“S” is for South Carolina Baptist State Convention

“S” is for South Carolina Baptist State Convention. The South Carolina Baptist State Convention became the first Baptist convention in the South when it was founded in 1821 at First Baptist Church in Columbia. The historical significance of the South Carolina Baptist State Convention in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention and other state conventions should not be ignored. Major architects of Baptist life in America--Oliver Hart, Richard Furman, and others--did their creative work in South Carolina. Here national models for sending missionaries and providing education for clergy were developed in South Carolina. In South Carolina the state convention was so strong and stable that it was virtually unscathed by nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Baptist controversies. In 2025 there were approximately 2,000 churches affiliated with but not governed by the South Carolina Baptist State Convention.