NASHVILLE (BP) — It was a challenging time for the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Cooperative Program (CP). The U.S. economy slowed. Baptist leaders committed embarrassing and costly sins. As some alleged creeping liberalism in the Convention, doctrinal squabbles threatened cooperation.

The SBC president put it this way: “Many of our people have become discouraged and disheartened, while others have lost their enthusiasm and devotion to kingdom work. We have seemed to be united in nothing but the opinion that the denomination is in a bad way.”

If you think that’s a description of 2025, think again. That was the situation in the SBC nearly a century ago, described by then-SBC President W.J. McGlothlin. But the tide turned. Despite appearing on the brink of failure, CP persisted in what historians cite as an example for today’s SBC as the Cooperative Program turns 100 years old and faces similar trials.

“In the midst of all those challenges, we always addressed the individual challenge but under the overarching idea that we needed to focus on remaining together,” said Lloyd Harsch, professor of church history and Baptist studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

A dark past

The challenges to CP were serious in the 1920s and 1930s. First, there was the financial downturn.

In 1919, the SBC launched a precursor program to CP, the 75 Million Campaign, to raise $75 million for convention missions and ministries. By May 1920, Southern Baptists had pledged $92.6 million to the campaign. Then recession hit before the pledges were fulfilled and actual gifts totaled just $58.6 million.

Unfortunately, Convention ministries had committed themselves to spending in line with the pledges. That necessitated SBC entities’ taking on debt of approximately $6.5 million by 1926, the equivalent of $117 million today. The Great Depression made matters worse. The dollar was worth less, and more money was required to repay the loans.

Leadership failures compounded the problem. In 1928 it was discovered that Home Mission Board (HMB) treasurer Clinton Carnes had stolen $909,461 — the equivalent of nearly $17 million today. The previous year, the Foreign Mission Board learned that its treasurer had stolen more than $103,000. The situation became so dire by the 1930s that HMB creditors suggested filing bankruptcy.

Doctrinal divisions complicated the SBC’s efforts to unify and climb out of its financial hole. Amid the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy of the early 20th century, Texas pastor J. Frank Norris attacked Convention leaders as modernists, those denying the truth of Scripture and adapting Christianity to modern culture.

“Some of the concerns were valid,” said Gregory Wills, professor of church history at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “But for the most part, the modernists who were teaching at our institutions were keeping their views secret.” When it “became clear they were teaching modernism, they were fired.”

Amid the multiplied challenges, Southern Baptists’ gifts to missions, educational and benevolent causes declined for 14 consecutive years beginning in 1920, according to “The Southern Baptist Handbook,” an annual record of statistics published by the Baptist Sunday School Board in the 20th century. Gifts did not eclipse 1921 levels until 1943, the year the SBC finally retired its debt — a victory celebrated under the slogan “debt free in ’43.”

A bright future

Can that period of trial a century ago help the SBC navigate today’s challenges? Absolutely, say Harsch and Wills. The first lesson is patience in hard economic times.

Total CP receipts for SBC causes have yet to reattain their highwater mark of nearly $206 million in 2007, before the economic downturn of 2008. But the mid-century CP recovery recalls “the lesson of patience,” Wills said.

“The Cooperative Program was still effective in the 1920s and 1930s even as offerings were declining,” he said. Southern Baptists “are not in this for the short term. We are in it for the long term for as long as our blessed Savior tarries.”

Another lesson is to address problems head-on. The 1925 Baptist Faith and Message was an attempt to do just that, Harsch said. It offered a clear response to theological disputes amid the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy.

Perhaps the greatest challenge though is guarding against complacency and ceasing to marvel at CP. Even in lean years, per capita giving to missions increased in many instances, suggesting to Harsch that cooperative giving remains the way forward.

“I have traveled through many parts of the world, and I have talked with [believers] who are in awe of what we as Southern Baptists can do through the Cooperative Program: our overseas missionaries, our church planters at home, our theological education. We are able to engage in the ministries to which God has called us and not have to worry if two months down the road the economy has changed,” Harsch said.

“When we work together, we can expand our ability to influence the world with the gospel of Christ.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — David Roach is a writer in Mobile, Ala.)