From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, a minority conservative faction took over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This project seeks to answer the questions of how a fringe minority within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination could undertake such a feat and why they chose to do so. The framework through which this work analyzes these questions is one of competing worldviews that emerged within the SBC in response to decades of societal shifts and denominational transformations in the post-World War II era. To place the events of the Southern Baptist “crisis” within this framework, this study seeks to refute the prevailing notion put forth in earlier works that the takeover was an in-house event, driven purely by doctrinal disputes between conservative Southern Baptists and SBC leadership. Illustrating the differences between rhetoric and action on both sides of this intra-denominational conflict, this work seeks to provide perspective to the narrative of the Southern Baptist “crisis” by asserting that the worldviews guiding the opposing factions diverged not only on doctrine, but culture and politics as well. Placing the events of the “crisis” within the context of broader worldviews, this project highlights and examines the intertwined nature of religion, culture, and politics in modern American society.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-06-24T13:36:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ivandiasdasilva.pdf: 984706 bytes, checksum: edc1274de7cce92f9e66af20480a35f6 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-13T15:44:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ivandiasdasilva.pdf: 984706 bytes, checksum: edc1274de7cce92f9e66af20480a35f6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-13T15:44:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ivandiasdasilva.pdf: 984706 bytes, checksum: edc1274de7cce92f9e66af20480a35f6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-01 / Esta dissertação tem por objetivo geral apresentar as controvérsias entre as perspectivas teológicas liberal e fundamentalista ocorridas no âmbito da Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), nos EUA, iniciadas na década de 60, com seu ápice na década de 80 e desdobramentos que resultaram na cisão da referida Convenção no final do século XX. A SBC é a maior denominação do cristianismo protestante do mundo, com cerca de 16 milhões de membros e poderosa influência nos ambientes religioso e político norte-americano. Os conflitos intra-denominacionais tiveram como alvo o controle dos recursos e direção ideológica da SBC. De um lado estavam os fundamentalistas, que defendiam a Bíblia como inerrante e entendiam que a tendência modernista presente na denominação era um grande mal a ser extirpado. Do outro se encontravam os liberais, que valorizavam a abordagem histórico-crítica às Escrituras, a teoria da evolução, a filosofia existencialista e o estudo das religiões comparadas. A diferença entre estas perspectivas teológicas tornou a convivência no mesmo ambiente denominacional inviável, gerando um conflito que veio a culminar com a emergência fundamentalista ao poder na SBC, destituindo os outrora solidamente estabelecidos liberais de suas funções de comando na Convenção. / This Master’s thesis’ general goal is to present the controversies between the liberal and fundamentalist theological perspectives which have occurred within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), that have been initiated in the beginning of the 1960’s, with its apex in the 1980’s and developments that led to a split in the Convention at the end of the 20th century. The SBC is the largest world’s Christian protestant denomination, whith approximately 16 million members and powerful religious and politics influence in the USA. These denominational conflicts targeted to control the resources and the ideological direction of the Southern Baptist Convention. On the one hand were the fundamentalists, upholding the Bible as an inerrant book and believing that the modernist tendency was the great evil to be purged from the denomination. On the other were the liberals that appreciated the historical-critical approach to the Bible, the theory of evolution, the existentialist philosophy, and the study of comparative religions. For these different theological perspectives their coexistence at the same denominational scope became unfeasible, giving rise to a conflict that resulted in the fundamentalist’s emergence to the Conventions’ leadership, removing the liberals that once was well-established in charge in the SBC.