Reverberations of the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis abound. Headlines are not wanting for hot takes on the failed constitutional amendment, the IVF resolution, and the task force reports. But one important account scarcely receives the attention it deserves. In my mind, it is the real story behind the story—the coagulant of the doctrines and practices which run deep in our Baptist blood. It is the Baptist spirit so magnificently displayed between and among the 16,818 messengers and guests who descended upon “The Crossroads of America” last week.
I sat in the Convention hall every minute of every session. Our hopes turned heavenward in authentic worship. Our convictions were strengthened by biblical preaching. A palpable somberness filled the room when one church was declared no longer in friendly cooperation. Joyful laughter erupted every time Don Currence, “the Mayor,” stepped up to the podium. Our hearts were warmed with a sense of both accomplishment and commitment as we commissioned 83 new missionaries and celebrated 11,000 church plants in 14 years. Even in the tensest of moments, the air was rich with Baptist spirit of conviction and cooperation. This spirit is the spirit that must carry us forward. The most conservative confession, the most efficient cooperative mechanism, and the most well-ordered governing documents are important to our missional success; but they can never produce for us what the Baptist spirit can.
This may surprise you, but the first statement of faith formed by a committee and received affirmatively by the Southern Baptist Convention was not in 1925. Rather, it came eleven years earlier, in 1914. The birth of the ecumenical movement at the 1910 World Missionary Conference put pressure on every evangelical denomination to join the worldwide, united movement as one single Christian fellowship. But Southern Baptists held distinctive biblical convictions that precluded them from getting on board. So, in response, in 1913 the Convention appointed a committee to study the issue. Two committee members would appear on the 1925 report on the Baptist Faith and Message: E.Y. Mullins and E.C. Dargan. Virginia Baptist newspaper editor R.H. Pitt voiced opposition to the 1914 statement. He was included in the 1924–25 BFM study committee but withdrew from the committee in opposition.
The 1914 report included only those doctrinal points which the authors believed distinguished Baptists from other evangelical groups: soul competency, spiritual regeneration, credobaptism by immersion, local church autonomy, and religious freedom. Holding these core doctrinal distinctives, Baptists should be “unembarrassed” to “persevere complete autonomy at home and abroad.” Internally, they should also work toward “higher standards of consecration and giving” while “seeking to earnestly maintain and promote the internal peace and harmony of the denomination, to the end that waste by friction may be avoided, and that the time may be hastened when we shall be of one spirit and one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel.”
This is what the Baptist spirit does. It reduces “waste by friction.” To be convictionally confessional without being convictionally cooperative is an affront to Baptist faith and practice. Conviction and cooperation run side by side, or they do not run at all.
Amid the 1913–14 conversations surrounding confession and cooperation, I.J. Van Ness, Executive Secretary of the Baptist Sunday School Board, authored a book that has been all but lost to contemporary Baptists. In The Baptist Spirit (1914), he called the attention and the affection of Southern Baptists to a kind of cooperation that necessarily put faith into practice—one that would preserve doctrinal fidelity through the rhythms of cooperative unity:
“We are as much under obligation to catch the true Baptist spirit as we are to hold the Baptist principles... Much trouble has come into the world by men who are content to hold a formal creed in words, and so to satisfy themselves. No creed worth holding is worth anything if it is not practiced... Intensity of conviction without intelligence may make us narrow and cause a perverted Baptist spirit... When we have the right spirit we need have little fear about having the right purposes.” (Van Ness, The Baptist Spirit, 10–11)
“Baptist cooperation in accordance with Baptist principles, brought about by the common Baptists spirit and to secure the great Baptist purposes, will make a fellowship like unto New Testament times, and which will always preserve the New Testament principles.” (Van Ness, The Baptist Spirit, 114)
The Baptist spirit on display during the SBC 2024 in Indianapolis is the kind of spirit that reduces waste by friction. We have proven that when we’re in the room together, we can agree to disagree on some issues, make difficult decisions on others, and still enjoy one another’s company in peculiar New Testament fellowship marked by both doctrinal consensus and missional focus. The challenge now is to continue the joy of cooperation, in the Baptist spirit, between annual meetings.
The choice is now ours. We have held great debates. We have made big decisions. We have committed ourselves to an urgent forward mission. We need a revived Baptist spirit. My prayer is that over the next year we work toward the reduction of denominational waste by affectionately and practically embodying that Baptist spirit which was so evident among us as we convened in Indianapolis.
Editor's Note: As a part of its commitment to fostering conversation within the Southern Baptist Convention, the Baptist Review may publish editorials that espouse viewpoints that are not necessarily shared by the TBR team or other contributors. We welcome submissions for responses and rebuttals to any editorials as we seek to host meaningful conversations about the present and future of our convention.
Tony Wolfe
Dr. Tony Wolfe has served as the SCBaptist Executive Director-Treasurer since May of 2023. Prior to that, Wolfe was the Associate Executive Director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. He holds degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, and Lamar University and is currently in the final stages of earning a Ph.D. in Evangelism and Missions from Southern Seminary, researching confessionalism and cooperation in Baptist history from 1609-1925.