Faith of Our Founders: An Interview with Tom Ascol

TT: Why does Founders Ministries exist, and how does it serve the church?TA: Founders exists to encourage the recovery of the gospel and the biblical reformation of local churches. The ministry was begun in a prayer meeting that was held November 13, 1982, in a hotel room in Euless, Texas. Those were the early days of the “Conservative Resurgence” within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). While that movement received a great deal of attention in denominational and even national media, another recovery movement was quiet ly beginning to emerge. God was beginning to awaken a few Southern Baptists to the biblical teachings on sovereign grace. Seven men—all Southern Baptists who had come to this “new” understanding— met to consider what could be done to encourage this movement. After hours of prayer, singing, reading Scripture, and talking, we decided to host a conference where the teaching would be based on the doctrines of grace.

From that initial effort, Founders has sought to serve the church further by publishing a theological journal and books, encouraging pastoral fraternals and regional conferences, providing online resources (founders.org), developing an online study center, providing pastoral counsel and internships, encouraging international, crosscultural mission work, and, most recently, launching a church-planting network (PLNTD.com).

TT: Do you find that most Southern Baptists are unaware of their Calvinistic roots? Why?

TA: Yes, though less so now than thirty years ago. The Southern Baptist Convention was deeply affected by pragmatism beginning in the middle of the twentieth century. That led to a de-emphasis on doctrine and a reinterpretation of our history. Statistical analysis became the primary tool by which success was determined. Generations of pastors and educators received their seminary training within this ethos and became desensitized to the centrality of doctrine in sorting out the nature of the Christian life as well as the nature and mission of the church. Added to this was the limited access to primary sources. Prior to the democratization of information afforded by the digital revolution, the educational gatekeepers filtered most of the historical information that made its way to the churches and, inevitably, neglected the doctrinal roots of the SBC. So, for example, Southern Baptists heard much about Lottie Moon’s self less, sacrificial service as a missionary in China but nothing about the fact that she used the Shorter Catechism to evangelize Chinese children or that she reined in her deep affection for C.H. Toy and rebuffed his marriage proposal because she judged his theology defective. Another example: the fact that 293 delegates met in Augusta, Georgia, in 1845 to found the SBC was widely taught, but what was not taught is the fact that each one of those delegates came from churches or associations that held to the decidedly Calvinistic Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.

Today, with the easy access to primary historical sources through republications and trustworthy websites that make available such documents, anyone who has a computer, Internet access, and thirty minutes can easily discover that the cradle in which the SBC was rocked is evangelical Calvinism.

TT: Can you tell us a story wherein giving someone a historical overview of Calvinism in the SBC encouraged them to consider Reformed theology?

TA: There are numerous instances of seminary students and pastors who, upon discovering the doctrinal roots of the SBC, have been led then to evaluate those doctrines biblically. I remember one pastor who, two years after calling me a heretic (among other things) because of my Calvinistic views, wrote to ask for forgiveness because the Lord had convicted him, through reading some of the historical resources Founders provided, to engage in a fresh study of these doctrines from the Bible. He discovered what many have—that if what our forefathers believed about salvation was true then, it is true today because truth does not change.

Read the entire interview here.

Matthew Barrett (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at California Baptist University. He is the founder and executive editor of Credo Magazine. Barrett has contributed book reviews and articles to various academic journals, and he is the author of several forthcoming books.