The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. is more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention (NBC USA or NBC).

In addition, known as a primarily African American ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the black racial groups of Africa.

However, these Baptists form a major branch of Evangelical Christianity distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only, and doing so by complete immersion.

• Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of
• soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God)
• sola fide (salvation by just faith alone)
• sola scriptura (scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice)
• congregationalist church government (is a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church congregation is independent)

Baptists generally recognize two ordinances, a religious ritual whose intent is to demonstrate an adherent’s faith:

• baptism (a Christian sacrament of admission and adoption, almost invariably with the use of water, into Christianity)
• communion (a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others)

A Christian Denomination

In fact, this Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, peculiar history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worship style and sometimes a founder.

It is a secular and neutral term, generally used to denote any established Christian church in the United States, a country primarily located in North America.

About Its Country

As a matter of fact, the United States consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, 326 Native American reservations, and nine minor outlying islands.

At nearly 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million square kilometers), it is the world’s third- or fourth-largest country by geographic area.

Moreover, the United States shares land borders with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south as well as maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other countries.

With a population of more than 331 million people, it is the third most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City.

A Baptist World

The National Baptist Convention is headquartered at the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee and affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance, the largest international Baptist organization with an estimated 47 million people in 2021 with 245 member bodies in 128 countries and territories.

A voluntary association of Baptist churches, the BWA accounts for about half the Baptists in the world. In addition, it is the largest predominantly Black Christian denomination in the United States.

NBC USA History

The root of cooperative efforts among Black Baptists began in the Antebellum period. In the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period spanned the end of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861.

The Antebellum South was characterized by the use of slavery and the culture it fostered. As the era proceeded, Southern intellectuals and leaders gradually shifted from defending slavery as an embarrassing and temporary system, to a full-on defense of slavery as a positive good, and harshly criticized the budding abolitionist movement.

As the country expanded westward, slavery’s propagation became a major issue in national politics, eventually boiling over into the Civil War.

In the years that followed, this period was romanticized by historical revisionists to protect three central, yet flawed, assertions: that the Confederate cause was heroic, that enslaved people were happy and satisfied, and that slavery was not the central cause of the war.

This phenomenon has continued to influence racism, gender roles and religious attitudes in the South, and to a lesser extent the rest of the country, to the present day.

A Great Awakening

Both free blacks and slaves were welcomed into the Baptist movement by missionaries in the First Great Awakening, the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion.

The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches.

In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.

Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements.

Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. Moreover, The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.

However, The Second Great Awakening led to a period of antebellum social reform and an emphasis on salvation by institutions. The outpouring of religious fervor and revival began in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1790s and early 1800s among the Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists.

Religious Climate In The American Colonies

The awakening brought comfort in the face of uncertainty as a result of the socio-political changes in America. It led to the founding of several well known colleges, seminaries, and mission societies.

in addition, The Great Awakening notably altered the religious climate in the American colonies. Ordinary people were encouraged to make a personal connection with God, instead of relying on a minister.

Newer denominations, such as Methodists and Baptists, grew quickly. While the movement unified the colonies and boosted church growth, experts say it also caused division.

Historians named the Second Great Awakening in the context of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1750s and of the Third Great Awakening of the late 1850s to early 1900s.

Furthermore, The Second and Third Awakenings were part of a much larger Romantic religious movement that was sweeping across England, Scotland, and Germany.

New religious movements emerged during the Second Great Awakening, such as Adventism, Dispensationalism, and the Latter Day Saint movement.

Third Great Awakening

The Third Great Awakening refers to a historical period proposed by William G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century.

It influenced pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism. In fact, it gathered strength from the postmillennial belief that the Second Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire earth.

It was affiliated with the Social Gospel Movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement.

New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene and Pentecostal movements, and also Jehovah’s Witnesses, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Thelema, and Christian Science.

The era saw the adoption of a number of moral causes, such as the abolition of slavery and prohibition.

Independent Black Baptist

Independent Black Baptist churches were formed in Petersburg, Virginia and Savannah, Georgia before the American Civil War.

Under the slave societies of the South, the Southern United States, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, Dixie, the Southland is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America.

It is between the Atlantic Ocean and the Western United States, with the Midwestern United States and Northeastern United States to its north and the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico to its south. It also has major portions that are part of the Eastern United States.

The South

Historically, the South was defined as all states south of the 18th century Mason–Dixon line, the Ohio River, and 36°30′ parallel. Within the South are different subregions, such as the Southeast, South Central, Upper South and Deep South.

Since an influx of Northern transplants in the mid-to-late 20th century, Maryland, Delaware, Northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C. have become more culturally, economically, and politically aligned in certain aspects with that of the Northeast, and are often identified as part of the Mid-Atlantic subregion or Northeast by many residents, businesses, public institutions, and private organizations.

Black congregations were required by law to belong to white Baptist associations and have white ministers and supervision, especially after the slave rebellion of Nat Turner in 1831.

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