It’s an irrelevant debate. It’s like debating whether you have cancer because you brush your teeth.
The problem with the SBC is heretical fundamentalism. All that matters is “sharing the Gospel”. The rest of the Bible is ignored. Practically speaking, the leadership teaches John 3:16 and has reduced the 10 Commandments to one: Be extra, super-duper nice! When the current group of Arminians (Yes, the SBC is overwhelmingly Arminian) got control, they thought they could stem losses in membership by being “theologically inerrant” and socially moderate (liberal), unlike the previous (Arminian) leadership. After all, if you are going to “win people to Christ”, you don’t want what the Bible has to say about the sodomite lifestyle or abortion get in the way. In fact, they reason, embracing some environmentalism, affirmative action and race guilt, and feminism would be really helpful with the young folks.
The rank and file of SBC churches have little idea of what is going on, but the seminaries and the leadership are poisonous and are starting the down the path of the UMC and PCUSA (or the CBF, if you know something about the history of the SBC). Either someone cleans house, or the SBC will die over the next 20 years.
I dunno. I've met several members of the staff of Southern Baptist Seminary here in Louisville, and they've made every effort to keep the church within the boundaries of orthodox teaching. It is a struggle, though, and they regularly are vilified by the more "enlightened" members of the tradition.
Much thanks is due to people like Dr. Paul Pressler, Paige Patterson, Wm. Criswell and Dr. Adrian Rogers, who, beginning in the late 60's throughout the 70's contending that the liberal drift of its seminaries and church leadership, was forcing the church on a trajectory toward distinction! Rogers was elected to the office of President of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979 and served three terms.
Members of this conservative force in the Convention conducted surveys of beginning seminary students showing 87% of them believed "that Jesus Christ is the Divine Son of God," while only 64% held to that belief by graduation! The group reasoned that liberalism among the SBC faculty and leadership strongly affected the faith of their students and were convinced that a leadership purge of such institutions was necessary to preserve the institution of the entire convention. After a long concerted effort of doing just that, the SBC began being a vibrant group of faithful Followers of Christ!
Unfortunately, over time, (nearing 50 years) anything that isn't working hard to stay conservative, will drift left and we are seeing in fissures within the SBC.
I can see the same parallels in our country from the conservative direction to the evil and corruption throughout our leaders but also our people who are content to content to vote them into office, finding the only sins worth punishing are, "intolerance, homophobia, sexism and client deniers!"