Baptists form a major branch of evangelical Protestantism distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency, sola fide, sola scriptura and congregationalist church government. Baptists generally recognize two ordinances: baptism and communion.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. In 1845 the Southern Baptists separated from the Triennial Convention in order to support slavery, which the southern churches regarded as "an institution of heaven". During the 19th and most of the 20th century, it played a central role in Southern racial attitudes, supporting racial segregation and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy while opposing interracial marriage. In 1995, the organization apologized for its history. Since the 1940s, it has spread across the United States, having member churches across the country and 41 affiliated state conventions.
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a Baptist Christian denomination established in 1907 originally as the Northern Baptist Convention, and from 1950 to 1972 as the American Baptist Convention. It traces its history to the First Baptist Church in America (1638) and the Baptist congregational associations which organized the Triennial Convention in 1814.
Richard Duane Warren is an American Baptist evangelical Christian pastor and author. He is the founder of Saddleback Church, an evangelical Baptist megachurch in Lake Forest, California. Since 2022, he is director of the Finishing the Task mission coalition.
Richard Albert Mohler Jr. is an American evangelical theologian, the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and host of the podcast The Briefing, where he daily analyzes the news and recent events from an evangelical perspective.
L. Paige Patterson served as the fifth president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., from 1992 to 2003, as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 1998 to 2000, and as the eighth president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, from 2003 until his firing in 2018.
Richard D. Land was the president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, a post he held from July 2013 until his retirement in 2021.
Wanda Elizabeth "Beth" Moore is an American Anglican evangelist, author, and Bible teacher. She is president of Living Proof Ministries, a Christian organization she founded in 1994 to teach women to know and love Jesus through the study of Scripture. Living Proof Ministries is based in Houston, Texas. Moore, who is "arguably the most prominent white evangelical woman in America," speaks at arena events and has sold millions of books.
Russell D. Moore is an American theologian, ethicist, and preacher. In June 2021, he became the director of the Public Theology Project at Christianity Today, and on August 4, 2022, was announced as the magazine's incoming Editor-in-Chief.
Baptist Press (BP) is the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Baptist Press is a ministry assignment of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Christian Post is an American non-denominational, conservative, evangelical Christian online newspaper. Based in Washington, D.C., it was founded in March 2004.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Louisville, Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University. The seminary has been an innovator in theological education, establishing one of the first Ph.D. programs in religion in the year 1892. After being closed during the Civil War, it moved in 1877 to a newly built campus in downtown Louisville and moved to its current location in 1926 in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. In 1953, Southern became one of the few seminaries to offer a full, accredited degree course in church music. For more than fifty years Southern has been one of the world's largest theological seminaries, with an FTE enrollment of over 3,300 students in 2015.
Beginning in 1979, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) experienced an intense struggle for control of the organization. Its initiators called it the conservative resurgence while its detractors labeled it the fundamentalist takeover. It was launched with the charge that the seminaries and denominational agencies were dominated by liberals. The movement was primarily aimed at reorienting the denomination away from a liberal trajectory.
Jack Graham is the pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.
Frank S. Page was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 2006 to 2008, and the president of the denomination's Executive Committee from 2010 to 2018. Page announced his resignation on March 27, 2018, admitting to "a personal failing" that involved a "morally inappropriate relationship." Frank Page now pastors Pebble Creek Baptist Church in South Carolina.
The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention, is a Baptist Christian denomination headquartered at the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee and affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance. It is also the largest predominantly and traditionally African American church in the United States and the second largest Baptist denomination in the world.
Brandan Robertson is a gay writer, activist, minister, and TikTok religious influencer. He has written on the subjects of millennials, social justice, and Progressive Christianity, and he is an LGBTQ activist. Robertson serves as the Pastor of Sunnyside Reformed Church in Queens, New York.
The Nashville Statement is an evangelical Christian statement of faith relating to human sexuality and gender roles authored by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) in Nashville, Tennessee. The Statement expresses support for marriage between one man and one woman, for faithfulness within marriage, for chastity outside marriage, and for a link between biological sex and "self-conception as male and female". The Statement sets forth the signatories' opposition to LGBT sexuality, same-sex marriage, polygamy, polyamory, adultery, and fornication. It was criticized by egalitarian Christians and LGBT activists, and several conservative religious figures.
Widespread sexual abuse cases in Southern Baptist churches were reported by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News on February 10, 2019. The report found roughly 380 clergy, lay leaders and volunteers had faced allegations of sexual misconduct, leaving behind over 700 victims since 1998. The extent of misconduct is further complicated by work within the Southern Baptist Convention to move sex offenders to other communities and resist attempts to address the culture of abuse.
