November 14 1994

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"Southern Baptists and American Evangelicals: The Conversation Continues," edited by David S. Dockery (Broadman & Holman, 242 pp.; $16.99, paper). Reviewed by John Woodbridge, professor of church history, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

In contrast to the North and West, a societal "Christian presence" still lingers in the deep South. Evangelical visitors to this region are sometimes pleasantly surprised by what they encounter. Tens and twenties of churches dot the roadside in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. These houses of worship range in size from the massive and ornate to the tiny and dilapidated. Secular radio fare is on occasion interrupted with Bev Shea singing "Amazing Grace." Handmade signs warn highway travelers about what might be their unexpected destiny if they do not repent of their sins. In a deep-South environment, church loyalties grow lushly, including those of the Southern Baptists.

A staggering 15 million persons grace the rolls of the Southern Baptist Convention. The very size of the convention has provided many Baptists with a sense that they have no need to pursue cooperative efforts with northern or "Yankee" evangelicals, nor with any other Christians, for that matter. Indeed, Southern Baptists have often been content to live out their Christian faith underneath the huge canopy of their own churches, seminaries, presses, church agencies, and cooperative programs.

For their part, northern and western evangelicals have not rushed to befriend Southern Baptists. For decades, evangelicals have been accustomed to maintaining commitments to their own denomination while contemporaneously holding membership in such transdenominational coalitions as the National Association ...