The battle lines between northern and southern Baptists had been drawn, and in May 1845, almost three hundred Baptist leaders representing nearly 400,000 churchgoers from southern states gathered in Augusta, Georgia, to form a new church association, one inclusive of slaveholders, called the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The convention’s first president, William Bullein Johnson, explained the reason for the separation and the new convention. “These [northern] brethren, thus acted upon a sentiment they have failed to prove—That slavery is, in all circumstances sinful.”14 In light of this
...more
