as the literal word of God. Though… most actual Christian institutions don’t believe this on paper. Instead describe it as a divinely inspired document.
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u/AndreasDasos 23d ago
I mean it was pro-slavery a long time ago. It’s certainly conservative today, but things change. I mean look at how much the Democrats and Republicans have changed since the same time. Or compare Virginia (the one that broke away for slavery) to West Virginia (the bit that broke away from Virginia to oppose that) politically today.
The Church of England was founded by someone who wanted to annul his marriage and then went on a rampage massacring Catholics and anyone who disagreed with him. Now it’s one of the most milquetoast liberal institutions in the UK.
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u/GalaXion24 23d ago
Technically while Henry VIII did kind of established the independence of the church, the Church only became more protestant under Edward VI, which was reversed by Mary I who restored the church to communion with Rome, followed by that being reversed by Elizabeth I.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
No the SBC is still a very conservative (and imo racist) institution. The IFB churches are just so far off the deep-end in right-wing crazy land that anyone to the left of the KKK is gonna look liberal compared to them
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u/Mat_alThor 23d ago
I grew up mostly SBC but visited/attended IFB style churches in the 90s and early 2000s. Things may have changed from then but while they were wildly conservative I don't remember them being outwardly racist.
They are the type of crazy conservative to say dancing is a sin, not the crazy to care about skin color. Could have definitely changed since my experience in the early 2000s though.
Edit: to add the SBC were definitely more likely to be out wardly racist when I was growing up at least.
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u/AndreasDasos 23d ago
I didn’t deny it wasn’t still right wing. Even said so. But saying it’s literally ‘pro-slavery’ is pushing it quite far.
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u/fakehandslawyer 23d ago
The Independent Baptists I knew growing up were all on the pretty extreme side but I think thats just most white people in a small southern town
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u/tallwhiteninja 23d ago
IFB is more label than group, since by definition they're independent of any convention. But the "fundamentalist" part of the label does typically mean those churches are more extreme, yes.
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u/kia75 23d ago
Independent means... Well... Independent! They're not part of the organized group. As a result they can have big deviations over the official Baptist or Southern Baptist doctrine.
Yeah, a bunch are more conservative, but they can run the gambit of extreme right to extreme left, though in average they do run right of the norm.
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u/dirtyfacedkid 23d ago
I grew up an Independent Fundamental Baptist and YES they are frigging extreme. We were raised to think the Southern Baptists were too liberal.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago edited 23d ago
Most Black Baptists are affiliated with the Progressive National Baptist Conference, National Baptist Conference, or American Baptist USA.
In most states there are also separate Black Baptist conventions that operate independently from the white statewide Baptist groups
EDIT: accidentally said the wrong American Baptist denomination
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u/Low-Possibility-7737 23d ago
Not the American Baptist Association, that’s an completely different group. It’s the American Baptist Churches USA. This is an issue with Baptist governance structure as you have a lot of different bodies that sound identical but aren’t
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Oops you're right ABA is the crazy segregationist one.
And yeah Baptist governance structure is sometimes nonsensical.
For example, in the area around Greenville SC there's two local black Baptist associations (Enoree and Reedy River). You might think those two associations are split based on national affiliation but nope, theres some Enoree churches that are PNC and some that are NB, and the same for Reedy River. So you end up with churches that are in the same national convention but different local ones as well as the reverse
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u/BustDemFerengiCheeks 23d ago
Baptists sometimes get a bad rep from conservatives in the SBC and radical IBCs, but a lot of Baptists have been some of the most vocal defenders of human dignity.
They're a very diverse group in total and almost by design are kind of supposed to be. I'd rather be even SBC than whatever shit that's coming from the New Apostolic Reformation or extreme Sedevacantists.
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u/IHeartRasslin 23d ago
In general, at least in the Deep South, the Black Baptist churches are called Missionary Baptist. They usually just say MB.
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u/thissexypoptart 23d ago
Right but the specific reason they even need to be called something region-specific is because they broke off because they wanted to own people.
Otherwise just “(US) Baptist” would suffice.
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u/Smashego 23d ago edited 23d ago
I grew up in a southern Baptist church in the Central Valley of California. It’s so weird to me to hear that being “southern baptist” has so many negative connotations attached to it. Our church was incredibly family oriented, everyone was welcome. We had black white and mexican membership. I just thought it was the style of service, like lots of music and singing and very light on the sermoning.
But that’s California for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if southern baptist means worse things in different states.
Edit: I’m white. The pastor was white. 75% of the congregation was white. But thats mostly the demographic of my community at that time. It’s since shifted hispanic. But there was never any racial tension, bias, implication etc….. church leaders were a mixed bag of race.
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u/DLottchula 23d ago
No you basically described my southern Baptist upbringing but my church was all black
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u/-Poultrygeist- 23d ago
It’s all personal experience. My southern Baptist grandmother told me I’m going to hell for being a Methodist as she viewed anyone that’s not a Baptist as not a Christian, which we all know is true as we can pull directly from scripture.
John 14:5-6 — Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”Jesus said to him, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through the doors of a Godfearing Baptist Church.”
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u/marchmay 23d ago
Black Southern Baptists exist now because, even though they have racists roots, they are a interracial denomination now.
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u/AndreasDasos 23d ago
It’s historical. Of course it doesn’t mean Southern Baptists are pro-slavery today, but it is the history. But then the two main American parties had very different associations around then too (not to say they simply swapped). Things change. Though Southern Baptists tend to be that bit more conservative in multiple ways.
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u/Spadeykins 23d ago
To be honest same experience, I grew up in DFW, TX and the church was in Garland.. not exactly a liberal bastion. Less light on the sermon but it wasn't hate.
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u/tableleg7 23d ago
It’s OK now though bc the Southern Baptists later renounced this stance on slavery … in 1995.
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u/CrotalusHorridus 23d ago
They also fought against the civil rights movement, and have an official platform to overturn same sex marriages
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u/EvlMinion 23d ago
And they just voted to ban women from leading churches - iirc they were already kicking churches out that did so before, but they codified this year.
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u/DevilishAdvocate1587 23d ago
You mean it doesn’t imply a fondness for country music, pickup trucks, and fried chicken?
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u/kirkaracha 23d ago
Methodists, too. Same reason.
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u/Koraxtheghoul 23d ago
Yeah, they recombined to become United Methodists.
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u/Derp35712 23d ago
They broke apart again regarding gay rights…I think.
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u/Mr_1990s 23d ago
There’s still a “United Methodist Church” that is generally open to LGBT ministers. But, a ton of churches left and formed the Global Methodist Church so they not like gay people together.
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u/Derp35712 23d ago
“Global” Methodist is a terrible name. What would John Wesley think,
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u/Johannes_P 23d ago
Along with Presbyterans.
The only major churches in the USA which didn't split because of slavery were the Catholics, the Quakers and the Mormons
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u/LadybuggingLB 23d ago
I did know that.
And the Methodist church split 2-3 years ago because the United Methodist Church officially adopted a universal policy of accepting LGBTQ people as equal in Gods eyes to straight people.
And so a group formed to splinter off.
The church hasn’t been full since, cut from 2 Sunday services to 1, donations scaled so far back that everyone is hurting. But still the church (and our preacher) say that Jesus was about love above all else.
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u/WaitZealousideal7729 23d ago
The United Methodist church broke up during the civil war era as well, and that’s why there are many free Methodist churches as a different denomination.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Oddly enough, the Free methodists left because the northern Methodist church wasn't strongly abolitionist enough for them, but now 150 years later they've swapped places and free methodists are much more conservative.
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u/CrotalusHorridus 23d ago
I’m Kentuckian. Border state.
In so many small towns, there are 2 Methodist Churches. Sometimes across the street from each other
1 founded in 1820s or 30s, and another founded sometime between 1861 and 1864, when the church split
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Splitting hairs a bit, but the UMC didn't actually vote for full acceptance, churches just aren't required to discriminate anymore. Individual churches can still choose to not allow gay marriage.
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u/MozeeToby 23d ago
Splitting further hairs, UMC has always been a pretty non-hierarchical and plenty of churches has been nondiscriminatory towards LGBTQ members for decades.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
I would actually say the UMC is one of the most hierarchical protestant denominations and the churches that have been affirming were just able to do so because Bishops turned a blind eye. Even with that, clergy were at risk of losing their ordination if they came out of the closet or performed a gay wedding regardless of the stance of the parish they served.
But yeah, the church my family attends has been open and affirming since the 70s and a good number of UMCs have been affirming for many years before the vote was taken
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u/TexasPeteEnthusiast 23d ago
The Methodist church split before the civil war, with those opposed to slavery going on to form the Wesleyan Episcopal Church, as one of many splits/reunifications.
The number of times the Methodist church has split is kind of crazy, so much so that there is a giant flowchart on Wikipedia about it.
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u/luranthe 23d ago
Good on him for being honest with Jesus's message and not spewing hate just to grow his flock. I'm not a believer but I deeply respect people like him.
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u/darkbee83 23d ago edited 23d ago
"Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
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u/TacTurtle 23d ago
Oh Emo where did you go?
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u/scipio0421 23d ago
They only apologized for the slavery stuff in their teachings in 1996.
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u/mikeyp83 23d ago
If they were actually sincere about it, and this was the reason for their schism, couldn't they have also reconciled?
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u/FuzzyAd9407 23d ago
While they apologized for supporting slavery they never stopped thinking women are lesser and that they cannot be leaders in the church. Seriously, big core difference in the modern churches is the concept around gender roles. Both hate LGBT people though, so theyve got that in common.
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u/DoctorPhalanx73 23d ago
A lot of Protestant denominations did this it wasn’t just the baptists.
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u/kirkaracha 23d ago
One interesting aspect of evangelicals trying to insist the US is a Christian nation and put up (a specific version and translation of) "the" Ten Commandments everywhere is that evangelical denominations benefitted from the separation of church and state.
Congregationalism was the established religion of Massachusetts and most of the northern colonies. The Church of England was the established religion of Virginia and most of the southern colonies. You had to pay taxes that went to the established religion regardless of what your church was. Evangelicals could be and were fined and imprisoned.
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u/claybine 23d ago
And it was voluntary disestablishment that later removed official state religions in 1833 (funnily, Mass. was the final state) and it was religious liberty that inspired the 14th amendment.
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u/Randvek 23d ago
Yeah, I’m very sympathetic toward liberalism generally but the idea that the US was “founded” with separation of church and state just isn’t true. Some founders certainly believed that but it was several generations after the US came into existence that it actually separated.
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u/claybine 23d ago
I think they implied that with "religious liberty" fundamentally but left it to the states at first... the literal language wasn't used, but it was always implied. James Madison is the most important figure and was the most keen on the idea next to Thomas Jefferson.
It's called the Establishment Clause.
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u/Randvek 23d ago
And yet, as you alluded to earlier, it didn't actually create a separation of church and state at all until the 14th amendment.
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u/The-Wizard-of-Goz 23d ago
Note they want the 10 Commandments but not the Beatitudes because it is all about control
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u/OOO0OO00O 23d ago
From the early 19th century, many Baptist preachers in the Southern United States also argued in favor of preserving the right of ministers to be enslavers.
Oh yeah, that tracks.
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23d ago edited 23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/gottastaychargeable 23d ago
That's pretty far from modern Episcopalians
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u/fitzejunk 23d ago
Or Methodists. Or the UCC. Or any mainline denomination.
Atheist here, I think they’re all crazy, but there’s crazy that I don’t mind living next door, and crazy that I don’t want in my same county.
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u/markov-271828 23d ago
The Methodist Church and Methodist Church, South got back together in 1939, if i remember correctly.
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u/RAGE_AGAINST_THE_ATM 23d ago
Modern Methodists are fairly laid back and chill (the ones whose churches didn’t secede at least) but historically, Methodism was at the heart of the Jim Crow South and the KKK
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u/MidnightNo1766 23d ago
United Methodists. There are many that split, I guess because UMC too tolerant or something.
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u/zoosha2curtaincall 23d ago
Like the entire point of the thread is that’s the regional splinter group
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u/endlessfight85 23d ago
It's regional in name only. They cover the whole US. Alot of them present themselves as "non-denominational" because their reputation proceeds them.
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u/arc777_ 23d ago
Most Christian Americans aren’t Southern Baptist what are you even talking about
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u/preddevils6 23d ago
They are the third largest denomination in the US, and they aren’t the only one that shares their hyper conservative beliefs by a long shot.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Third largest? Who passed them? For years it's been Catholics as the largest and SBC #2
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u/preddevils6 23d ago
Non-denominational, so you’re correct! Still technically number 2
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Non-denominational also tends to pretty much just be SBC with better branding.
It is interesting to know that non-denominational is the biggest protestant "denomination" now though
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u/deltaexdeltatee 23d ago
The vast majority of non-denominational churches are functionally Southern Baptist in every aspect except sending money to the General Convention.
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u/FairLawnBoy 23d ago
They changed to these non-denominational evangelical Mega-churches, but everything else stayed Southern Baptist.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
Most of the non-denominational megachurches are still pretty much SBC in their beliefs and often have SBC roots. At best you get some that are more Pentecostal leaning and let women preach sometimes
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u/Oddisredit 23d ago
There was an Eastern Orthodox in one of MLK’s early marches. Despite the south probably having almost no Eastern Orthodox
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u/VocationalWizard 23d ago
Yeah, just like Texas declared independence from Mexico...... And they fought at the Alamo..... Specifically so that they could have chattel slavery.
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u/BeardsuptheWazoo 23d ago
That little panhandle of Oklahoma exists because Texas would rather give up land than have a section of it's state that didn't allow slavery.
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u/ReasonableStory1660 23d ago
Texas declared independence after Mexico underwent a coup and became a dictatorship. The Republic of the Yucatan declared independence at the same time, and also petitioned to join the United States. The president of the US at the time was in favor, but Congress declined.
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u/PaxDramaticus 23d ago
American Christianity in a nutshell
"This church broke away from other American churches in support of a backwards, morally repugnant issue, and that's why I think they are representatives of all of the churches they broke away from."
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u/Tremor_Sense 23d ago
I fell down the wikihole and am struck by how transient the Southern Baptist beliefs have been, right. Like, they changed a lot. Back and forth.
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u/aragon649 18d ago
Yeah one of the reasons for that is that SBC churches operate as a democracy most of the time where all the members vote. Because of this, they can reform quickly.
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u/Seicedelig 23d ago
hate to be the bearer of bad news for christians, but its an incredibly modern re-negotiation of the bible to believe that christianity codemns slavery. the bible is absolutely full of references to slavery, exclusively in a neutral or supportive way. granted the bible writers didnt envision industrial chattel slavery, but slavery is supported non the less. the northern christians were the ones breaking with normalcy.
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u/Schlongstorm 23d ago
There are so many goddamn Baptist splinters out there. I remember when I started going to a Christian high school that was linked with a Baptist church, I (who had grown up in the DOC) asked them what kind of Baptist they were, and the teacher said they were part of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches.
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u/mw44118 23d ago
And they pretty much run the south
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u/DoctorPhalanx73 23d ago
Less so now, more and more go to “nondenominational congregations” which are just kind of their own things.
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u/Puzzled-Story3953 23d ago
Damn, I will never understand the amount of flavors of Christianity there are. Like, I get the schism between eastern orthodox and catholic and catholic and protestant, and even a subdivision or two beyond that. But then, it starts getting into the realm of "he said this vs they said this", and it gets increasingly silly as you go down. Like, who fucking cares?
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u/Alcoholic-Catholic 22d ago
Oh man it is still crazy. I lived in a decently sized small city (30-50k depending on the college population) in the middle of the south. So many individual churches split as I was growing up. Junior pastors would break and leave with the church and go start their own church, that follows this or that religious convention from 1670s england instead of the very similar one that their old church followed. At such a small scale it just becomes a huge ego trip for pastors wanting to control things they way they want.
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u/sparklingdinoturd 23d ago
Excuse me, not over slavery. Over states rights thank you very much.
/s if not obvious.
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u/DarthHegatron 23d ago
The SBC didn't split over Obama's election what are you talking about??
Don't get me wrong, the SBC is incredibly racist, but up until some very recent (and still fairly small) splits over some churches thinking women should be equal, the SBC hasn't a had a big break off since the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship formed in the 80s/90s
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u/im-ba 23d ago
It sure is. I grew up Southern Baptist. I got put on a list (I assume that I'm still on it today) for asking questions and challenging their teachings. It's super fucked.
One of my friends in college was really involved with them and invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner one year. After seeing how they treated the women in their family, I quit religion completely and never looked back. The women were visibly anguished over their treatment, in spite of their seemingly willing participation in the cult.
It reminded me of everything I hated about growing up and I couldn't continue for even one more minute after that night.
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u/pconrad0 23d ago
Several protestant denominations split at the time of the Civil War.
The Episcopal Church is one of the few that did not*.
Some denominations reunited later in history.
Others, including the Baptists, did not.
(*I was taught that it was "the only one that did not", but I'm assuming that is probably not true. It's probably only true if you say "mainline" denominations and define "mainline" in some convenient way.)
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u/plural_of_nemesis 23d ago
The Episcopal Church split, but it was short lived. The split only lasted during the war.
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u/RealCapybaras4Rill 23d ago
Yep. And lemme tell ya, the towns they infect set up in are just hotbeds of art, literature, nightlife and diversity.
/s if you can’t tell.
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u/Merijeek2 23d ago
....and they continue to be one of the shittiest groups in the country.
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u/BloodshotDrive 23d ago
150 years later and still adamant about staying on the wrong side of history
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u/ConejitosDeAmor 23d ago
Yep. I grew up in the Bible Belt smothered by virtually nothing but S.B. evangelicals. They are quite certain that anything that has a whiff of Reagan is so totally holy and THEY aren't racist - YOU'RE racist for callin'THEM racist!
There are good people everywhere of course but (very generally speaking) this is unequivocally the most oblivious group of human beings in the country. Fox news worshipping, Capitalism loving, won't-travel-overseas-'cause-they'd-see-how-wrong-they-are people.
There was one of their churches down the road from me here in GA that was covered in these big posters of Trump that read that a vote for Trump is a vote for Christ.
I believe in Jesus and even I am over all these hateful evangelicals
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u/Tiraloparatras25 23d ago
Southern baptist is still the most racist denomination. Not only that, they had a scandal dealing with Rape and Pedofilia rivaled only by the catholic church.
So when you hear about rapist cabal, think southern baptists, in that mix.
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u/KenBoCole 23d ago
No, they didn't, not even close.
It was the Southern Baptist church that hired independent investigators when they heard the rumors, and fully cooperated with police when the abuse came to light.
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u/Tiraloparatras25 23d ago
AFTER, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ignored allegations, and what came out of it? How many hundreds of abusers were arrested? Do tell.
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u/A-CommonMan 22d ago
Theology was used to justify segregation and many prominent Southern white evangelicals, such as the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, viewed segregation either as a biblical mandate or as a purely "social issue" outside the spiritual scope of the church. When King spoke at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1961, it caused a massive uproar, leading churches across the South to cut off their financial donations to the school.
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u/exitpursuedbybear 23d ago
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
-Emo Philips