Missionary Baptist - Know The Facts (748 hits)

The term "Missionary Baptist" originated in the early 19th century during the rise of the modern missions movement. The modern missions movement was a movement among Baptists (and other Christian denominations) to organize para-church institutions for the promotion and funding of evangelism (particularly in foreign lands and on the American western frontier), Bible and literature publication, schools, charitable and social work and other religious causes. This movement created extensive controversy among Baptists, drawing harsh criticism from those who considered these new institutions subversive of traditional Baptist polity. Those who opposed the innovations became known as anti-missions and those advocating them as missionary Baptists.

As the missionary causes were embraced by large numbers of Baptists the controversy divided many Baptist churches and associations along missionary/anti-missions lines. Many of the "missionary Baptist" churches and associations eventually adopted the epithet "missionary" into their official names and thus what started as a descriptive term (and a pejorative one from the anti-mission perspective) became a new religious denominational name - Missionary Baptist.

Claiming to represent the traditional Baptist denominational character, the anti-missions churches became known as Primitive Baptists (and were disparagingly called hardshells, straight jackets and iron jackets by the missionary advocates). However, the name "Missionary Baptist" never became universally used among the advocates of the missionary institutions.

For causes apparently unrelated to its original use, the term Missionary Baptist became more closely identified with certain groups of Baptists. Not a few Southern Baptist churches use the term but in some areas of the country it is used to distinguish smaller Baptist groups from the Southern Baptists. The groups most commonly identified as Missionary Baptists today are:

1. The historically African-American Baptist Conventions are all missionary in nature; a characteristic held from their inceptions. The focus on foreign missions in the African American Baptist Church was especially elevated by a foremost desire to do more Christian witness on the Continent of Africa and, in part, a reaction to the White Baptist Conventions in the late 19th century withdrawing missionaries from the Continent. African-American Churches, though small, poor and composed mostly of newly freed slaves, saw the need to build their own Conventions that would support the continuation of Christian missions in Africa. For this reason, many African-American congregations thought it appropriate to insert the term in their local church names.

Today, many erroneously make a distinction between African American Baptist Churches that include the term 'Missionary' in their names from those who do not as if the inclusion or exclusion of the term determines the National Convention with which the local church associates itself. Each National Baptist Convention is composed of local congregations whose names include the term as well as churches who exclude the term. The National Baptist Convention whose Convention name includes the term is not solely made up of churches that include the term in their names but is also made up of just as many local congregations who do not. It's simply a preference of the local church body whether to include or exclude the term.

2. The Old Time Missionary Baptist churches of the Appalachian Mountains region.

3. Baptists identified with Landmarkism including (1) the American Baptist Association, with greatest presence in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Mississippi; (2) the Baptist Missionary Association of America, and (3) the Interstate & Foreign Landmark Missionary Baptist Association.

Posted By: Cynthia Merrill Artis
Sunday, November 14th 2010 at 5:49PM
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