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THE EMERGENCE OF BAPTIST CONVENTIONS
About the Alabama State Convention’s request to allow slaveholders to act as missionaries, we thank God the Board of Managers of the Triennial Convention was more forthright on this occasion. Their response was: “If any one should offer himself as a missionary, having slaves, and should insist on retaining them as his property, we could not appoint him. One thing is certain, we can never be a party to any arrangement which would imply approbation of slavery” (The Baptist, Anne DeVereaux Jordan and J. M. Stifle, Hippocrene Books). With this statement, Northern Baptists drew a line of debarkation that would become another milestone for Baptists. Unity is essential but there could be no compromise in the issue of the equality of all men—especially within the body of Christ. Realizing members of the Triennial Convention would never accept their view and belief on slavery; Southern Baptists disassociated themselves from the convention. In May 1845, representatives of over 300 Southern congregations met in Augusta Georgia. The Southern Baptist Convention results from that meeting. Its unfortunate the Northern and Southern Baptists could not work out the differences and prejudices that separated them. Perhaps if they had, there would not exist this same division today. To be fair to Southern Baptists, the split between themselves and Northern Baptists was not just slavery, but other causes also, especially about denominational structure and administration. Unlike the South, Northern Baptists believed strongly in the autonomy of the local churches and therefore shied away from any strong, centralized church administration. However, although they held this belief, it did not stop their “support of several separate, independent societies such as the American Baptist Home Mission Society and American Baptist Publication Society” (The Baptists). The North eventually renamed the Triennial Convention the American Baptist Missionary Union and later the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. These three: The American Home Mission Society, American Baptist Publication Society and American Baptist Missionary Union “served as a loose organizational unit for Baptists” (The Baptists). The passing of time saw the need for forming other societies to meet the needs of Baptist women and youth. The more dominant ones were the: The Women’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Societies (1871), The Women’s American Baptist Home Mission Societies (1877), The American Baptist Educational Society (1888) and the Baptist Young People’s Union (1891). Although the various societies formed by Northern Baptists met the people’s needs, the one disadvantage in them was a shortage of funding. As a result, a natural competitive spirit developed among the group to secure funds for their causes. To address this issue, Northern Baptists formed the Northern Baptist Convention (NBC) in 1907 “to coordinate the efforts of the various national societies, state conventions, and regional associations” (The Baptists). However, though the NBC became recognized as the coordinating agency, it still recognized and stressed the autonomy of each individual agency and local church within the convention. As a safeguard and further protection of church autonomy, “the convention was restricted in its powers to conduct religious works and receive and spend money” (The Baptist). The NBC has undergone several name changes since its beginning in 1907. Today it is the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. (ABC-USA) headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. In this new organizational structure, election districts elect representatives instead of local churches. The board oversees the various activities of the separate Boards of Educational Ministries, International Ministries, National Ministries and a Ministers’ and Missionaries Benefit Board. Membership in the ABC-USA numbers over 1,500,000 in over 5,000 congregations (The Baptists).
In Christ, Minister John Cobb
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