Southern Baptists Divided At Annual Meeting

Southern Baptists head into their annual national meeting next week at odds over whether they’ve become too conservative and wed to partisan politics, or whether a harder line is necessary to give the denomination a clear identity.

Beginning Tuesday in San Antonio, proposals over everything from political involvement to clergy sexual abuse to speaking in tongues should provide a glimpse at where the 16.3 million-member denomination is headed, 28 years after the “conservative resurgence” swept liberals out.

What’s at stake is the direction of the SBC — the difference between conservative and even more so. And tied to that, how the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. will work to reverse stagnating membership.

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