Leaving the back door open

Feed the flock but don't let the lambs escape | Joel Belz

Almost certainly, when Southern Baptists gather in a few days for their annual convention in Nashville, things won't be as noisy and fractious as they were at similar meetings a decade ago. Conservatives are in charge of the denomination, and everyone knows it.

But nailing down political control of the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention isn't quite the same thing as guaranteeing that the folks who occupy the pews of its 50,000 congregations will still believe the right things a generation from now. Even if you control all the seminaries, the foreign missions board, the church planting efforts, and the publishing apparatus—a feat which SBC conservatives for the most part have accomplished over the last 15 years—you have to recognize, if you're a realist, that you're fighting a losing battle.