‘Take the ship’: Conservatives aim to commandeer Southern Baptists

Allen Nelson IV walked to the front of his small church in central Arkansas, stopped in front of the communion table with three large crosses behind him, and unfurled a giant black flag with a white skull and crossed swords.

For several years, the pastor and father of five had felt too many of his fellow Christians were drifting unmistakably leftward on issues of race, gender and the strict authority of the Bible. The flag was a gift from a friend, energized — like Nelson — by the idea of heroically reclaiming the faith.

It was time, he believed, to “take the ship.”

“We’re fighting for the very heart of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Nelson said in an interview. “For a long time what I thought a good Southern Baptist pastor should do was to send money and trust the system. We can’t do that anymore.”

Nelson is not alone. He is part of an ultraconservative populist uprising of pastors from Louisiana to California threatening to overtake the country’s largest Protestant denomination.

This week more than 16,000 Southern Baptist pastors and leaders will descend on Nashville for their first annual meeting of the post-Trump era. It is their most high-profile gathering in years, with attendance more than double the most recent meeting in 2019, after a pandemic cancellation last year. It caps months of infighting over every cultural and political division facing the country, particularly after the murder of George Floyd.

The outcome has the potential to permanently split an already divided evangelical America. Like the Trump movement within the Republican Party, a populist groundswell within the already conservative evangelical denomination is trying to install an anti-establishment leader who could wrench the church even further to the right, while opponents contend the church must broaden its reach to preserve its strength. For three days, thousands of delegates known as “messengers” — most of them white men — will fight over race, sex and ultimately the future of evangelical power in the United States.

The large increase in attendance this year is “not an influx of the woke,” said Tom Buck, a pastor in Texas and a leader of the upstart conservative wing, who has been fundraising for like-minded pastors to get to Nashville to vote. “It’s an influx of the awakened to what the woke have been advancing.”

An event that has historically been compared to a family reunion may look more like a brawl. In the past several weeks, Baptists have pored over leaked bombshell letters and whistleblower recordings, and traded accusations of racism, apostasy and sexual abuse cover-ups. Leaders have taken barbed potshots at each other. Others have headed for the door.

Russell Moore, the denomination’s influential head of ethics and public policy, left on June 1. Popular author and speaker Beth Moore, who is not related to Russell Moore, announced in March that she is no longer a Southern Baptist, citing the “staggering” disorientation of seeing the denomination’s leaders support Donald Trump, and lamenting its treatment of women. Some conservatives triumphantly celebrated both departures.

Messengers will confront a series of measures likely including the propriety of women delivering sermons, the handling of sexual abuse and a denunciation of critical race theory, the concept that historical patterns of racism remain ingrained in modern American society and institutions.

Those hoping to “take the ship” maintain that piracy is nothing more than a cheeky metaphor for a dry, democratic process. Still, the swashbuckling imagery has taken hold. There are “Take the Ship” T-shirts and pirate car flags, GIFs and memes; many supporters attach a pirate flag emoji to their Twitter handles.

In Alaska, pastor Nathaniel Jolly posted photographs to Twitter of a pirate-themed frozen yogurt shop he used to own with his wife. “Now, for the SBC!” he wrote, appending a flag emoji to the message.

Jolly, who will attend his first annual meeting, watched with alarm as public schools in his area have begun to teach what he describes as critical race theory. And he was shocked when high-profile leaders in his own denomination endorsed aspects of the sprawling racial protest movement last summer. “I think CRT is one of these destructive heresies that have snuck in,” he said, referring to a passage in the New Testament book of 2 Peter about false teachers who bring “swift destruction on themselves.”

The rebellion in the Southern Baptist Convention both reflects and forecasts what is going on in broader society and the Republican Party, said Jemar Tisby, assistant director of narrative and advocacy at the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research.

In the wake of the racial justice protests and the ongoing disinformation about the election, there has been “a sifting” going on in the church over race and justice in particular, he said.

“The annual meeting is an opportunity for denominational leaders either to sensitively address the concerns and racism that Black people have experienced or to side with the status quo, which favors white people, particularly men,” he said.

The denomination has about 14.5 million members but has been steadily shrinking for the past decade. In 2014, about 85% of Southern Baptists were white, 6% were Black and 3% were Latino, according to the Pew Research Center.

Southern Baptists split from their northern counterparts in 1845 in support of slavery. After the denomination repudiated its role in slavery in the 1990s, a portion of its national leaders have attempted to diversify its churches and seminaries. At its 2019 meeting, the convention affirmed that critical race theory could be an “analytical tool” useful to faithful Christians, a move many conservatives describe as alarming. Its current president, J.D. Greear, urged Southern Baptists last summer to declare that “Black lives matter.”