This Week in Christian History: Southern Baptist Convention Formed, US-Vatican Relations Upheld

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, May 06, 2018

Southern Baptist Convention Formed on May 12, 1845

William Bullein Johnson, (1782-1862), first president of the Southern Baptist Convention. | (Photo: Public Domain)

This week marks the anniversary of when the Southern Baptist Convention was formed, holding its inaugural meeting at First Baptist Church of Augusta, Georgia.

As with other Protestant denominations in the United States, the Baptists found themselves splitting over the issue of slavery, with the SBC representing the pro-slavery wing of the Church.

Over the course of the multiday gathering, nearly 300 Baptist leaders crafted a new Church, with William B. Johnson of South Carolina serving as the first president.

"In parting with beloved brethren and old co-adjutors in this cause, we could weep, and have wept, for ourselves and for them; but the season, as well of weeping as of vain jangling, is, we are constrained to believe, just now past," stated Johnson.

"Our brethren have pressed upon every inch of our privileges and our sacred rights—but this shall only urge our gushing souls to yield proportionately of their renewed efforts to the Lord, to the church universal, and to a dying world; even as water pressed from without rises but the more within."

The SBC has since repudiated its pro-slavery and pro-segregation past, with efforts to advance racial reconciliation and, in 2012, the election of their first African-American president.