The Fundamentalist Playbook: How the SBC Takeover Previewed MAGA
If you want to understand the mindset and mentality of MAGA, consider the history of the Southern Baptist Convention.
No greater event led to the formation of groups like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship or the Alliance of Baptists than the series of conflicts within the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s. Sociologist Nancy Ammerman described this conflict as the “Baptist Battles" of the 80s that pitted conservative/fundamentalist Southern Baptists against moderate/liberal Southern Baptists. The ordeal is aptly described as the Fundamentalist Takeover or the Conservative Resurgence depending upon who is telling the history.
One of the principal goals of the conservative movement within the 1980s SBC was to purge insufficiently conservative denominational leaders from all of the SBC institutions and agencies. As I have watched the news over the past few months as President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement have sought to dismantle much of the federal government, I have been reminded of this era within twentieth-century U.S. Baptist life.
In the wake of the last decade of American politics, I think colloquial descriptions of the Baptist Battles such as the “Fundamentalist Takeover” or the “Conservative Resurgence” are too theologically focused. This was a political movement, and both sides were politically motivated to secure power in the SBC. In fact, the parallels between MAGA and the SBC conservatives are quite striking. At the same time, the inaction and inability to combat these movements by Democrats and SBC moderates respectively is also striking.
Considering these movements together, it is perhaps more helpful to think of SBC conservatives/fundamentalists as SBC populists. These were pastors and laity frustrated with the status quo within the denomination as well as the ‘elite’ and institutional power structures and gatekeepers of the SBC. The moderate/liberal camp (which was never really all that moderate) were institutionalists and bureaucrats committed to the structures, traditions, and institutions of the SBC.
Understanding the players of the Baptist Battles in this light provides better clarity for not only that historical era but also the history in which we currently find ourselves. The conflict the SBC witnessed in the 1980s and 90s previewed the tactics and approach MAGA has taken in the second Trump administration to upending the federal bureaucracy, isolating the United States on a global stage, and focusing on divisive culture war issues.
The Populist Overthrow of the SBC
Beginning in 1979, a contingent of conservative leaders on the fringes of the Southern Baptist Convention began a populist movement to reshape the SBC. Their strategy sought to leverage the electoral and procedural process of the SBC to elect a partisan ideologue to the SBC Presidency for ten consecutive yearly cycles. The message this populist movement relied upon was the threat of liberal ideology within the denominational deep state.
This populist movement was animated by electing an SBC President who appointed individuals to the committee on committees who in turn nominated the committee on nominations who in turn elected trustees to all of the denomination's agencies. By appointing ideologues to the committee on committees, this strategy sought to use the power of one office to slowly nominate and install partisan ideologues onto the boards of all of the denomination’s agencies. Slowly, these agencies began to adopt ideologically partisan policies and push out insufficiently loyal and conservative leaders.
Much of the coverage of this strategy took place at denominational seminaries. SBC populists were disgruntled that faculty were not sufficiently conservative enough. They sought to control what was taught in class and who could teach. Higher Education became a touchstone for the populists and institutionalists throughout the conflict. Faculty often fell within the camp of SBC institutionalists and bureaucrats, and many became some of the loudest opposition and resistance to this populist movement.
As the populists sought to dismantle and remake the denominational deep state in their image, they also worked to pass denominational statements affirming their partisan positions along many culture war issues, most specifically gender and sexuality. Despite women serving in only a handful of SBC congregations across the nation, this became a cultural rallying cry for SBC populists. By 1987, they controlled the ability to limit denominational funding to congregations that called women pastors.
While the SBC had never been an ecumenical denomination, SBC institutionalists had made overtures towards working collaboratively across denominational lines. Rather than continue to move in cooperative directions with other denominational bodies, part of the Populist movement sought to withdraw from this collaboration. Under the regime of SBC populists, denominational partnerships were few and far between, and they were only formed along partisan ideological lines.
In short, the populist overthrow of the SBC relied upon the singular source of authority held by the President who would purge the denominational deep-state of insufficiently partisan employees. The movement animated its following through culture war issues related to gender and sexuality, all the while working to isolate the SBC from other denominations.
Such a strategy merely previewed MAGA's desire to leverage the authority of the US Presidency to purge and remake the federal government along partisan lines. MAGA, too, centers culture war issues around gender and sexuality, specifically transgender identity and transgender athletes despite the small size of this community. Trump tariffs have rejected international cooperation in favor of isolationism in much the same way that SBC populists rejected ecumenism.
If there is any difference between the populist overthrow of the SBC and MAGA it is that term limits for the SBC Presidency prohibited the movement from following a singular messianic figure as MAGA does with Donald Trump.
The Problem of Compromise
Recognizing these similarities between the SBC and MAGA helps shed light on what it means to resist the Trump administration and agenda. Calls to work with and find common ground with MAGA are fundamentally misguided and fail to understand this shared DNA between SBC populists and MAGA.
In an interview at the twentieth anniversary of Albert Mohler’s tenure as President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the school released a short documentary on the conservative resurgence. In the short documentary, Paige Patterson, one of the leading figures of the populist overthrow, outlined a moment that demonstrates the movement's animosity towards compromise. He explained:
There was even a day in the middle of the conservative movement when we almost made a big mistake. A proposal was made at the ten-year mark which would been about 1989…Hey look, we’re never gonna get this thing put to bed. It's not gonna work. So let’s sue for peace. Let’s give the moderates three seminaries - Southeastern, Southern, and Midwestern. Let’s take Golden Gate, Southwestern, and New Orleans. And let's try to have peace. And the reason that we are talking about that was it well known you can't maintain a revolution past ten years and we were going into year number eleven. Homer Lindsay Jr was at that meeting I never will forget. He stood up slammed his books closed and said I made a mistake gentlemen. I thought I was going to a meeting of prophets, and I have come to a meeting of chickens.
Patterson remembered the possibility of compromise as a mistake. He acknowledged that the conservative movement had the capacity to conceptualize the limitations of political power and political change. They proposed such a compromise, and it was calculated based upon their beliefs in political limitations.
Homer Lindsay’s disagreement demonstrates the populist's apprehension for compromise, seeing it as weakness or cowardice.
The chief architect of this populist overthrow, Judge Paul Pressler—credibly accused pedophile and sexual molester of young boys and men, advocated conservatives “go for the jugular” in this conflict. Populist leaders for decades defended Pressler for decades refusing to acknowledge his pedophilia and sexual molestation. They eschew political calculation—deny, deny, deny—and refuse to acknowledge political limitations. It was and is a zero-sum game.
Lessons from the SBC
This was the Southern Baptist’s populist resurgence in 1980; this is MAGA in 2025. Just as the SBC populists previewed, MAGA is not a movement that accepts political limitations or makes political calculations. It is a movement of domination.
There are lessons to be learned from the failure of Southern Baptist institutionalists and bureaucrats, who were unable to stem the tide of their populist adversaries. It is important to consider:
Institutional norms will never hold. The populist resurgence despised the institutions and norms they sought to purge. Breaking norms is part of their agenda.
Resistance requires quick action and new leadership. SBC institutionalists and bureaucrats were not prepared and mobilized far too late to mount a compelling resistance. The populist movement was disgruntled with institutional bureaucrats. Old and tried leadership fueled their movement.
Appeals to normalcy isolated progressives. What SBC institutionalists and bureaucrats did not recognize was that Southern Baptist progressives were not energized by a return to normalcy. Normalcy does not maintain a broad coalition.
There will be no return to normal. Attempts to placate or return the old systems are ineffective when the opposition is arguing that old systems are broken. The SBC institutionalists’ last attempt to ‘save’ their denomination by running a middle-of-the-road conservative white pastor for the SBC Presidency, resulted in loss. There is no going back.
These are important lessons, many of which those committed to an alternative vision of America than MAGA have already learned. Even so, they are important to remember over the next four years.
Considering both the SBC populist and MAGA movements in relationship to one another helps provide clarity and understanding to both movements. Given the SBC populists fractured the convention and led to the formation of alternative denominational bodies in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists, it is important to acknowledge the threat of MAGA and its tactics.
Understanding the current political climate in light of the Baptist Baptists suggests the American Democratic Republic will never be the same again. For some that is scary and for others that is welcomed news. For those fearful of a MAGA future, it is important to cast a vision of an alternative and better future and not appeal to a return to the past.
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Thank you for this. So much of what is happening now has felt so familiar.
Exceptional work. The notion that all socio-religio-political battles are a zero sum game is nothing new. The model is that "real men" destroy opponents--and anything less is weakness. So much work to do with this concept.