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(OPINION) In 2000, after decades as America’s most famous Sunday school teacher, Jimmy Carter decided to cut the symbolic ties binding him to the Southern Baptist Convention.

The former president remained active at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, and didn’t renounce his faith. His letter to 75,000 American Baptists explained that he rejected a revision of the SBC’s Baptist Faith and Message document, from months earlier, to oppose the ordination of women.

“I have been disappointed and feel excluded by the adoption of policies and an increasingly rigid SBC creed,” wrote Carter, who is now 98 years old and in hospice care. He stressed that, with his wife, Rosalynn, he would cooperate with “traditional Baptists who share such beliefs as separation of church and state, servanthood of pastors, priesthood of believers, a free religious press, and equality of women.”

From Carter’s point of view, the SBC had evolved from a convention of autonomous churches — with individuals claiming “soul competency” when choosing their own beliefs — into a denomination that defines orthodoxy on doctrines.

The issue isn’t who is a Baptist and who is not. Church historians struggle to count the number of organized Baptist groups, and thousands of Baptist churches are totally independent. The question is whether the SBC’s DNA has changed in ways that will affect local churches, as well as agencies, boards and seminaries at the state and national levels.

The Rev. Rick Warren — an American evangelical superstar — urged the recent national convention in New Orleans not to “disfellowship” congregations that ordain women, such as the giant Saddleback Church he founded in 1980.

“For 178 years, the SBC has been a blend of at least a dozen different tribes of Baptists,” said Warren during floor debates. “If you think every Baptist thinks like you, you’re mistaken. What we share in common is a mutual commitment to the inerrancy and infallibility of God’s Word and the Great Commission of Jesus.

“No one is asking any Southern Baptist to change their theology. I am not asking you to agree with my church. I am asking you to act like a Southern Baptist — who have historically ‘agreed to disagree’ on dozens of doctrines in order to share a common mission.”

As for the Baptist Faith and Message, he noted that it doesn’t settle debates about Calvinism and many other complex topics. The 2000 document contains “4,032 words. Saddle disagrees with only one word. That’s 99.999999% in agreement.”

Warren was referring to this revised language: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

In response, Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler argued that “the Southern Baptist Convention says what the Baptist Faith and Message means and is quite competent to accomplish that task.” The ordination passage changed “because 30 years ago this issue threatened to tear this denomination apart.” The SBC decided this “doctrine and order” question centers on biblical authority, not local church autonomy.

In recent years, the “disfellowship” option has also been used with congregations that defy SBC policies that oppose racism, try to prevent sexual abuse and reject progressive stands on LGBTQ+ issues.

Historian Thomas S. Kidd, writing for The Gospel Coalition website, noted that, for centuries, many Baptist bodies have “intuitively understood that confessions foster unity by setting up ecclesiological and doctrinal fences.”

Decisions in New Orleans were a logical extension of the earlier “conservative resurgence” in opposition to “moderate” Baptists, especially in SBC seminaries and some agencies, said Kidd, who is the author of books such as “Who Is an Evangelical?” and teaches at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“The SBC before the 1980s tended not to enforce standards of doctrine and practice,” added Kidd, reached by email. “The question of women pastors is both a policy and a doctrinal issue. Did God create men and women with any meaningful differences, aside from the most basic facts of biology? The answer to that question is doctrinal, but it makes a difference — and not just for Baptists — in terms of church practice.”

This historian’s bottom line: “Baptist churches have always ... practiced congregational autonomy in terms of governance. But that does not mean, and never has meant, that just any church can be affiliated with the SBC.”

Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.