Editor’s note: This year marks the centennial anniversaries of the Cooperative Program’s creation, the adoption of the Baptist Faith & Message, and the SBC’s ownership of Southwestern Seminary. To celebrate these 100 years of Southern Baptist cooperation, Southwestern has compiled eleven essays from key Southern Baptist leaders and seminary faculty for an original series on the ETC blog. The entire series, which will publish over the course of eleven weeks, will be available here.
Cooperation as a convictional, operational mindset is the foundation of the movement known as Southern Baptists. Many Southern Baptists equate cooperation with the Cooperative Program, our common funding mechanism, but it is much more than that. Cooperation is the theological and theoretical foundation upon which our movement rests.
When Southern Baptists organized in 1845, they created a new kind of inter-church relationship which has come to be called the “convention model.” They created something that had never been done before in the history of Christendom—churches voluntarily working together while retaining individual identity and control. Since then, Southern Baptists have been emulated by many but never surpassed in creativity, effectiveness, impact, and, yes, confusion about what cooperation means and how we work together.
Many Southern Baptists and most outsiders do not understand how an organization based on cooperation functions. They are so accustomed to top-down structures in government, business, and schools that they impose those expectations on Southern Baptists. They miss this point of how cooperation—not coercion or control—is the foundation upon which Southern Baptists’ work rests. They believe someone must be in charge somewhere for anything to happen on a large scale. Our movement refutes that misguided conclusion daily.
Since our movement is based on cooperation, it means the Southern Baptist Convention has no authority over its affiliated churches. None. Not some, none—period. The Southern Baptist Convention can decline to seat messengers from a particular church at a particular annual meeting, meaning it declares that church is no longer in friendly cooperation, but it has no authority to determine the internal functions of any church. This is called autonomy—both for the church, as well as for the assembled convention.
Churches are autonomous, which means they are self-determining and self-governing. But this does not mean they are independent. Southern Baptist churches have voluntarily agreed to cooperate, which means while they surrender their independence, they retain their autonomy. This is more than semantic gymnastics. It is foundational to our denominational polity resting on our theological convictions about soul competency, the priesthood of believers, and local church primacy.
Soul competency means every individual is fully capable of relating to God. The priesthood of believers means every person has direct and immediate access to God and shares responsibility for helping other people connect with God. Local church primacy means the church is the visible and full expression of God’s activity in the world and the first place every believer connects and serves. These Baptist convictions underscore the importance of a personal relationship with God. But they are balanced by voluntary willingness to cooperate with others. Voluntary is the key word. Even though we do not need a superior’s permission or a priest’s intercession to relate to God, we recognize we need each other—first as church members and then in the large community of churches working together.
This is what so many outsiders cannot fathom. They do not understand how we have grown to be the largest Christian denomination in the United States without top-down control mechanisms to mandate doctrinal, financial, and programmatic uniformity. Southern Baptist leaders—and state convention and local associational leaders—do not have this power. Instead, they have bully pulpits to surface issues, create momentum for change, and offer resources to improve cooperative functionality. And the amazing thing is how many churches voluntarily cooperate with this system to make such a dramatic global impact.
Cooperation is a powerful force—strong enough to build the largest mission boards, seminary system, publishing house, and financial services ministry of any denomination in American history. Cooperation is more powerful than coercion. Cooperation may seem inefficient to outsiders, but insiders know it is the secret sauce which makes Southern Baptists so effective.
Yet, this spirit of cooperation is under attack these days—both from external critics and internal detractors. Our cultural proclivity for tribalism and sectarianism—rooted in the sins of selfishness and self-promotion—are flooding over us. Some Christian leaders are more concerned about getting credit, having their way, being recognized on social media, or enforcing their positions than cooperating for a greater good. They complain about compromises and demand unity on specific issues to preserve their allegiance. Rather than standing against this secular mindset, too many are embracing it and attempting to reshape what it means to be Southern Baptist.
Is cooperation still a viable expectation or a relic of a bygone era? Is cooperation still the best way for thousands of autonomous churches to work toward the common good of sharing the Gospel with the entire world? The answer is yes, for a variety of reasons.
First, we cooperate because the Bible says we can do more collectively than we can by ourselves. Cooperation is both a biblical pattern and mandate, from encouragement in group decision-making—“victory comes with many counselors” (Pro. 24:6); to the examples of partnership among believers—“I give thanks to God … for your partnership in the gospel … I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me …” (Phil. 1:3-7); to churches meeting each other’s financial needs in the face of natural disaster—“Each of the (Antioch) disciples, according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brothers and sisters who lived in Judea” (Acts 11:29); to the Pauline example of almost always working with a missionary partner or team.
Second, we cooperate because it expresses the unity we strive for in Jesus Christ. After describing various leaders as God’s gift to the church, Paul declared the task of those leaders is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith” (Eph. 4:12-13a). Jesus prayed “may all (believers) be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you” and “I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:21-22). When we cooperate, we become part of the answer to Jesus’ prayer.
Third, when we cooperate we subjugate our personal preferences on ministry practices, mission strategies, financial allocations, and some doctrinal positions to work together for the overarching goal of—borrowing from our founding documents—“the propagation of the gospel.” Part of doing this successfully is tolerating considerable diversity in our movement—doctrinal, methodological, strategic, and practical.
Finally, we cooperate because it works. While other denominations strain to preserve loyalty through top-down control, experience doctrinal drift when power is vested in a heretical few, demand financial support through assessments, and struggle to produce leaders loyal to their movement—our cooperative efforts have excelled and expanded for more than 175 years. We cooperate because cooperation works—producing supernatural spiritual results which reflect God’s grace, power, and favor on our movement. These results—which can only be explained as God’s blessing—are evident to any honest observer.
Southern Baptists are a movement built on cooperation. We are the one and only movement of churches structured this way. We are a denomination—in a sense that we share common denominators—but not in the sense we are a command-and-control center for church decisions or ministry activities. We work together because we choose to do so, without anyone forcing us to do so. We do so because we love God, value His mission, care about each other, and want to model Christian community. We cooperate as the best way of balancing who we are, what we believe, what we are charged to accomplish, and how we can express God’s love to and through each other for the good of others and the glory of God!
