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Modernist crisis

The rise of theological modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also greatly affected Baptists. The Landmark movement has been described as a reaction among Southern Baptists in the United States against incipient modernism. In England, Charles Spurgeon fought against modernistic views of the Scripture in the Downgrade Controversy and severed his church from the Baptist Union as a result.

The Northern Baptist Convention in the United States had internal conflict over modernism in the early 20th century, ultimately embracing it. Two new conservative associations of congregations that separated from the convention were founded as a result: the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches in 1933 and the Conservative Baptist Association of America in 1947.

Following similar conflicts over modernism, the Southern Baptist Convention adhered to conservative theology as its official position. In the late 20th century, Southern Baptists who disagreed with this direction founded two new groups: the liberal Alliance of Baptists in 1987 and the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991. Originally both schisms continued to identify as Southern Baptist, but over time they "became permanent new families of Baptists."