Opção fundamentalista ou opção liberal? controvérsias teológico-políticas e cisão na Convenção Batista do Sul dos EUA

Abstract

This Master’s thesis’ general goal is to present the controversies between the liberal and fundamentalist theological perspectives which have occurred within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), that have been initiated in the beginning of the 1960’s, with its apex in the 1980’s and developments that led to a split in the Convention at the end of the 20th century. The SBC is the largest world’s Christian protestant denomination, whith approximately 16 million members and powerful religious and politics influence in the USA. These denominational conflicts targeted to control the resources and the ideological direction of the Southern Baptist Convention. On the one hand were the fundamentalists, upholding the Bible as an inerrant book and believing that the modernist tendency was the great evil to be purged from the denomination. On the other were the liberals that appreciated the historical-critical approach to the Bible, the theory of evolution, the existentialist philosophy, and the study of comparative religions. For these different theological perspectives their coexistence at the same denominational scope became unfeasible, giving rise to a conflict that resulted in the fundamentalist’s emergence to the Conventions’ leadership, removing the liberals that once was well-established in charge in the SBC.