Drifting Echo Chambers Polarize Denominations Long After They Split

An Opinion Piece on What Happens After a Denominational Split

Drifting Echo Chambers Polarize Denominations Long After They Split

Conflicting echo chambers within denominations—when strident views and actions cause them to split—launch a process by which they drift farther apart for decades. They reach a point where it is difficult to understand how these two denominations could ever have been one.

Differences that were not huge, radicalize over time. The distance between the denominations become so great that dialogue between them on core issues becomes improbable.

This is caused by the continual drift of their echo chambers towards opposite ideological, theological, ecclesiological, and missional polarities.

The We-Are-Not-Them Syndrome pushes them apart. Each year the distance widens. They become polar opposites which they did not see happening before the split.

Influencers, groups, and causes once considered radical work their way into the mainstream. They advocate for a drift in core values to the left or the right on a continuum.

Creating an increasingly larger middle.

Southern Baptists and Cooperative Baptists

The denominational split with which I am most familiar is the one between Southern Baptists and Cooperative Baptists.

As a lifelong consultant to dozens of denominations I encountered many splits. Churches and denominational organizations among Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Reformed, and many others were clients.

When Southern Baptists split (hereafter SBC), the two sides were initially known as conservatives and moderates. In a few years the language shifted. Conservatives became fundamentalists from the perspective of the moderates. Moderates became liberals from the perspective of the conservatives.

The last 45 years reveal these were self-fulfilling prophecies. Although each denomination might deny this reality.

The conflict, which went public in 1979, was ultimately assigned labels such as a Conservative Resurgence by the conservatives, and a Fundamentalist Takeover by the moderates.

New Forms, Reorganizations, and Movements Toward Polarization

In 1987 the Alliance of Baptists formed out of the progressive wing of the moderates and were perceived as the liberal group. For a few years this allowed those who claimed the label “moderates” to see themselves as centrists.

It did not last.

The Alliance continued to move to the left, and never permanently attracted a large number of churches. They did not secure and keep sufficiently strong and influential leaders. They came across as mediocre and narrowly focused rather than bold and broadly based.

SBC moderates ultimately realized they needed a more meaningful denominational form. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (hereafter CBF) formed in 1991. Moderate to liberal leaders and their churches represented this movement which was clearly different from the SBC.

The conflict was now settled. The next five years saw the launching and organizational development of CBF. The development of echo chambers that have now become closed systems.

SBC agency and institution leaders were replaced as conservatives and fundamentalists now controlled the trustees. The national SBC entities reorganized through an effort known as a Covenant for a New Century.

In the case of one agency, it took a merger of multiple organizations to get rid of the CEO. Conservative leaders supported his election less than a decade earlier. They did not feel they could fire him as they did other agency and institution leaders.

By the last half of the 1990s, a pattern of drifting farther apart took place annually. The SBC drifted more conservative and the CBF more liberal. They primarily talked with themselves within their echo chambers.

Bounded, Centered, and Fuzzy

Over the next three decades the SBC became bounded and the CBF fuzzy.

Note: The conceptual framework for labeling the two denominations as bounded and fuzzy comes from a model by Paul G. Hiebert in Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994) It was popularized in recent years by Mark D. Baker in his book Centered-Set Church: Discipleship and Community Without Judgmentalism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021).

CBF claims the middle by declaring themselves a centered-set denomination. This is not accurate, but only wishful thinking within their echo chambers.

CBF is fuzzy. Its center will not hold as it drifts farther away from the SBC and leaves a big hole in the middle. This may be fine with a majority of CBF-affiliated churches. Just as the movement in the SBC may be fine with a majority of its affiliated churches.

The SBC is changing fast as a bounded denomination. Finding more ways to exclude churches rather than to compassionately include churches.

Both the SBC and CBF are smaller than they once were. By some calculations significantly so. This happens when movements journey toward the extremes and increase the size of the middle.

Is The Center Large Enough for a New Denominational Form to Emerge?

With the polarization of Southern Baptists and Cooperative Baptists, the middle ground between them is now big enough for a centrist Baptist denominational form.

And getting bigger.

Only God’s Triple D—the direct, dramatic, divine intervention of God—can bring the SBC and CBF back together. Even then God’s intervention might be ignored because of new generations of leaders in SBC and CBF life.

Anyone born after February 9, 1964 does not have first-hand experience as an adult with the SBC before the controversy went public. They only know the SBC tradition after the polarization began. Few—if any—would have any reason to go back to a pre-1979 era.

The same is true for CBF. Multiple generations of leaders now know CBF and not SBC. They do not have an historical reference point from which to talk about the SBC.

In the first several decades following World War II, much was said about the cultural captivity of the Southern Baptist movement.

Now it is appropriate to talk about the ideological captivity of both the SBC and the CBF. Secular politics and societal culture say more about them than doctrinal stances or missional engagement strategies.

This leaves a huge middle in terms of distance, but not many people and churches formally identify with the middle. At least yet. It is difficult to have a place to stand if you are not on the left or the right.

SBC lost the effectiveness of its core mission. CBF never developed a strong enough plan of sustained and balanced church and kingdom growth. The middle is now wide open and big enough for something new to take place.

But the middle does not have a clearly defined echo chamber where critical dialogue can take place. The dialogue is scattered in various places. It needs an umbrella forum. A place where churches can commit to leave the SBC and/or CBF to risk a new journey.

In the meantime, both SBC and CBF will annually gather in circular firing squads within their respective echo chambers.