VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP) — The American Baptist Historical Society, which claims the largest collection of Baptist resources in the world, is moving to the heart of the Deep South — Atlanta.
The collection will have a new home on the Atlanta campus of Mercer University, a former Georgia Baptist institution that is trying to establish itself as a Baptist university with a national focus.
“After reviewing the three final proposals, the board decided that Mercer's proposed partnership and site best meet our mission and vision,” said ABHS President Trinette McCray, according to a Sept. 25 news release.
While the history-rich collection is a treasure trove for researchers, it has been inconveniently divided between two separate sites 350 miles apart — the ABHS Center in Valley Forge, Pa., where American Baptists have their national office, and the Samuel Colgate Library in Rochester, N.Y.
Deborah Bingham Van Broekhoven, ABHS executive director for the past 20 years, said bringing the vast materials together is “good stewardship of finances, staff time, the collection's growth, and accessibility of those collections to researchers.”
The ABHS collections and offices will be housed in a building purchased by Mercer and recently vacated by the Georgia Baptist Convention. Mercer President Bill Underwood has expressed interest in creating new partnerships among Baptists on the heels of the GBC breaking ties with the university last fall.
“I think that these two Baptist organizations, working together, can accomplish some significant ministry and educational objectives,” Underwood told Baptists Today.
The Atlanta campus, said Underwood, will give current Mercer students as well as those studying at other institutions access to valuable research material. He said he also envisions a future doctoral program in Baptist studies and church history that would make use of the collection that scholars consider “a jewel.”
“The history of Baptists is the history of religious freedom in America,” Underwood said in a recent letter to supporters, “and the American Baptist Historical Society is the single most significant depository of that history. Relocating this large and outstanding historical collection to our campus in Atlanta would serve to preserve the collection, would foster the examination of this history by future generations of students, scholars and others, and would establish Mercer as the leading center for Baptist scholarship in North America.”
Mercer's McAfee School of Theology and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's main national offices are on the Atlanta campus as well. The university's main campus is in Macon, Ga.
“What broke through for us,” said ABHS President McCray of the move to Atlanta, “was the incredible interest in communicating Baptist history and heritage in such a way that it brings forth a new generation of Baptist leaders in church and society. It is with excitement at this cooperative prospect that we take this step. It is the board's determination to build upon the gifts of our partnerships.”
The time frame for the transition to Atlanta is undetermined. Underwood said he hopes the archives will be in Atlanta within the next year, but it is “obviously a large logistical job.”
Underwood wants to bring other Baptist entities as well into the five-story building occupied by the GBC for 31 years in hopes of it becoming “the center of Baptist intellectual life in North America.”
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