In 2025 Southern Baptists are celebrating an important anniversary. In addition to the creation of the SBC’s Cooperative Program, the Baptist Faith and Message was also adopted in 1925.
At the time, many SBC churches held to the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, but the convention had not created or adopted its own statement. Concerned about the growing rejection of orthodox positions on topics like miracles in the Bible and the resurrection of Jesus, leading SBC voices said it was time to bring clarity to what most Southern Baptists believed about important doctrines.
In the 1925 report of the Committee on Statement of Baptist Faith and Message, E.Y. Mullins, then president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote, “The present occasion for a reaffirmation of Christian fundamentals is the prevalence of naturalism in the modern teaching and preaching of religion. Christianity is supernatural in its origin and history. We repudiate every theory of religion which denies the supernatural elements in our faith.”
Mullins and others took the New Hampshire Confession of Faith and revised it at points, adding articles to meet the theological challenges of their day.
Throughout its 100 years the BF&M has been revised or amended four times, in 1963, 1998, 2000, and most recently in 2023. As the theological challenges of the day have changed, the convention has continued to clarify the language of the BF&M to meet those challenges.
A century later, Southern Baptists clearly express to the culture, and to each other, that we are not only committed to cooperate for missions and ministry, but that we are also committed to a theologically conservative faith.
In recognition of this milestone year, each issue of the Illinois Baptist will feature content highlighting one or more of the BF&M’s 18 articles of faith.