Baptists: Healing Old Wounds

For a number of U.S. Protestant churches, the Civil War had the divisive effect of a minor Reformation. The Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Lutherans split into Northern and Southern branches over the question of slavery. Some of these old war wounds have healed—the Methodists reunited in 1939, and Lutheran bodies have been joining together almost continuously since 1910—and now a merger between the nation’s two largest white Baptist groups seems at least dimly in the offing.

At Virginia Beach, Va., 85 ministers and laymen from the big Southern Baptist Convention (10 million members) and the American Baptist Convention (1,500,000) met for the second of their yearly discussions on the problems before reunion. The talks were unofficial, since neither convention is sponsoring them, but the participants believe that merger is inevitable. Says the Rev. Emory Trainham, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Lenoir, N.C., and vice chairman of the discussion group: “We’re so sold on the fact that reunity is possible that we’re not really concerned about how long it takes.”

The Baptist dispute began in 1845 with a quarrel between Northern and Southern churches over whether Scripture warranted a central missionary organization, hardened into a permanent breach when Northerners declared that they would not appoint any missionary who was a slaveholder. Since the Civil War, the racial issue has become less important; most Southern Baptists remain segregationists, and American Baptists have probably done less for integration than any other major Northern Protestant church. The main barriers to union are matters of church practice that grew up during the schism.

Most Southern churches insist upon rebaptizing converts from other Christian denominations before admitting them to “closed” Communions. The more liberal American Baptists allow anyone who accepts Jesus as Lord to take Communion in their churches. Northern Baptists favor interfaith cooperation; the Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant group not in the National Council of Churches.

“Some people who think we’re a long way apart discover that we’re pretty close when we meet,” says Trainham. Next year the Baptists will have a good chance to discover just how close they really are. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Baptist missionary movement, both conventions have scheduled their annual meetings for Atlantic City during the same week in May—their first joint session since 1845.