History of the National Baptist Convention in the United States

Writing Assignment 3: Discuss the formation of the National Baptist Convention. Who organized the NBC and why did they do it? What ultimately became of the NBC? With the coming of freedom among black Americans after the War Between the States, most Baptists of African heritage chose to plant their own churches independent of their white brethren. These churches became important social networks for evangelizing black Americans, rebuilding and reuniting families, literacy and education, and when needed, political work. Next to family, the church became the most important social institution for black Baptists. The church provided identity, racial solidarity, and a platform for political action. In the last third of the nineteenth century, black Baptists grew tired of the Northern Baptist churches ordering them around and manipulating their direction. Accordingly, with a vision to “reach the world for Christ,” African-American Baptists formed groups to serve their churches. In 1840, the American Baptist Missionary Convention had formed among Northern black churches. The Northwestern Baptist Convention and Southern Missionary Baptist Convention, formed in 1864, the latter in in Richmond, VA. The three merged into the Consolidated American Baptist Convention in 1866, but the difficulties of the Reconstruction era caused this first national body of black Baptists to lapse in 1877. In November 1880, with 150 delegates, the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention formed at Montgomery, AL, the vision of William W. Coley of Virginia, a veteran Southern Baptist Negro missionary to West Africa. It was focused on foreign missions, especially to West Africa. Six years later, W.J. Simmons, in an effort to unite all black Baptists in a full denominational body, organized the American National Baptist Convention with 600 delegates from seventeen states at St. Louis. Unable to match the Colley group’s abilities in foreign missions, Simmons’ group turned its focus to home missions. In 1893, at Washington, D.C., the National Baptist Educational Convention formed to promote training for pastors and missionaries and to provide guidance for the large number of black colleges and schools primarily in the South. This group of specialty mission agencies, all trying to become a national body, were themselves hindering mission growth through their Northern-style society approach. Therefore, on September 28, 1895, all three groups merged at Atlanta, GA, as the National Baptist Convention of America (NBC), with a Foreign Mission Board, a Board of Education, and a Home Mission Board. Elias Camp Morris of Arkansas was elected first president. Lewis G. Jordan was elected to lead the Foreign Mission Board, and he started with nothing except three chairs and a record book. With no funds, garnering only limited cooperation from the churches, and hamstrung by a stubborn image of predecessors’ mismanagement, Jordan relocated the Foreign Board from Richmond to Louisville. His vigor and determination in a few years made the Foreign Board comparable to any in America. The Home Mission Board, headed by Richard Henry Boyd and first located in Little Rock, was soon tasked with publishing denominational literature, but not without much caution and discussion. Some of the NBC churches liked purchasing literature from the American Baptist Publication Society or the Sunday School Board of the SBC, and the effort and expense of establishing a publishing arm was daunting. President E.C. Morris pushed the new denomination to publish its own literature in order to nurture its own traditions. The first harbinger of a future schism came in 1897, when a small group of Eastern leaders, advocating closer black-white cooperation opposed a separate publishing arm and withdrew from the NBC to form the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention. It should be mentioned that several of the Lott Carey leaders also worked for the ABPS and were not happy with the Foreign Mission Board’s move from Richmond to Louisville. Following a decision of the ABPS in 1890 to withdraw an invitation to black scholars to write lesson materials, and with the added encouragement of Annie Armstrong, the NBC in 1898 moved to commission the Home Mission Board to begin a Publication Board. Within three years it published nine titles, distributed six million quarterlies, and took over The National Baptist Magazine. Soon it would be the largest black publishing house in the world. R.H. Boyd became so necessarily focused on publishing that home mission work fell by the wayside, partly because home missions cost money and publishing made money. The Publication Board was destined to rip the NBC in two. The problem was that in the establishment of the Publication Board, the NBC neglected to add the important phrase “of the National Baptist Convention.” Therefore Boyd, who had moved the press to Nashville and set it up on his own dime, effectively ran the Publication Board as a privately owned publishing house and pocketed all the profit the press made. In 1915, it all came to a head. Morris and Boyd had long disliked each other, and it was about to get worse. NBC President E.C. Morris tried to alleviate the stickiness by separating the Publication Board from the Home Mission Board, thereby removing the publishing arm from Boyd’s control. Boyd resisted, and the NBC filed suit to take control of the Publication Board. The way Morris and the NBC understood it, the Publication Board was established by the convention for the convention with all property and copyrights belonging to the convention. The court found, however, that since Boyd had purchased property and remodeled facilities in Nashville at his own personal expense and had retained the title deeds and copyrights in his own name, that Boyd in fact held ownership and lawful control of the Publication Board. The bottom line: the denomination split 51% - 49% over personality and publishing profits. The Morris faction legally incorporated the NBC, going over the entire organization with a fine tooth comb, making sure all boards and properties were legally and safely owned by the convention. The Boyd faction pulled out and formed their own convention. The National Baptist Convention of America (Unincorporated) (NBCA), first led by R.H. Boyd, by 1995 claimed 1.7 million members in 6,716 churches. It is headquartered in Shreveport, LA. The publishing board caused another schism in 1988. The National Missionary Baptist Convention of America (NMBCA) formed in Dallas in disagreement over the relationship of the NBCA and the National Baptist Publishing Board (now the R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation). The NMBCA, strongest in California and Texas, claims over 500 churches and one million members. In 1999, a splinter group led by H.J. Johnson of Dallas withdrew from the NMBCA and formed the Institutional Missionary Baptist Conference of America after Johnson failed twice to win the presidency. The old National Baptist Convention of the U.S.A., Inc. (NBC), first led by E.C. Morris, is the second largest Baptist body worldwide. In 1992 it reported over 30,000 congregations and an estimated 8.2 million members. By 2008 that number had fallen to 7.5 million. Today the “Incorporated Convention” is headquartered in Chicago and has seven general boards. Since the boards formed the convention instead of the other way around, the incorporated convention has since 1915 had other boards assert control over their property or act independently. This has been a constant irritation to the NBC’s presidents, who regularly remind the boards that the convention owns and controls all their property. The presidents traditionally serve as long as life and health permit. One of the strongest presidents of the 20th century was Joseph H. Jackson who served 1953-1982. His refusal to honor a 1955 convention vote on presidential term limits resulted in a schism six years later. The split was also precipitated by a desire for more orderly church life, higher standards for pastoral leadership, and, perhaps most important, a more theologically liberal and progressive approach to the civil rights movement. In 1955, the same year that NBC president J.H. Jackson invoked a technicality to retain his presidency, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a bus boycott in Montgomery resulting in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Jackson had little sympathy with King’s methods, and his autocratic leadership alienated many in the NBC. Gardiner C. Taylor became the point man for the progressives. In 1960 they held a rival convention and called themselves the true National Baptist Convention. At the next year’s NBC meeting, the progressives attempted to take the platform by force, and a violent confrontation resulted in an accidental death. In November of 1961, thirty-three delegates from fourteen states met at Cincinnati and by one vote the Progressive National Baptist Convention of America. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., and now in formal cooperation with the American Baptist Churches, their number grew to 290 churches by 1963 and 1,420 by 1977. In 1991, they reported 2.5 million members, and in 2000 reported 2000 churches with still 2.5 million members. In the early 1990s, a spiritual gifts movement within the NBC, Inc. led to another schism led by Bishop Paul S. Morton. In 1994 this group, drawing from all the National Baptist groups, formed the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, International, headquartered in New Orleans. Their first conference in the Louisiana Superdome drew 25,000 in attendance. This fellowship emphasizes charismatic theology, women’s ordination, corporate worship, and an episcopal hierarchy. Sources: Harper, Keith. Class notes, HIS5130B: Baptist History, Spring 2008. McBeth, Leon H. The Baptist Heritage. Nashville: Broadman, 1987, pp. 776-89. Murphey, Cecil B. Dictionary of Biblical Literacy. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1989, pp. 142-3. Torbet, Robert G. A History of the Baptists. 3rd ed. Valley Forge: Judson, 1963, pp. 355, 455, 501, 529. Websites: http://www.fullgospelbaptist.org/; http://www.nationalbaptist.com; http://www.lottcarey.org/; http://www.nbca-inc.com/; http://www.pnbc.org/; Wikipedia: “National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.”; “National Missionary Baptist Convention of America”; “Progressive National Baptist Convention”; “Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship,” Gene Brooks HIS5130B: Baptist History Harper Page 1 of 6