Growth, and a Self-Described Theology of Justice

The Progressive National Baptist Convention has continued since 1961 to describe its founding purpose as combining traditional Baptist faith and worship with an explicit commitment to social justice, framing itself, in its own words, as offering a different witness grounded in Scripture, shaped by the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, and informed by the rich tradition of the Black Church. The convention formally affirms the ordination of women; Uvee Mdodana Arbouin became the first woman ordained a pastor within the convention in 1969, and PNBC leadership has continued to affirm women in ministry and leadership in subsequent decades.

Like other Baptist conventions, the PNBC is a voluntary association of self-governing congregations rather than a governing hierarchy, and it leaves matters such as same-sex marriage policy to individual churches. Its self-reported membership, which includes international affiliated churches in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ghana, Kenya, and Jamaica, was placed at roughly 1.5 million in 2022, considerably higher than the few hundred thousand recorded in United States-only religion-census tallies, a gap that reflects the convention's global reach as much as any difference in counting method. Its national offices are in Washington, D.C.