Stories like this one from Associsted Baptist Press are a good sign:

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Worship infused with music and missions, cooperation and communion, and doses of laughter marked a historic reunion of Baptists June 29 in the nation’s capital city.

The American Baptist Churches USA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship held their first national joint worship service -- a long-awaited coming together of Baptists whose shared commitment to missions and Baptist principles once was shattered by slavery.

“This is an awesome God moment,” ABC General Secretary Roy Medley told the crowd of almost 4,000 participants, divided almost evenly between representatives of both groups.

“It gladdens the heart of God. It makes God happy to see us working together. … What an awesome moment. It gladdens our hearts too.”

The service in Washington's convention center marked the end of the Fellowship’s annual general assembly and the beginning of ABC’s 100th anniversary celebration. Program organizers noted the joint ABC/Fellowship session had been five years in planning. Actually, it was 162 years in the making.

Baptists in the United States first united to support missions in 1814, but they divided acrimoniously in 1845. Baptists in the North, who later reorganized as the American Baptist Churches in 1907, opposed slavery. The Southern Baptist Convention split from them because of their support for slavery. The Fellowship formed out of the SBC in 1991 after more than a decade of conflict with fundamentalists. Although some Fellowship churches still relate to the SBC and some do not, almost all of them trace their roots to the Southern convention.

The strong presence of the Washington-based Progressive National Baptist Convention -- one of four historic African-American Baptist groups -- underscored the racial nature of the old division. But the Progressive National Baptists’ presence also projected an even larger reunion. The Fellowship, American Baptists and Progressive National Baptists are among the key groups promoting a “celebration” of the New Baptist Covenant, which will be held in Atlanta Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2008.

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Baptists have always had so much to offer the faith but in recent years their churches have been torn apart as divisive figures such as Albert Mohler and other fundamentalist have sought to silence those who do not agree with their rigid theologies.

Anytime Christians break away from fundamentalism and work toward unity it is a good moment.