Американские баптистские церкви США: История и развитие

Baptist denomination in the United States

The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a Baptist Christian denomination established in 1907 originally as the Northern Baptist Convention, and from 1950 to 1972 as the American Baptist Convention. It traces its history to the First Baptist Church in America (1638) and the Baptist congregational associations which organized the Triennial Convention in 1814. Headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, ABCUSA is considered mainline, although varying theological and mission emphases may be found among its congregations, including modernist, charismatic and evangelical orientations.

American Baptist Churches USA have their origins in the First Baptist Church in Providence, Rhode Island, now the First Baptist Church in America, founded in 1638 by the minister Roger Williams. Regarded by the more dogmatic Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a heretic for his religious separatism, Williams was banished into the New England wilderness where he and his followers created the settlement of Providence and later, the colony of Rhode Island. Williams is credited with being the founder of the Baptist movement in America, the founder of the state of Rhode Island, and the first highly visible public leader in America to call for the separation of church and state.

Having a congregational polity, early Baptist churches in America operated independently from one another, following an array of Protestant theological paths, but were often unified in their mission to evangelize. In the 18th century, they sometimes created local congregational associations for support, fellowship, and work (such as the founding of Brown University in 1764). The evangelical mission led to the establishment of the national Triennial Convention in 1814, a collaborative effort by local churches to organize, fund, and deploy missionaries. The ABCUSA descends from this Triennial Convention. Through the Triennial Convention structure a number of mission oriented societies were formed, including the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (1814), American Baptist Home Mission Society (1832), American Baptist Publication Society (1841), and the American Baptist Education Society (1888). In 1845, a majority of Baptists in the South withdrew support from the Triennial Convention—largely in response to the decision of its delegates to ban slave holders from becoming ordained missionaries—and formed the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The Triennial Convention was loosely structured, and the SBC offered Baptists a more centralized organizational structure for carrying on missionary and benevolent work. In contrast, however, the Triennial Convention afforded local churches a higher degree of local autonomy, a more traditional characteristic of Baptist polity. The majority of churches in the North continued to work through these separate cooperating societies for missions and benevolence. In 1882, May Jones became the first ordained woman minister in the convention.

The Northern Baptist Convention was founded in Washington, D. C., on May 17, 1907. Charles Evans Hughes, then Governor of New York and later Chief Justice of the United States, served the body as its first president. The purpose of the Northern Baptist Convention was to bring about a consistent cooperation among the separate Baptist bodies then existing. It was the first step in bringing together Baptists in the North "with ties to the historic American Baptist mission societies in the nineteenth century." These had contributed to establishing many schools for freedmen in the South after the American Civil War, as well as working on issues of health and welfare. Many of their missionaries and members had worked as teachers in the South. In 1911, most of the churches of the Free Will Baptist General Conference merged with it. Due to the development of theological liberalism in some affiliated seminaries, such as Crozer Theological Seminary, conservative seminaries have been founded by convention pastors, including the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago in 1913 and the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1925.

The name of the convention was changed in 1950 to the American Baptist Convention (ABC), and it operated under this name until 1972. It was the second step at bringing together on a national level Baptists with ties to the mission societies. The ABC was characterized from 1950 to 1966 with annual resolutions at its conventions having to do with the civil rights movement and race relations. Quote | Without exception, these resolutions were progressive and genuinely encompassing. They addressed both the need for individual change in attitude and action, and the need for broader social change that could only be instituted through political action. However, board resolutions are not binding on local congregations. Three fourths of the representatives to the ABCUSA General Board are nominated and elected by the regions. One fourth of the representatives are nominated by the ABCUSA Nominating Committee and are elected by the regions. The General Secretary of the ABCUSA executes the policies and decisions of the General Board. Rev. Dr. Lee B. Spitzer was called as ABCUSA General Secretary on May 8, 2017. A substantial portion of the ABCUSA consists of historically and predominantly African American churches that may have joint affiliations with the ABCUSA and historic bodies such as the National Baptist Convention or the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City is one of the many African American churches jointly affiliated with the ABCUSA and National Baptist Convention. Since 1970, the ABCUSA and Progressive National Baptists have officially partnered.