Formed in 1985 in response to a motion at the SBC annual meeting, the committee was charged with "seek[ing] to determine the sources of the controversies in our Convention, and mak[ing] findings and recommendations regarding these controversies." Since 1979, theological conservatives had been attempting to gain control of the SBC's committees and trustee boards.

For pastor's wife Ritchie Hale, attending the 1985 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting meant sleeping in a 1960 popup camper with her husband and four children amid 100-degree temperatures and thunderstorms. For Conservative Resurgence leader Morris Chapman, that meeting occasioned one of the clearest personal directives God had ever given him. For moderate leader Cecil Sherman, it was the first time he contemplated losing the battle for the SBC.

When the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in 1973 with its Roe v. Wade decision, some Southern Baptists criticized the ruling while maintaining their support of abortion rights as defined in the 1971 resolution. Others embraced the Supreme Court's decision. A Baptist Press analysis article written by then-Washington bureau chief Barry Garrett declared that the court had "advanced the cause of religious liberty, human equality and justice.