Southern Baptists are the nation's largest protestant denomination, with over 43,000 churches and millions of members. Since its inception, controversy has surrounded the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, Southern Baptists' most recent confession of faith. The present volume consists of essays by Baptist scholars explaining and defending that document. Each of the 18 articles of the BF&M 2000 is addressed, with special attention to the most critical issues and changes from the denomination's 1963 confession. Also included is an appendix comprising the full text of all three Baptist Faith and Message statements from the 20th century (1925, 1963, and 2000), in side-by-side columns for easy reference and comparison. Contributors include Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, Tom Nettles, Dorothy Patterson, E. David Cook, and C. Ben Mitchell, with a foreword by Susie Hawkins. Brief yet comprehensive, detailed yet accessible to the non-specialist, this volume is a must read for Southern Baptist professors and students, staff and church members, and anyone interested in one of the most powerful religious forces in America.

This study examines in detail the 18 doctrines outlined in the Baptist Faith and Message statement.

Questions regarding the orthodoxy of Dale Moody and Ralph Elliott propelled the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) toward a re-evaluation of its doctrinal statement, the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM). The SBC adopted this document in 1925 under the leadership of E. Y. Mullins when faced by the challenge of modernism. This dissertation argues that the 1962 Committee on Baptist Faith and Message produced a document that expressed subtle shifts in Baptist theology. This shift had the effect of assuring the conservative base while allowing enough latitude in interpretation for those serving in the academy to teach more "progressive" views. After a first, introductory chapter, chapters 2 and 3 trace the historical developments leading to the formation of the Committee. Biblical inspiration and interpretation were key concerns, but as chapter 3 demonstrates, other concerns drew the attention of the Committee. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the ever-sensitive issue of the relationship between Baptist confessionalism, soul liberty, and soul competency. Each chapter examines how Baptist confessionalism functioned in relation to these concepts. Chapter 6 examines in detail the work of the Committee itself and looks at those persons or groups who influenced the outcome of the Committee's work. Of special note are the contributions made by Wayne Ward, Leo Garrett, the religion faculty of Mercer University, and the theology faculty of Southern Seminary. Chapter 7 examines four areas where the 1963 BFM altered the confessional expression of Baptist doctrines: (1) Scripture; (2) Man; (3) Salvation; (4) The Church. Chapter 8 is the conclusion. Four appendices contain early drafts of the Committee's work.

This title offers a comprehensive analysis of Baptist theology. Embracing in one common trajectory the major Baptist confessions of faith, the major Baptist theologians, and the principal Baptist theological movements and controversies, this book spans four centuries of Baptist doctrinal history. Acknowledging first the pre-1609 roots (patristic, medieval, and Reformational) of Baptist theology, it examines the Arminian versus Calvinist issues that were first expressed by the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists; that dominated English and American Baptist theology during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Helwys and Smyth and from Bunyan and Kiffin to Gill, Fuller, Backus, and Boyce; and, that were quickened by the 'awakenings' and the missionary movement. Concurrently there were the Baptist defense of the Baptist distinctives vis-a-vis the pedobaptist world and the unfolding of a strong Baptist confessional tradition. Then during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the liberal versus evangelical issues became dominant with Hovey, Strong, Rauschenbusch, and Henry in the North and Mullins, Conner, Hobbs, and Criswell in the South even as a distinctive Baptist Landmarkism developed, the discipline of biblical theology was practiced and a structured ecumenism was pursued. Missiology both impacted Baptist theology and took it to all the continents, where it became increasingly indigenous. Conscious that Baptists belong to the free churches and to the believers' churches, a new generation of Baptist theologians at the advent of the twenty-first century appears somewhat more Calvinist than Arminian and decidedly more evangelical than liberal.