Baptists in America: A History

by Thomas S. Kidd

The original SBC consolidated home and foreign mission boards under one umbrella, and the constitution stipulated that other boards would be developed as representatives to convention meetings saw fit. The new body issued a statement acknowledging that “a painful division has taken place.” The release also stated that the SBC was not formed to defend slavery. Its purposes were the “extension of the Messiah’s kingdom, and the glory of our God.” The SBC wished to move beyond the needless controversy precipitated by the “ultra Northern brethren” and focus again on the gospel. In 1995, upon the convention’s 150th anniversary, the SBC—by then the nation’s largest Protestant denomination—would apologize for the “role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention.” This formally repudiated the notion that slavery was not at the heart of the schism.