# Founders Ministries A movement-conservative Calvinist insurgency operating *inside* the Southern Baptist Convention, founded in 1982 to advocate for the recovery of Reformed (Particular Baptist) theology in SBC churches and increasingly aligned with explicit [[Christian Nationalism]] political positions in the post-2016 era. Led since 1986 by [[Tom Ascol]] (pastor, Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, FL), Founders publishes through the Founders Press imprint, runs a podcast and conference circuit, and operates as the institutional core of the **Conservative Baptist Network** (CBN, founded 2020) — the organized faction attempting to push the SBC further rightward on Christian Nationalism, complementarianism, anti-CRT, and immigration restriction. Founders' significance in the CN ecosystem comes from what it represents structurally: the **Reformed-Baptist-CN crossover**. Most explicit CN intellectual production has been from outside the SBC (Wilson's CREC, Wolfe's independent work, Torba's far-right ethnonationalism). Founders is the vector through which Reformed-CN theology is making explicit inroads into the SBC — the largest Protestant denomination in the United States with ~13 million members. The 2018 documentary *By What Standard?* (a Founders production) framed the SBC's then-sitting moderate-establishment leadership (especially [[Russell Moore]] at the ERLC) as having capitulated to "social justice" and called for a Reformed-conservative correction. The film became the unofficial manifesto of the CBN insurgency that contested SBC presidential elections in 2021–2024 and shaped the post-2021 SBC realignment after Moore's ERLC departure. For the Right Wing KB, Founders Ministries occupies the **Theology Producers / Political Operations layer** of the Reformed strain in the [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]] — see the cross-strain analysis there. The Ascol↔[[William Wolfe]]↔Center for Baptist Leadership chain is the working pipeline through which Reformed-CN theology is being institutionalized in SBC seminaries, churches, and convention politics. The Mohler-aligned SBC establishment publicly rejects the explicit CN label; Founders does not. The internal SBC fight over CN positioning is one of the more consequential current struggles in American religious-political alignment. ## Founding (1982) Founders Ministries originated from a **1982 prayer meeting** among a small group of SBC pastors who were concerned that Reformed (Particular Baptist / Calvinist) theology was being lost within the convention. The founding group sought to recover what they understood as the SBC's original Calvinist theological commitments — the "doctrines of grace" (TULIP) that the convention's 19th-century founders had affirmed but that had been diluted through 20th-century SBC theological pluralism. The organization's name reflects this backward-looking orientation: "Founders" as in returning to the theology of Boyce, Broadus, and the Abstract of Principles signers. The early Founders operation was modest: a journal (*The Founders Journal*, launched in the mid-1980s), occasional conferences, and a loose network of Calvinist-sympathetic SBC pastors. Founders did not become a significant institutional force until Ascol's leadership matured and the post-2016 political environment created demand for the organization's harder-edged positioning. ## Tom Ascol **Tom Ascol** has served as Founders' president since **1986** — nearly four decades of continuous leadership. Ascol holds a **PhD from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary** (Fort Worth) and has served as pastor of **Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Florida** throughout his Founders presidency. He is a committed five-point Calvinist and complementarian who has increasingly embraced explicitly political positioning in the post-2016 era. Ascol's trajectory illustrates the Founders-to-CBN pipeline: a theologian-pastor who spent decades advocating for Calvinist recovery within the SBC, then pivoted to organizational-political activism as the Trump era created new opportunities and new enemies. His **2024 SBC presidential candidacy** (lost to Clint Pressley, ~42% to ~58%) was the culmination of this trajectory — the theological-insurgent running directly for the denomination's top office. ## *By What Standard?* (2018) The Founders Ministries documentary ***By What Standard?*** was the intellectual catalyst for the organized CBN insurgency. Produced under Ascol's direction and released in 2018, the film argued that the SBC's establishment leadership — particularly [[Russell Moore]] at the ERLC, the seminary presidents, and TGC-adjacent pastors — had been captured by secular social-justice ideology. Key arguments: - The SBC's 2019 **Resolution 9** on CRT and intersectionality represented doctrinal compromise - The ERLC's immigration-reform positioning contradicted SBC members' political preferences - Racial-reconciliation discourse within the SBC was a vector for progressive ideology - Complementarian doctrine was being weakened by institutional accommodation The documentary's reception split the SBC sharply. Establishment-evangelical outlets (*Baptist News Global*, [[The Gospel Coalition]], *[[Christianity Today]]*) criticized it as divisive and misrepresentative. Founders-aligned pastors treated it as a prophetic diagnosis. The film's effect was to create a shared narrative framework for the network of pastors who would organize as the [[Conservative Baptist Network]] eighteen months later. ## Relationship to CBN and the Wolfe Network Founders Ministries and the [[Conservative Baptist Network]] are **functionally integrated** — CBN uses Founders' infrastructure (website, mailing list, conference circuit, social-media channels) and Founders' theological framework provides the doctrinal justification for CBN's political positions. The relationship is best understood as CBN being Founders' **political arm** — the organizational vehicle through which Founders' theological-cultural critique is translated into convention-electoral action. **[[William Wolfe]]'s Center for Baptist Leadership** operates as a third node in this network — a policy-advocacy vehicle that translates Founders' theology and CBN's organizational energy into explicit Christian-Nationalist political-policy proposals. The Ascol–Wolfe–CBN triangle is the working pipeline through which Reformed-CN theology is being institutionalized in SBC politics. ## Founders Conferences and Publications Founders holds an **annual national conference** (typically in the Southeast) and regional conferences that function as the network's gathering points. Conference speakers have included Ascol, Voddie Baucham, [[Tom Nettles]], and other Reformed-Calvinist SBC figures — with the speaker roster trending increasingly toward explicit CN positioning in recent years. **Founders Press** publishes theological and historical works focused on the Calvinist-Baptist tradition. The *Founders Journal* continues as the network's theological publication, though its readership is modest compared to the reach of Founders' social-media and conference operations. ## KB Significance Founders Ministries is the **theological-intellectual engine** of the SBC's Christian-Nationalist insurgency. Where the [[Conservative Baptist Network]] provides organizational structure and electoral strategy, Founders provides the theological framework — the argument that Calvinist-Reformed orthodoxy demands not just doctrinal purity but political-cultural engagement on CN terms. The Ascol-to-CBN-to-Wolfe pipeline is the clearest example in the KB of how theological movements become political-organizational vehicles, and tracking Founders' conference themes and publication content is one of the best leading indicators of where the SBC's CN insurgency is heading next. ## See Also - [[Tom Ascol]] - [[William Wolfe]] - [[Albert Mohler]] - [[Southern Baptist Convention]] - [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]] - [[Christian Nationalism]] - [[Christian Reconstructionism]]