A Quiet Revolution. . .A Chronicle of Beginnings of Reformation in the Southern Baptist Convention Ernest C. Reisinger and D. Matthew Allen Founders Press, 2000 107 pages, paperback

Southern Baptists have few problems locating Southern Baptist literature in most Christian bookstores today. Browsing through Lifeway Christian Books or most any Christian bookstore will result in voluminous works of Christian/Baptist doctrine, theology, commentary and a wide assortment of fictional works to satisfy the most demanding appetites for literary nourishment. Some of the most prolific leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention are well represented as well as several new-comers who will become better known in the future by a great many Southern Baptists.

One will not need to look far for biographical works on Southern Baptist leaders and historical narratives concerning the Southern Baptist Convention itself. However, when was the last time you walked through these same bookstores and discovered the rich Baptist heritage of our founding Southern Baptist fathers? In fact, how many of you know who these men were and the historicity of the Southern Baptist Convention? Have you ever wondered what the Southern Baptist Convention was like in the mid 1800s? Who was the first President? What were the theological and doctrinal positions in the Convention’s beginning and how has it changed throughout the past almost 150 years? On what biblical foundations did the Convention’s founding fathers base their preaching and teaching? Is there a remnant of the founding fathers’ theology and how has the Convention been impacted by it’s presence or absence? Many Southern Baptists are asking these questions today and are generally left with disappointing and often alarming answers.

Ernest Reisinger presents the change in theological direction the Southern Baptist Convention has taken in the last twenty years. The theme “return to the old paths” harkens Southern Baptists to awaken once again to the rich theological heritage that has been lost by the inroads of Arminianism, liberalism, neo-orthodoxy and a decline of expositional preaching. The Law’s importance to our need for salvation has all but vanished from many pulpits. Doctrinal and theological purity are being replaced with “contemporary” religious philosophy. God-centered worship is being replaced with man-centered, seeker-sensitive entertainment centers.

In the 1970s a group of men began such a work to help Southern Baptists return to the “old paths” of the Convention’s foundation. The Southern Baptist Founders Conference began as a result of Ernest Reisinger and Fred Malone’s “Boyce project” where the “Abstract of Systematic Theology” by Dr. James Petigru Boyce, founder and first theology teacher at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was republished and distributed freely to the six official Southern Baptists seminaries and a few more. Why? Because Ernest Reisinger and Fred Malone believed the Southern Baptist founding fathers had a grasp of God’s truth which they longed to see taught and proclaimed in our day.

During the 1970s the Convention’s leadership and agencies were rampant with theological liberalism. By contributing to the theological development of young ministerial students and exposing them to the doctrines of grace believed and loved by our Baptist forefathers, Ernest Reisinger and Fred Malone were compelled to begin the arduous task of persuading the Convention to return to its Reformed theological roots by the work of the Southern Baptist Founders Conference.

Theological reformation is greatly needed in our Southern Baptist pulpits and classrooms. A return to using our historic Baptist Confessions and Catechisms, a renewed awareness of the biblical teaching of the doctrines of grace as taught by our Baptist forefathers and an individual reformation of thought by those in the pulpit and classroom are the essentials for true biblical reformation.

Ernest Reisinger details the work ahead: 1) Teaching how ourselves ought to walk results in teaching how others ought to walk. 2) The cost of a local church reformation (individually and corporately). 3) The value and necessity of a confession Few books of no more than 107 pages can rival the overwhelming importance as discovered in “A Quiet Revolution; A Chronicle of Beginnings of Reformation in The Southern Baptist Convention” by Ernest C. Reisinger and D. Matthew Allen.

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