Conservative Baptist Association of America

The first organization of Conservative Baptists was the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (CBFMS), now called WorldVenture, formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1943. The Conservative Baptist Association of America was organized in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1947. The Association now operates under the name CBAmerica. The Conservative Baptist Association emerged as part of the continuing fundamentalist/modernist controversy within the Northern Baptist Convention. The forming churches were fundamental/conservative churches that had remained in cooperation with the Northern Baptist Convention after other churches had left, such as those that formed the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. At the 1946 NBC meeting, the old convention made it clear that it would not allow a competing missionary agency to operate within it. Churches withdrew, forming the new association, and hundreds of others withdrew in the following years. The conservatives were in the majority in Minnesota and Arizona, and the Northern Baptists lost those state agencies. The movement presently supports three national agencies - CBAmerica, WorldVenture (formerly CBFMS, then CBInternational), and the Mission To The Americas (formerly Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society).

CBAmerica is a network of churches and ministries, committed to evangelization and church planting. Though they work in cooperation, each individual church is autonomous. Conservative Baptists also cooperate with institutions of higher learning in the field of education, as well as promoting youth and women's ministries. In 2003, the Association has over 1200 churches and over 200,000 members.

Associated institutions

• Western Seminary, Portland, OR
• Denver Seminary, Denver, CO
• Southwestern College, Phoenix, AZ
• New England Bible College, South Portland, ME

External links

• CBAmerica Official Web Site
• Mission to the Americas
• WorldVenture

Sources

• Baptists Around the World, by Albert W. Wardin, Jr.
• Dictionary of Baptists in America, Bill J. Leonard, editor
• Handbook of Denominations, by Frank Mead & Samuel Hill