Southern Baptist Convention - Organization

Organization

The Southern Baptists' typical form of government is congregationalist: each local church is autonomous without formal lines of responsibility to organizational levels of higher authority.

A basic Baptist principle is the autonomy of the local church. The Convention is therefore conceived as a cooperative association by which churches can pool resources rather than as a body with any administrative or ecclesiastical control over local churches. It maintains a central administrative organization in Nashville, Tennessee. The SBC's Executive Committee exercises authority and control over seminaries and other institutions owned by the Southern Baptist Convention. However, the Executive Committee has no authority over affiliated state conventions, local associations, individual churches or members.

Commitment to the autonomy of local congregations was the primary force behind the Executive Committee's rejection of a proposal to create a convention-wide database of SBC clergy accused of sexual crimes against congregants or other minors in order to stop the "recurring tide" of clergy sexual abuse within SBC congregations. A 2009 study by Lifeway Christian Resources, the Convention's research and publishing arm, revealed that one in eight background checks for potential volunteers or workers in SBC churches revealed a history of crime that could have prevented them from working.

The Convention's confession of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message, technically is not binding on churches or members due to the autonomy of the local church. Politically and culturally, Southern Baptists tend to be conservative. Most oppose the use of alcohol as a beverage, homosexual activity and abortion with few exceptions.

There are four levels of SBC organization: the local congregation, the local association, the state convention, and the national convention.