Source: The New York Times

On October 28, 2000, The New York Times reported that "a week ago, former President Jimmy Carter made the unexpected announcement that he was severing his lifelong ties to the Southern Baptist Convention. He would remain active in his church in Plains, Ga., he said, but he would no longer consider himself a member of the denomination itself, which he said had become 'increasingly rigid' theologically under a conservative leadership. Mr. Carter made news nationwide, but another decision, to be made next week, could have a greater impact on the denomination, which has nearly 16 million members. On Monday afternoon, as many as 7,000 Texas Baptists will gather in Corpus Christi for their statewide annual meeting, where they will decide whether to take a step toward financial separation from the denomination. The question before the Texas group, which tends to be more moderate than the denomination over all, will be whether to redirect $5.4 million in contributions from the Southern Baptists' national budget and give it instead to Baptist causes in Texas. Previously, most of that money was channeled to six Southern Baptist seminaries. But if a proposal by a special committee is approved at the meeting, the amount given to those seminaries would be cut sharply and the balance used to help three other seminaries in Texas, all run by Baptists, but none under the control of the denomination...On the surface, this may seem an in-house matter, but it signals a new stage in one of the most remarkable developments in recent religious history: the fight among Southern Baptists for control of their denomination, the largest Protestant body in the nation. In 1979, a deeply conservative group won control of the denomination and began shifting seminaries, missionary boards and other agencies toward the right -- where the new leaders said most Baptists had always been. The leaders hold that Scripture is 'inerrant,' literally true in all respects, and that the Bible forbids women to serve as pastors. For several years, a more theologically moderate faction struggled to reverse the tide, saying Baptist tradition did not permit anyone to tell another how to interpret Scripture or whom a congregation may hire as pastor. In annual meetings, the conservatives prevailed. But moderates never lost control of a few state conventions, as Baptist organizations are called, most notably the biggest one, the General Baptist Convention of Texas. In June, the rift between the two sides has deepened. Then, Southern Baptists, following their leaders' request, revised the denomination's statement of faith to include provisions supporting inerrancy and arguing against women as pastors. The document is important because seminary professors and Southern Baptist agency employees are expected to affirm it."