Stories tagged with: baptist history

• Prohibition & Baptists 100 years later

  by David Roach, posted Thursday, January 17, 2019 (one year ago)

  

  iStock

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- When the 18th Amendment was ratified 100 years ago and prohibition became law of the land, the Southern Baptist Convention called it "the greatest victory for moral reform in America since the Declaration of Independence."

  The convention's jubilance came in part because Southern Baptists had worked at least three decades to secure legal prohibition. They saw the 18th Amendment as a culmination of their labor. They also had come to view prohibition advocacy as a defining mark of Baptist identity.

  Still, Southern Baptists wondered whether the anti-alcohol effort that helped bring about prohibition would persist. Read More

• Baptists & alcohol: Is the consensus shifting?

  by David Roach, posted Friday, November 02, 2018 (one year ago)

  

  iStock

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Amid a years-long battle with postpartum depression, anxiety and insomnia, a therapist gave Jenny Morrison what proved to be a life-altering suggestion: "Why don't you try drinking a small glass of wine at night?"

  When Morrison, a longtime follower of Jesus and Southern Baptist, tried it that night, "it made me sleepy and gave me almost immediate" relief "from the depression and anxiety," she said.

  So over the course of several years, she drank more, and more, and more -- until she nearly lost her family and her life. Read More

• Their 'consciences were exercised' over U.S. 'crisis'

  by David Roach, posted Thursday, June 07, 2018 (one year ago)

  

  SBHLA photo.

  HOUSTON (BP) -- As Sen. Robert Kennedy lay dying from an assassin's bullets and more than 100 U.S. cities smoldered from race riots following Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted what may have been its strongest statement to date on racial justice.

  On the statement's 50th anniversary, Southern Baptists -- black and white -- who were involved in convention life in 1968 say the "Statement Concerning the Crisis in Our Nation" remains relevant for believers seeking to confront injustice in American culture. Read More

• Tennessee Baptist pioneer reinterred

  by David Dawson/Baptist and Reflector, posted Monday, November 27, 2017 (2 years ago)

  

  Photo by Madison Turner

  WHITESBURG, Tenn. (BP) -- The remains of Tennessee pastoral pioneer Tidence Lane have been moved to the grounds of a church he pastored beginning in 1785.

  Around 1779, Lane helped found what some believe to be the first organized church of any denomination in Tennessee, Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church near Jonesboro, according to Albert Wardin's book "Tennessee Baptists: A Comprehensive History, 1779-1999." Six years later, Lane -- a Revolutionary War veteran -- became founding pastor of First Baptist Church in Whitesburg, Tenn., when the congregation was known as Bent Creek Baptist Church. Read More

• 100 years: Social gospel pioneer's legacy discussed

  by David Roach, posted Tuesday, May 16, 2017 (2 years ago)

  Theologians of all ideological stripes agree Walter Rauschenbusch was a key figure in 20th-century Baptist history and that his 1917 book "A Theology for the Social Gospel" marked an important juncture in the social gospel tradition. Read More

• Washington & Lincoln baptism claims debated

  by David Roach, posted Monday, February 20, 2017 (2 years ago)

  

  BP file photo

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Claims that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both underwent secretive baptisms by immersion have drawn scrutiny from Baptist historians surrounding Presidents Day.

  Washington is said to have received baptism from Baptist army chaplain John Gano during the Revolutionary War while both Baptists and members of the Stone-Campbell tradition have claimed Lincoln sought and received baptism by immersion.

  Immersion claims about both presidents have received a mixed reception from ... Read More

• Dockery lecture series to highlight Baptist history

  by Tim Ellsworth, posted Friday, September 09, 2016 (3 years ago)

  

  JACKSON, Tenn. (BP) -- Union University will launch a new lecture series in the spring that honors its former president and first lady and celebrates the school's Baptist history and heritage.

  The Dockery Lectures on Baptist Thought and Heritage, named for former Union President David S. Dockery and his wife Lanese, will be an annual event for examining the distinctives of Baptist thought, the importance of the Baptist heritage and the influence of the Christian intellectual tradition.

  "All of us are deeply grateful to David and Lanese Dockery for their inestimable contributions to Union University," Union President Samuel W. "Dub" Oliver said. "I am confident that the legacy of Dr. Dockery's outstanding leadership will only be enhanced as the Dockery Lectures continue on campus year by year." Read More

• St. Patrick not 'a closet Baptist'

  by David Roach, posted Wednesday, March 16, 2016 (3 years ago)

  

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- In William Cathcart's "Baptist Encyclopedia," a catalog of Baptist doctrines, organizations and individuals, there is a surprising entry under the letter P: "Patrick, Saint, the Apostle of Ireland."

  Perhaps more surprising is that Cathcart, a 19th-century Baptist historian, was not alone in claiming Patrick for the Baptist tradition. Pastor W.A. Criswell of First Baptist Church in Dallas and pastor Wayne Dehoney then of First Baptist Church in Jackson, Tenn. -- both of whom went on to become Southern Baptist Convention president -- were among the 19th- and 20th- century Baptists to argue the namesake of St. Patrick's Day espoused Baptist principles some 1,200 years before Englishman John Smyth founded what is commonly regarded as the first Baptist congregation. Read More

• Advent rediscovered by Southern Baptists

  by David Roach, posted Friday, December 11, 2015 (4 years ago)

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Late preaching professor Calvin Miller once quipped to Christianity Today that many Southern Baptist churches "probably could hardly spell Advent" in the early 1990s.

  Not so anymore. Read More

• Pilgrims & Baptists: the little known connection

  by David Roach, posted Wednesday, November 26, 2014 (5 years ago)

  

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- If not for a Baptist church split, the Pilgrims might never have come to America.

  Sort of.

  John Smyth, who often is credited with being the first Baptist, pastored a church where many of the Christians who later came to be known as Pilgrims were members. Read More