It will probably surprise many external observers of Southern Baptists--and probably many contemporary internal participants in Southern Baptist life as well--to learn that while there are no liberals in the SBC today (contrary to what the ultra-conservative faction of today's SBC alleges), once upon a time there was a genuinely progressive stream of Southern Baptist life before it was expunged in a two-decade-long effort than began in earnest in 1979 to wrest control of the SBC away from those whose Baptist respect for the freedom of congregations and consciences had made space for a variety of ways of being Baptist to coexist and cooperate in a common commitment to participating in the mission of God in the world. This genuinely progressive stream was never a majority, but it fully participated in the denominational life of the SBC. It embraced critical approaches to the interpretation of Scripture when others shunned them. It worked for racial justice when others defended segregation in both society and church. It ordained women to the ministry and called them to serve as pastors when others did not. This stream may have been diverted from the SBC, but it did not dry up. It continues to flow elsewhere--in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (my own Baptist communion), in the Alliance of Baptists, in the American Baptist Churches USA, and in denominational traditions beyond Baptist life that have received refugee Southern Baptist members and ministers as ecumenical gifts to their own church life. I am grateful that I have been able to serve as a theological educator in partner institutions of theological education associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in which that stream continues to flow. And I am proud of the many women I have had the privilege of teaching in those institutions who are now serving as faithful ministers. May God continue to bless their ministries!
