The Economist reports on the a schism emerging in the Southern Baptist Convention:
According to Lifeway Research, the SBC’s statistical arm, 10% of all SBC pastors now identify themselves as Calvinists. And that proportion could well rise; a third of recent graduates from SBC seminaries espouse doctrines that hark back to the reformer John Calvin, with the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, a particular source. The SBC evicted its theological liberals back in the 1980s; now, war has been joined between the conservatives.
Calvinism emphasises that Jesus died only for the elect; Baptists believe Jesus died for everyone. Baptists, by definition, believe that baptism must be an informed choice by the individual, therefore limited to adults; Calvinists believe infants may be baptised. Calvinists think that God selects certain people for damnation; Baptists are more easy-going.
“You have a seismic shift in the SBC,” says Wade Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor whose “Grace and Truth to You” blog is a rallying point for the neo-Calvinists. “Change is happening at the SBC and the older established leadership isn’t getting it. It’s becoming far more Reformed theologically than what some are used to. The old guard is dying and retiring and the new guard is young and Reformed.”
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