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The church of the Messiah in Nashville, Tennessee, is a friendly and energetic Southern black congregation. In a tiny sanctuary that neighbors the city's housing projects, its 300 members soulfully sing the Lord's praises each Sunday, some clapping and dancing with their arms outstretched, others crying out their prayers with their eyes closed and heads thrown back, and still others weeping as the worship sweeps them up.

The animated scene hardly evokes the conservative Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In fact, there is no sign anywhere of the church's SBC affiliation. Churchgoers use hymnals from the National Baptist Convention USA, and Pastor Bryan Williams removed any reference to the denomination from the church's name some time ago.

But the sermon on one recent Sunday was vintage Southern Baptist. Williams preached on the story of Elijah, who condemned an Israelite king for worshipping both God and a false god. His application—that only a strict following of Scripture is acceptable—is in keeping with the denomination's belief that the Bible is inerrant, in both historical detail and spiritual teaching.

This is how one black congregation, and many others, are finding common ground with Southern Baptists in spite of the racial, cultural, political, and historical differences that long had separated them from the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Today the SBC is seeing dramatic growth in its number of African American congregations, adding 1,600 in the '90s to total more than 2,700 by 2002. By comparison, the historically black National Baptist Convention USA has more than 5,000 congregations, and the Progressive National Baptist Convention counts 1,800 congregations in its ranks. This makes the SBC one of the largest "black denominations" in the United States.

This is an unlikely development for the denomination that emerged in 1845 when its proslavery members split from their Northern peers so that their missionaries could own slaves. That's why "there's a perception in many people's minds that growth in the African American churches of the Southern Baptist Convention is counterintuitive," says C. Ben Mitchell, an associate professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and consultant to the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Today the denomination identifies itself with conservative theology and its public policy positioins mirror many of those held by the Religious Right. The SBC has also drawn fire for its beliefs on homosexuality, women, and much else. But Southern Baptists are reaching out to all racial and ethnic groups like never before. They say minorities are drawn to the SBC's conservative Christian traditions and strong family values. At the same time, church leaders recognize that as the nation grows more diverse, they are obligated to do the same. It's common sense: "If you're going to impact your nation, you've got to be multicultural," says Bob Reccord, president of the church's domestic mission arm, the North American Mission Board (NAMB).

Though the church has supported civil rights for decades (even cheering the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education), its first apology to blacks came only in 1995: "We lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery. … We apologize to all African Americans." Church leaders put priority on the resolution by taking it up on their first day of that year's national meeting.

The resolution made way for an annual Racial Reconciliation Sunday, during which congregations are encouraged to offer special sermons and Bible studies. Since then race relations has become an emphasis of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The NAMB restructured in 1997 to better reach out to minorities. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has done so much to advance black studies that the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Network awarded him with its highest honor last June.

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September 2004, Vol. 48, No. 9