"in the Name of Our God and Our Baptist Heritage": Reflections on History and the Progressive National Baptist Convention (Essay‪)‬

Progressive National Baptists: Studying a Movement "Let us go forward together in the name of our God and our Baptist heritage." The Reverend Gardner Taylor wrote those words in 1960 at the conclusion of a letter to his friend and colleague the Reverend L. Venchael Booth, thanking the Ohio pastor for his financial contribution to the "Taylor Team Defense Fund in defense of our basic Baptist liberties and the integrity of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc." (1) As history would have it, neither of those men could remain in the National Baptist Convention. Instead, Booth became the founder of a new denomination, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, and Taylor later became its second national president, actions that they believed were necessary to preserve and expand "our Baptist heritage." Half a century later, Progressive Baptists remember their past and confront their future, reaffirming their tradition and seeking new ways to "go forward together."