Southern Baptist Convention

http://www.sbc.net/default.asp

I have chosen to look at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) which is a Christian denomination, was Organized in 1845 in Georgia and currently has over 16 million members and 42,000 churches in the United States. On the website of the SBC they state that they “share a common bond of basic Biblical beliefs and a commitment to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire world.”

The Southern Baptist Convention base its beliefs on biblical interpretation they believe, that the Bible is “God's revelation of himself to man […] therefore all scripture is totally true and trustworthy.” They believe in heaven and hell, they oppose homosexuality and abortion and feel all beings should be born and die in a natural way as God intends.

The Southern Baptist Convention believe that the family is the foundational institution of human society, composed of people related by marriage, blood and adoption. They also believe that “marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman and that the husband and wife are of equal worth before God.” Also they believe that the husband has “the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family” and the “wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband […] She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.”

These beliefs that the SBC have create an identity for its followers to express their faith and love for God throughout their day-to-day lives and by teaching their children about faith and Christian ideals creates an identity for its followers. The SBC believes that “a free church in a free state is a Christian ideal” which is also an American ideal, that church and state are separate.