With 16.3 million members and 44,000 churches, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Baptist group in the world, and the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Unlike the so-called mainstream Protestant denominations, Southern Baptists have remained stubbornly conservative, refusing to adapt their beliefs and practices to modernity's individualist and populist values. Instead, they have held fast to traditional orthodoxy in such fundamental areas as biblical inspiration, creation, conversion, and miracles. Gregory Wills argues that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has played a fundamental role in the persistence of conservatism, not entirely intentionally. Tracing the history of the seminary from the beginning to the present, Wills shows how its foundational commitment to preserving orthodoxy was implanted in denominational memory in ways that strengthened the denomination's conservatism and limited the seminary's ability to stray from it. In a set of circumstances in which the seminary played a central part, Southern Baptists' populist values bolstered traditional orthodoxy rather than diminishing it. In the end, says Wills, their populism privileged orthodoxy over individualism. The story of Southern Seminary is fundamental to understanding Southern Baptist controversy and identity. Wills's study sheds important new light on the denomination that has played - and continues to play - such a central role in our national history.
Industry Reviews
"This long-anticipated history of Southern Baptists' oldest Seminary will not disappoint those who have savored its coming with heightened interest. Greg Wills has given the kind of historical investigation and narrative that this storied institution deserves. . . Each reader will find an episode in the story that he considers most pivotal and compelling and there is no scarcity of options. . .This book will provide a laboratory for discussion of the
relationship between theological education and denominational expectation for many years to come. Wills has been neither too harsh nor too accommodating with his subjects. Conservatives have no unassailable
veneer placed around them and progressives are allowed to say their piece and explain their raison d'etre. No one will be bored, and no one will fail to find much instruction. This is must read for this year."
--Tom Nettles, Founders Journal
"While it is fascinating to learn how this gradual leftward shift occurred within such a conservative denomination in the context of the last 150 years of American church history, it is beyond fascinating to learn how it was reversed in the early 1990s. The story's unlikely ending is what makes it so interesting, and this book does not disappoint. . . the book's primary strength is outstanding historiography. Wills did his homework. . .Wills tells Southern
Seminary's unusual story in a gripping, inspiring way."
--Andrew David Naselli, Themelios
". . . Meticulously-researched, well-written, and highly-readable. . ."
--Dwight A. Moody, Review and Expositor
"Well written, they keep the reader's interest and leave us wanting to know more."--Gary Tiffin
"...extremely helpful in interpreting the current environment of the evangelical."--Bill J. Leonard, Wake Forest University
"Baptist are indebted to wills for providing a detailed and readable examination of the theological history of Southern Seminary from its heroic founders-Boyce, Broadus, Manly, and Williams-with their struggles during and after the Civil War to its first decade of the 21st century as'an evangelical and Southern Baptist seminary'(536) with and all-time high enrollment(546)." -- Southwestern Journal of Theology
