It was in the 19th century when the term “Missionary Baptist” was first coined. The modern missions’ movement had gained momentum during this period with the sole purpose of organizing para-church institutions for funding and promoting Bible, evangelism, social and charitable work, and other causes related to the Christian religion. In fact, this movement attracted harsh criticisms from Baptists that considered these institutions to be subversive of traditional polity. While those who opposed this way came to be known as anti-missions, and those who proposed it came to be known as a Missionary Baptist.
Even though the missionary causes were embraced by a number of Baptists, the controversy that had triggered managed to divide many associations and churches along missionary and anti-missions lines. Thus, many associations and “MissionaryBaptist” churches had to eventually adopt epithet “missionary” as a part of their names. This in turn lead to a new descriptive term that later became a religious name – Missionary Baptist. Those Baptists that belonged to anti-missions churches were being called Primitive Baptists by now. But the name “Missionary Baptist” was never universally accepted by those who advocated missionary institutions from the beginning.
The term “Missionary Baptist” became synonymous with a section of Baptists for causes that were not related to its original usage in any which way. Today, there are very few churches that use this term. In fact, in some areas of the country the term is used to differentiate Baptist groups from other Baptists. There are few groups, however, that claim to be a missionary Baptist. Given below are few of them.
1. Churches that belong to Appalachian Mountains region including Old Time Missionary Baptist churches.
2. Baptists that are identified through their landmarks including (a) American Baptist Association present in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma (b) the BMA of America.
3. The Baptist conventions that have African-American historical origin have missionary characteristics associated with it.
But with the changing times, there are many who make a distinction between these churches that make use of ‘Missionary Baptist’ as a part of their name from those that do not make use of this term, to indicate as if the exclusion and inclusion of this term determines the National Convention to which the local church belongs. The National Convention that uses the term “Missionary Baptist” not only includes churches but also many other congregations.
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