Home Mission Society

The American Baptist Home Mission Society is a Christian missionary society. It was established in New York City in 1832 to operate in the American frontier, with the stated mission "to preach the Gospel, establish churches and give support and ministry to the unchurched and destitute." ["Where we come from", NationalMinistries.org. http://www.nationalministries.org/come_from.cfm]

The Society and Slavery

During the "Georgia Test Case" of 1844, the Society refused to appoint the slaveowner James E. Reeve as a missionary on the grounds that this would conflict with the Foreign Mission Board's policy of neutrality in the slavery issue. These events prompted the Baptist State Convention of Alabama to challenge the Foreign Mission Board on the topic of slaveowner missionaries, to which the Board replied that they would "never be a party to any arrangement which would imply approbation of slavery". In response, Southern Baptists split from the General Convention and formed the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. [Mitchell Snay, Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 135]

Merger and Renaming

The Society merged with the Women's Baptist Home Mission Society in 1955. In 1972, the Mission Societies began operating under the new name of National Ministries.

ee also

* Baptist
* Christianity and slavery
* Slavery in the United States

External links

* [http://www.reformedreader.org/abhms.htm About the Society on ReformedReader.org]
* [http://www.nationalministries.org NationalMinistries.org]