On May 8, 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, the Southern Baptist Convention separated from the Triennial Convention. However, this separation involved only the home and foreign mission societies. Many churches in the South continued to buy Sunday school materials from the American Baptist Publication Society in Philadelphia.
According to H. Leon McBeth, the suggestion of a Southern Baptist printing program was met with much opposition, especially in the early years of the SBC. Many thought a new program was unwarranted since the ABPS had remained neutral concerning slavery issues. They felt any additional separation would only lead to more conflict and insisted, rather, on delaying further expansion. Furthermore, less than 500 Southern Baptist churches even had Sunday Schools.
Other resistance came in the form of fear. The Great Depression of 1837 was still fresh in the hearts and minds of many Southern Baptists. Many felt that a safe pace would prove advantageous over attempting expansion too quickly. However, as the SBC continued to grow, an awareness of the necessity of a separate denominational publishing house became clear.
J.M. Frost, a 43-year-old pastor, was a prominent leader in starting the company that is now known as LifeWay Christian Resources. The organization, formerly called the Sunday School Board, was established by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1891. With the formation of the Sunday School Board, Frost had the backing he needed, but he would have to begin his dream with no money from the Convention. In a small office in Nashville, Tennessee, funded in part by money borrowed from his wife, Frost laid the groundwork for what has become one of the most influential entities in Southern Baptist lif...
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...ed by Dr. Thom S. Rainer and LifeWay Christian Resources for the purpose of assisting and equipping church leaders with insight and advice that will lead to greater levels of church health and effectiveness. The president of LifeWay Research, Ed Stetzer, and his team have made astonishing progress in preparing for the future of the Southern Bapist Church.
LifeWay Research focuses on topics such as church leadership, theology, church practices, and ethnic issues. However, they do not limit themselves to the betterment of the Church. There is also a strong emphasis on the unchurched in their projects. They have and continue to focus on outreach, evangelism, and missions. With that being said, it is the opinion of this writer that because of the phenomenal work of LifeWay and their dependence on God, the future of the Southern Baptist Church is in good hands.
Wilson, Barbara S., Arlene Flancher, and Susan T. Erdey. The Episcopal Handbook. New York, NY: Morehouse Pub., 2008. Print.
Born in Wright City, Missouri, June 21, 1892, he was educated at Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois; Eden Theological Seminary, Webster Groves, Missouri; and Yale Divinity School. In 1915 he was ordained in the ministry of the Evangelical Synod of North America and made pastor of the Bethel Evangelical Church of Detroit. He held that post until 1928, at which time he joined the faculty of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, where he taught for 30 years. At the time of his retirement (1960) he held a chair of ethics and theology; he also served as dean (1950-55) and vice president (1955-60). After retiring he continued at Union as a lecturer.
His professional life began with the ministry. In 1915, the mission board of his denomination sent him to Detroit as pastor where he served for thirteen years. The congregation numbered sixty-five when he arrived and grew to nearly seven hundred when he left. His witness of working class life in his ministry with American automobile industry laborers in Detroit gave him a critical view of capitalism and made him an advocator of socialism concerning social and economic reality.
... As such, the clergy often fell into disfavor with the extremists of the proslavery movement. Many Southerners supported, in some measure, the position of the clergy to some extent. Yet, they did not wish to abandon their system suddenly and without an adequate replacement. They were also concerned that free labor promoted infidelity, secularism, liberal theology, perversities, egotism and personal license to the detriment of God-ordained authority and the Christian social order.
BWH Bulletin. (2012, June 15). Past, Present and Future of BWH Discussed at Town Meeting. Retrieved from http://www.brighamandwomens.org/about_bwh/publicaffairs/news/publications/DisplayBulletin.aspx?articleid=5614
In Walter B. Shurden’s The Baptist Identity, he looks at four of the core elements, or freedoms, that shape and mold Baptist theology and their identity. The four core concepts he explores in his book are Bible freedom, soul freedom, church freedom, and religious freedom. While looking at these four values, he examines how they mold and shape the Baptist identity and how they came to be. The origin to each of these values in the Baptist tradition is addressed as well as their benefits and draw backs. He explains their purpose and necessity in the Baptist denomination and how it effects the denomination as a whole.
Started by the Congregationalist, this too was founded as a school to train men for the ministry (Barton, (2004)). This school produced men that signed the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution of the United States of America (Barton, (2004)). This school knew and practiced the belief that God’s Word was of utmost importance in education.
Unknown. 2014. Basic Beliefs.Southern Baptist Convention SBC.NET 2014 [cited May 15, 2014]. Available from http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/basicbeliefs.asp.
"Billy Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association-Historical Background." 1996. Wheaton College. Web. 28 Febuary 2014.
The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Church is a very small homophobic, anti- Semitic hate group that regularly stages protest around the country. The group first started as a non-profit organization in 1967. The Westboro Baptist Church is made up of its pastor, and some of his children and grandchildren. The Westboro Baptist church is well known for picketing places and or events they see as supporting homosexuals or Jews.
Based upon the explanation from tnbaptist.org, the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, or the SBC, in 1845, caused an exponential growth in the rate of ministry. Each individual organization of the national and state conventions raised funds for missions through “countless special offerings, overlapping pledge campaigns, and frequent emergency appeals” (Rickman). Consequently, multiple agency representatives often found themselves eager to share their desires to raise money before a church congregation, thus donators funded towards a fund-raiser rather than to a ministry. For that reason, the SBC soon found itself in a seemingly insurmountable debt. In order to overcome this debt, the SBC launched the $75 Million Campaign, in 1919, a campaign that challenged Baptists to raise $75 million within five years. Southern Baptists pledged to raise $92.6 million during this campaign; however, they only donated $58.5 million due to “a financial depression that set in across the South soon after Victory Week” (Harris). As reported by Vanderbilt.edu, Victory Week is the week extending from November 30 to December 7 of 1919 in which c...
During the seventeenth century, the Baptist denomination started in England (Ascol). A man who was brought up in a Calvinist-Puritan tradition , John Smyth, questioned his religion (Ascol). After his exilement, Smyth was convinced that in order to be a believer you have to be baptized (Ascol). His followers were called “General Baptists”, they chose this name because they held a general view of atonement ; atonement is that Jesus died for no one in particular but for everyone (Ascol). General Baptist were influenced by the Arminian view of salvation (Ascol). In 1626, there were six General Baptist churches churches in England, they eventually changed from Arminianism to Unitarianism. Dan Taylor reorganized the General Baptist church in 1770.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church also known as the AME Church, represents a long history of people going from struggles to success, from embarrassment to pride, from slaves to free. It is my intention to prove that the name African Methodist Episcopal represents equality and freedom to worship God, no matter what color skin a person was blessed to be born with. The thesis is this: While both Whites and Africans believed in the worship of God, whites believed in the oppression of the Africans’ freedom to serve God in their own way, blacks defended their own right to worship by the development of their own church. According to Andrew White, a well- known author for the AME denomination, “The word African means that our church was organized by people of African descent Heritage, The word “Methodist” means that our church is a member of the family of Methodist Churches, The word “Episcopal refers to the form of government under which our church operates.”
into a richer experience of worship and a more effect life of service" (Crabb, 1977, p.31). The method to establishing an
So long as Union troops occupied the South due to the institution of the Reconstruction Act on March 2, 1867, the blacks could be assured any road they wanted to take was open. The immediate priority for many of them was the reunification of their lost family members, friends, and romances. Thousands of freed slaves could be found traveling the roads looking for a place to call home as one community. Their first notable achievement was to establish an economic presence through higher education, namely the ability to read and write. Many school houses were built, funded and manned by white Northerners sympathetic to the freedman’s plight. Soon to follow this advancement was the erection of places of worship to exercise their new freedom of religion. Pastored by their own, black churches were vigorously built to provide a spiritual sanctuary for the 900,000 black citizens of various den...