When Southern Baptists Were Pro-choice

[The Blue Flower]

http://billmoyers.com/2014/07/17/when-southern-baptists-were-pro-choice/

Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of the religious right as a political force to be reckoned with during the 1970s and 1980s was driven by conservative Christians’ intense opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. But Dartmouth College’s Randall Balmer writes that “the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny.” He notes that “it wasn’t until 1979 — a full six years after Roe — that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but …. because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.”

When Roe was first decided, most of the Southern evangelicals who today make up the backbone of the anti-abortion movement believed that abortion was a deeply personal issue in which government shouldn’t play a role. Some were hesitant to take a position on abortion because they saw it as a “Catholic issue,” and worried about the influence of Catholic teachings on American religious observance.

Shortly after the decision was handed down, The Baptist Press, a wire service run by the Southern Baptist Convention — the biggest Evangelical organization in the US – ran an op-ed praising the ruling. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” read the January 31, 1973, piece by W. Barry Garrett, The Baptist Press’s Washington bureau chief.

Religious bodies and religious persons can continue to teach their own particular views to their constituents with all the vigor they desire. People whose conscience forbids abortion are not compelled by law to have abortions. They are free to practice their religion according to the tenets of their personal or corporate faith. The reverse is also now true since the Supreme Court decision. Those whose conscience or religious convictions are not violated by abortion may not now be forbidden by a religious law to obtain an abortion if they so choose.

more at link...

[Warpy]

1. it's only when the televangelists got into it that evangelical Christians swapped positions

Back in the bad old days when abortion was illegal in every state, pastors were often called into emergency rooms to minister to women they knew in their congregations who had been maimed and were near death from an abortion performed by an untrained butcher.

Christian ministers and Episcopalian priests were all in the forefront of the struggle to legalize it.

All antiabortion laws do is eliminate the safe abortions. Antiabortion laws kill women.

[BrotherIvan]

4. Very well said

[Arkansas Granny]

12. That was back when getting pregnant out of wedlock was a bigger sin

than getting an illegal abortion.

[Warpy]

17. Being pregnant out of wedlock is shamed even now.

The double standard is alive and well, girls expected to stay virginal until the wedding night and "boys will be boys."

My own generation was the first to give a big FU to the shamers and live openly with boyfriends, with or without procreation.

However, the Puritans are only a breath away from going back to the same old stinking system, they're just waiting for the beautiful day when contraception and abortion are both illegal. They love hating and shaming women just that much.

[nomorenomore08]

18. How people who considered abortion murder could reconcile that belief, I have no idea... n/t

[bluestateguy]

2. That was a very long time ago

or so it seems.

[RainDog]

3. The southern baptists had a huge power struggle

and the militant extremist haters tossed out the moderates. That's what's happening within the Republican Party now, as well.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

5. true enough

My dad was getting his PhD at a seminary in Louisville, KY as all of this was happening. He's what Baptists call a liberal and what we'd call a centrist. People like him have more or less been driven from the Southern Baptist church in favor of far right-wing types. The Baptists also used to have a concept they called 'the priesthood of the believer', which held that each individual had a personal relationship with God, and as such, each person had autonomy when it came to beliefs, practice, etc. That doesn't sound much like today's Baptist church, does it?

[RainDog]

10. I grew up in Nashville

home of the SBC and my former minister was the head of the SBC at some point - long after I stopped attending church, ever, which was in my teens.

The "priesthood of the believer" was only ever operational within certain boundaries. I remember stuff I read as a kid from the church library that explained why SBs had the doctrine down, while others missed the point... so, my experience was always that the SB church was rigidly doctrinal, fearful of others, motivated by fear, and only made cursory nods to any idea of tolerance of any type.

Mega churches and their schools were ways to re-segregate without announcing it publicly - with an occasional "other" allowed for Potemkin Village diversity. One of my friends from h.s. was a gay male and his parents literally moved from state to state any time they found out he had a boyfriend. It was horrid for him. His parents were best buddies with the Youth Minister, so I kept in touch with the guy for a while after he moved (yet again) b/c one of the YMPKs was a mutual friend.

I was taught, throughout school, that I was subservient to my husband to be as part of the natural way life exists and, of course, a female might not choose marriage, but she was also choosing lifetime virginity. So, yeah, I wanted to get married, even if I didn't exactly agree with that b.s. lol.

But sexual shaming wasn't limited to females. When a male related family member moved in with his girlfriend (whom he later married), his mother showed up crying hysterically, begging him not to do that "to her" because of the social embarrassment of having a child who openly had sex before marriage. This was in the 1980s. I know of a similar moment in a related family member's life from the 2000s.

I think the Southern Baptist religion is a cult - but I think most every religion is a cult. I don't, generally, think cults are good things.

My overarching experience gave me a deep disgust for religion in general.

[nomorenomore08]

19. Excellent post. People really ought to read it - perhaps work it into an OP somehow?

[nomorenomore08]

28. I'm sorry you had to put up with so much ignorant bullshit. Really, truly.

I just wish your words could reach the people who think this stuff isn't still relevant in contemporary America.

[nomorenomore08]

31. Ignorance and hypocrisy are common human traits, but organized religion is like Miracle-Gro

for the stuff. Again, I'm sorry you've been put through all this, for such stupid reasons.

[shaayecanaan]

20. Well, not quite...

the people for whom religion was more important than politics got tossed out by the people who thought it was the other way around.

If anything, the religiously doctrinaire Baptists were more morbidly religious than the people that replaced them. They despised the megachurch rock-concert services as worldly, and regarded politics as a dirty business that they didnt want to get involved in.

Sarah Palin is regarded as an "evangelical" these days even though she attends church probably about four times a year. Its basically politics with a very thin veneer of religion.

[RainDog]

22. that wasn't my experience

I attended a church that had youth services with full bands (plus the boring white choir standards). My pastor was a major influence on that whole movement within the SBC - his church was one of the first because it was located in a place with a lot of musicians.

There's a big difference between the words "evangelical" and Southern Baptist. Southern Baptists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are Southern Baptists.

You're also wrong about the power struggle that replaced more moderate Baptists in the SBC with more right wing ones - as disgustipatedinCA can tell you, as well, because his dad was an adult when it happened.

You can also look to Jimmy Carter and Jim...forget his name, who writes about religion and politics. Neither of them agree with your assessment. Carter left the SBC because it became synonymous with doctrinal hatred toward others.

For Baptists, at the level of power within the org. (of course everyone can have an opinion about her) Sarah Palin isn't considered "right" about religion because she attends a Pentecostal church. Baptists believe the book of Acts was a time of special dispensation that ended with the era of the Apostles - so any claims to prophecy, etc. by other churches are regarded as heresy - but for the sake of politics, they won't talk about this.

Ted Cruz' dad, for instance - would be considered bat shit crazy by S. Baptists. But they ignore the "finer points" of his religious heresy because he's so right wing.

It's a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend in politics, but if issues were to turn to doctrine - Cruz's dad would not be considered a friend.

Southern Baptists have ALWAYS thought Robertson was a charlatan and heretic too, btw. As well as Tammy Faye and Jim and all those other tv preachers who do not adhere to Baptist doctrine.

[shaayecanaan]

23. Well, there's a lot of bare assertions in there...

I'll be sure to look up "Jim...forget his name".

I look to Reagan's statement: "I know you can't endorse me, but I endorse you". Prior to that religious voters had been very squeamish about getting involved in politics.

I am not disputing that the SBC is more right-wing now as it was then. It is of a much more political bent than it was before. That is not because Baptists were liberals previously, it is because they were far more distrustful of government and generally sought to limit their involvement with it as much as possible.

Ted Cruz' dad, for instance - would be considered bat shit crazy by S. Baptists. But they ignore the "finer points" of his religious heresy because he's so right wing.

Agreed. The religious rules have been relaxed at the same time that the political rules have been tightened.

Baptists traditionally supported the wall of separation between church and state, nowadays most of them probably think it is some sort of leftist deceit that the communists dreamed up:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptists_in_the_history_of_separation_of_church_and_state

[RainDog]

24. I never claimed they were liberal

You misunderstood what I wrote, apparently, and have responded on that basis. I'm talking about at the level of policy within the SBC - the things that were within a range of difference available - and that has changed, as this thread indicates with abortion and even with pronouncements about birth control and whether or not people can choose to be childless. They were never liberal. I detested them when I was a kid, even. I went to several different churches in Nashville and all of them were full of people who were in the power structure of the SBC, so I can state with some certainty that they were never liberal and I never stated they were. But they were more amenable to differences within a narrow range. The Youth Minister I mentioned, above, left Nashville and the church where I was because he thought it was too conservative - and yet he was not liberal - he just wasn't as far right as those taking power.

I ALWAYS thought southern baptists were conservative - they're just more extremist and vocal about it in the public sphere than before.

A lot of this has to do with the influence of Rushdoony, a presbyterian, who started the dominionist movement. The SBC didn't back the dominionist movement when it began and even Falwell distanced himself from it. But Rushdoony's ideas have had a lot of influence over people who call themselves conservative and religious - even when it deviates from the doctrine of their church.

And I know about the history of the separation of church and state/Danville Bapt. church letter from Washington, etc.

The difference is that there are multicultural voices in American society now, where previously there was a rigid (white) protestant control over power. The mainline churches - Episcopal, etc. were often the power holders in higher office across the land - and in southern states, too - because evangelicals didn't like the rulings Eisenhower made that desegregated the south - but even so, Epsc. etc. were in the "right camp" for Baptists (and other evangelicals, for that matter, tho, by the time I was reading my church library, Episcopals were excoriated for being too liberal and not evangelical in their faith.) Al Gore is a perfect example of this as a southern politician. By the time he ran for president, his state, home of the SBC, was so right wing he could not carry it, even tho he isn't exactly a screaming liberal himself.

So I am saying both the religious and the political have become more right wing for the SBC - and they have elided the "great commission" with some of Rushdoony's and Ted Cruz' dad's dominionism SIMPLY BECAUSE the power structure they want is crumbling. They are outside of the mainstream of American life. Prior to various rights movements, they were within the mainstream so they wanted no part in politics. Now they see their cherished hateful beliefs are challenged in the public sphere and they are fighting against this.

ah - eta - Jim Wallis is the name of the guy I was talking about before. I had to figure out a few ways to get his name - but that's the guy who has written about this stuff for HuffPo, etc. He calls himself an evangelical, but he was never a Baptist, but he has criticized the religious right from the basis of a shared evangelical faith.

I don't follow what the baptists are doing anymore and would never set foot in a SB church if I could avoid it. I detest them that much.

eta one last thing - as I initially noted - I compared Southern Baptists to the Republican Party. No one I know thinks the Republican Party is liberal - but it was not as hardline hateful as it is now - and the mindset of the Republican Party takeover reflects the mindset of the SBC takeover - which makes sense since the SBC is the largest denomimation in the biggest Republican region in the nation.

[nomorenomore08]

29. Rushdoony... Talk about using a great intellect for evil... This was a guy who read a book a day

and yet was still deluded enough to believe in primitive, millennia-old religious laws.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, The Blue Flower.

[freshwest]

7. Yes, I attended a Baptist church in the South as a kid. No politics, religion was strictly private.

And they made no objection to removing morning prayer in public schools as a matter of the separation of church and state. It was none of their business, period. A lot of things were none of their business, gays, minorities, immigrants, other countries, and too many to list here.

The only thing I ever saw them do politically, at which they failed, was to keep the blue laws. That was because some stores were closed on Sundays and it gave people a day off to go to church, or not, but it gave them a day off which many businesses no longer care about now, nor even holidays. The idea was a day of rest.

We had prevailing wage laws, unions dominated and all the kids went to public school. We were all taught evolution in elementary school but it didn't get anyone's panties in a twist. And they didn't whine about the loss on the blue laws, either, it was what the voters wanted, and that was it. They respected the state.

They did have their quirks about other denominations as being theologically incorrect because they took 'baptism in water' literally as this verse described here:

The Baptism of Jesus

Matthew 3 :13 - 17

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.

14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

And really, we were taught that other people's faith was none of our business there.

My family saw all religions as well as those that didn't acknowledge a deity, as equal.

The only thing we believed was the Golden Rule. That would end the religious abuse and hatreds we are fighting with now.

The entire religious right movement has been a sham from beginning to end and done terrible harm to us.

I won't enter the door of any church now after seeing what too many morphed into, greedy, corporate cults of pride and arrogance and finding fault with other humans. And their interest in government is HUGE turn off to me. None of their business messing with it.

JMHO... YMMV.

[Lars39]

21. I'm curious...were there Masons in your family?

"My family saw all religions as well as those that didn't acknowledge a deity, as equal."

I've always heard this as a Mason belief and influence. I know it was a belief in my family at one time.

[freshwest]

25. My dad was a 32nd degree Mason. He didn't have a hateful bone in his body.

He valued education and doing the right thing by people, especially the poor, discriminated and vulnerable. He worked against all bigotry. He was for equality and women's rights and the freedom to think and decide your life.

I know some people now see them as evil, but he wasn't. He didn't attend church, himself. He did love Christmas, in the secular sense.

My family had two members of the RCC, which he wasn't that fond of, but saw it as a choice and loved them. We had Lutherans, Baptists, UUs' and Methodists. And some saw religion as childish.

A different generation, all born a century ago, grew up in the years of the Depression, went through WW2, had all kinds of professions.

He worked in blue collar jobs including being a union machinist, went to WW2 as a Seabee, even he was avoiding signing up until Pearl Harbor to keep his brothers having to serve.

I miss them, a sane nation and their generosity and values. I'm somewhat glad none of them lived to see what the Tea Party's done.

[valerief]

8. Only goes to prove that they'll believe whatever their pastors are paid to tell them

to believe.

[azureblue]

9. why do we have separation of Church and State?

Because the Baptists pushed hard for it when the Constitution was being written. Gawdamighty how they forget or ignore...

[Horse with no Name]

11. They still are

when it is their family member....

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. Here's a link to ALL SBC resolutions on abortion, starting in 1971 (before R v W):

Last edited Thu Jul 17, 2014, 08:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Resolution On Abortion, adopted at the SBC convention, June 1971:

WHEREAS, Christians in the American society today are faced with difficult decisions about abortion; and
WHEREAS, Some advocate that there be no abortion legislation, thus making the decision a purely private matter between a woman and her doctor; and
WHEREAS, Others advocate no legal abortion, or would permit abortion only if the life of the mother is threatened;
Therefore, be it RESOLVED, that this Convention express the belief that society has a responsibility to affirm through the laws of the state a high view of the sanctity of human life, including fetal life, in order to protect those who cannot protect themselves; and
Be it further RESOLVED, That we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother

Resolution On Abortion And Sanctity Of Human Life, adopted at the SBC convention, June 1974:

WHEREAS, Southern Baptists have historically held a high view of the sanctity of human life, and
WHEREAS, The messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis in 1971 adopted overwhelmingly a resolution on abortion, and
WHEREAS, That resolution reflected a middle ground between the extreme of abortion on demand and the opposite extreme of all abortion as murder, and
WHEREAS, That resolution dealt responsibly from a Christian perspective with complexities of abortion problems in contemporary society;
Therefore, be it RESOLVED, that we reaffirm the resolution on the subject adopted by the messengers to the St. Louis Southern Baptist Convention meeting in 1971, and
Be it further RESOLVED, that we continue to seek God's guidance through prayer and study in order to bring about solutions to continuing abortion problems in our society.

Resolution On Abortion, adopted at the SBC convention, June 1976:

WHEREAS, Southern Baptists have historically held a biblical view of the sanctity of human life, and
WHEREAS, Abortion is a very serious moral and spiritual problem of continuing concern to the American people, and
WHEREAS, Christians have a responsibility to deal with all moral and spiritual issues which affect society, including the problems of abortion, and
WHEREAS, The practice of abortion for selfish non-therapeutic reasons want-only destroys fetal life, dulls our society's moral sensitivity, and leads to a cheapening of all human life, and
WHEREAS, Every decision for an abortion, for whatever reason must necessarily involve the decision to terminate the life of an innocent human being.
Therefore be it RESOLVED, that the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Norfolk in June 1976 reaffirm the biblical sacredness and dignity of all human life, including fetal life, and
Be it further RESOLVED, that we call on Southern Baptists and all citizens of the nation to work to change those attitudes and conditions which encourage many people to turn to abortion as a means of birth control, and
Be it further RESOLVED, that in the best interest of our society, we reject any indiscriminate attitude toward abortion, as contrary to the biblical view, and
Be it further RESOLVED, that we also affirm our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health.



.......

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/baptist/sbcabres.html

And here's what W. A. Criswell, pastor of 1st Baptist Church in Dallas, and twice president of the SBC, said in 1973 (before he reversed his position):

Questioned in 1973 about the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade Criswell replied,

“I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._A._Criswell

[Lars39]

16. Tucking that info away....Thanks for posting!

[freshwest]

26. Thank you very much, I hope this can be used to inform people there is another view!

[madfloridian]

14. One of the main hijackers of that group is Al Mohler, head of the Louisville seminary.

He is training new pastors what to preach. Thinks birth control is an "insidious" attack on God's glory.

Southern Baptist leader says deliberate childlessness defies God's will.

"The effective separation of sex from procreation may be one of the most important defining marks of our age--and one of the most ominous. This awareness is spreading among American evangelicals, and it threatens to set loose a firestorm.

..."Thus, in an ironic turn, American evangelicals are rethinking birth control even as a majority of the nation's Roman Catholics indicate a rejection of their Church's teaching. How should evangelicals think about the birth control question?

..."First, we must start with a rejection of the contraceptive mentality that sees pregnancy and children as impositions to be avoided rather than as gifts to be received, loved, and nurtured. This contraceptive mentality is an insidious attack upon God's glory in creation, and the Creator's gift of procreation to the married couple."

[NealK]

15. Well, I learn something new everyday.