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This Month in Our History...with Fred Anderson

October 2008 Edition

Everyone was talking about “the hard times.” The Virginia Baptist Mission Board was victim to “the hard times.” Receipts started “falling off” with the stock market crash of October 1929. By the next year, the Mission Board already had experienced a “falling off,” as the treasurer, Frank Crump, usually explained the decrease in funds. Early in the new year of ’30, the “falling off” was about $50,000, which adjusted for inflation represented a large chunk of cash needed to operate the state missions of Virginia Baptists.

The top executives tried to put their best foot forward, citing “many reasons for genuine rejoicing and great gratitude.” But the hard reality of the bottom line showed less enthusiasm.

By February 1933 at the BGAV’s annual meeting, it was suggested that “in view of the steadily declining receipts and certain fixed obligations, it looks as if it may become necessary to change the ratio of division between state and Southwide [that is, Southern Baptist Convention] causes.” The leadership stated:  “Should this become necessary, no one will regret it more deeply than the Board and the [executive director].”

In the early 1930s, the ratio between state and SBC was 50-50.  The Board asked the General Association for authorization to make the percentage change in 1934, if it became necessary. Indeed it did become imperative to make a change, and the ratio became 55-45, adding an additional 5 percent for Virginia missions. Virginia went a step further and designated the 45 percent which went to the SBC so that “the Foreign Board” received an edge over the other entities in the SBC operating budget.

Facing hard times with this approach was not without pain. Some Board members objected, and at least one pastor of a large Virginia church resigned from the Board over the decision. Tensions were high between the state and national bodies, and the president of the SBC and the executive secretary of its Executive Committee even visited the Virginia Baptist Mission Board to seek “better cooperation” and a “better understanding.” The SBC leadership maintained that the messengers to the SBC annual meeting – and they alone – could decide on the allocations between SBC entities.

The SBC itself was not without financial woes. Their much-heralded fund-raising program launched in the early 1920s, the 75 Million Campaign, produced millions in pledges which could not be fulfilled. In 1933 another plan aimed at rescuing the denomination. It was called the Hundred Thousand Club and aimed at enlisting 100,000 Baptists to give $1 more over and above their regular monthly gifts, and the dollars would go to the SBC. Because of “financial distress of our people generally,” the Virginia Board could not endorse the SBC “debt-raising” campaign. The Virginia leadership was careful to say that in no way would they attempt to influence the churches in their own responses to the SBC’s campaign.

Virginia WMU found its own way to help remove the debt on the Foreign Mission Board, SBC. Virginia Baptist women gave 25 cents a week toward debt reduction. Within three years, the quarters had amounted to nearly $25,000, a considerable sum for the times.

An added complication for Virginia Baptists in the 1930s was the Mission Board’s shared liability for debts accumulated by its related agencies and institutions. The Board declared that the allocations which were earmarked for the various entities would not be paid to the agencies and institutions themselves but to their creditors.

The man at the helm throughout all the lean years was George Thomas Waite, a Richmond pastor in his early 40s when he became the top executive in 1928. Just months into his new position, the financial crisis became evident. It was said that he possessed “far-seeing judgment, a fine mind, and a discriminating sense of the value of things.” A colleague declared that Waite “could see the end from the beginning of any movement that affected the Kingdom of God” and added:  “He had the courage to undertake and the will to execute those enterprises which his judgment approved.”

Waite wrestled with the denominational crisis, shared the treasurer’s worry over the “falling off” of receipts, and traveled into every section of the state “to get acquainted with the whole denominational situation.” He brushed aside some “premonitions of serious illness” and kept pressing forward despite the possible consequences. In 1936, at age 52, George T. Waite died while still leading Virginia Baptists through the hard times. A colleague observed that he “literally laid down his life for the cause in which he believed with all his heart.”

Hard times came. They were met by hard decision making. Virginia Baptists relied upon the One who had led them from their beginnings as a unique people. And, in time, the hard times gave way to good times. There would be other financial anxieties over the next 75 years, but they were never as deep and far reaching as those faced by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and its leadership in the 1930s.

September 2008 Edition

Most Baptists value the educated mind, and this is the reason that Baptists have established newspapers, schools, colleges and universities, and great seminaries of learning.  This month is generally the time that many Baptist churches say farewell to the college-age youth.  As the youth depart, usually the older adults have some well intended advice.

It always has been thus.  In a Religious Herald from September 2, 1880, a father said of his college-bound son:  “I do not want him hurried through; put him where he belongs and keep him there till he knows something.”

There have been several Baptist-affiliated schools and colleges in Virginia.  There were “the mountain mission schools” and “female institutes” and academies, of which there remain Oak Hill, Fork Union, and Hargrave.  There have been colleges, including Averett, Virginia Intermont, Bluefield, and the University of Richmond with its Richmond College for men and Westhampton College for women.  Today Intermont and Bluefield are the two senior colleges which remain affiliated with the BGAV.

For generations, Baptists sent their sons to Richmond College; and from 1932-57 there was a very wise dean of men named Raymond B. Pinchbeck.  A native of Amelia County, he grew up at Arbor Baptist Church in Chula, Virginia, where he was baptized in 1917.  He was ordained as a deacon at First Baptist Church, Richmond, in 1952.  Along life’s pilgrimage, he learned much about the nature of students.

He became legendary for his wise sayings, his smoking pipe, and his friendly greeting to students and faculty alike along the campus pathways:  “Howdy Neighbor!”

Sometime along the way, he wrote some advice entitled “If I Were a Freshman Again.”  For the students who have left our churches for college, this good advice from the late Dean Pinchbeck is offered for today’s generation.

“I have seen 31 generations of college freshmen.  As a college dean, it has been my privilege to help college freshmen with the legion of perplexing adjustments they must make in the first nine months of college life.  The adjustments include the whole range of teenage problems:  homesickness, love affairs, financial problems, death in the family, ill health, excessive desire to be a college ‘social success,’ too many campus activities, bad companions, difficulty in choosing a life occupation, friction at home, dissolute living, and just plain loafing and ‘cussedness.’”  [The list of student problems seems as relevant now as it was in the “good old days” of the Fifties.]

“If I were a college freshman again, I would try to enter college with a determined desire to use my full mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual resources to earn a high scholastic record and develop my personality and other capacities for successful living and leadership.  In the back of my mind would be two cherished ambitions, to earn Phi Beta Kappa for outstanding scholarship and Omicron Delta Kappa, or some other leadership honor.  Of course, with proper modesty, I would keep these ambitions to myself and let the quality of my classwork and my campus activities stand on their merits!”

“As a college freshman, I would have at least four primary objectives: 

1. I would seek to develop a sound spiritual philosophy of life which would satisfactorily explain to me my relations with God and my fellow man.
2. I would diligently search my heart and soul, my mind, and all of my physical, mental, and emotional resources to find my life occupation.
3. I would do all in my power to learn the principles of clean, healthy living, sportsmanship and fair play, and the understanding of the human relations which would make me worthy of a maximum happiness with my future wife [or husband] in my future home.
4. I would participate in all the campus activities my time would permit with due regard to my ambition to earn high grades.  From these activities and social experiences, I would work hard to learn to be a good citizen of my campus, my state, my country, and my world.

“Now we come to the ‘tricks of the trade’ of being a successful college freshman. They are really very simple.  The difficulty lies in developing the strength of character to ‘stick to the job’ until it is finished.”

“Here they come:  Come to college prepared to work very hard if you expect to succeed.  You will probably have five classes which will require you to spend about 17 hours a week in classes and labs.  This means you should spend 30 hours a week in hard, close private study.”

“Make a careful work schedule and post it over your desk and live by it every day.  If you find it difficult to study in your room, study in the library or some other quiet spot.  Unless you are seriously ill, attend all your classes regularly and punctually.  ‘Cutting classes’ is bad business.  Do all assignments carefully…”

“Go to church regularly and identify yourself with church work and life in your college town.”

Raymond Bennett Pinchbeck practiced what he preached!  He attended Mr. Jefferson’s University of Virginia with the aim of being all that he could be.  He made Phi Beta Kappa and earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s degrees before age 25.   He also made ODK… just as he would advise his student generations.

Forward this column, print and mail it to a college freshman from your church.  They may turn out to be another Dean Pinchbeck; and when you send it, say “Howdy Neighbor, here’s some good advice!”

August 2008 Edition

If Baptist principles are to be taught to the people and caught within the fabric of congregations, they must be heard from the pulpit.  C. Wirt Trainham of Northern Virginia understood the need for preaching on Baptist heritage from time to time.

He was 29 in 1894 when he became pastor of a field of churches in Prince William and Loudoun counties – Antioch, Little River, and Manassas.  The young pastor felt the need for a Baptist witness in Haymarket also, so he held monthly meetings in the village.  In October 1894 he organized a church with 28 members.

Wirt Trainham enumerated the Baptist beliefs in sermons preached at Haymarket and elsewhere during his 55-year ministry, which included 11 years as associational missionary in the Potomac Baptist Association.

Trainham grew up in a Baptist family.  He was one of “Hatcher’s boys” at Grace Baptist Church in Richmond.  He attended Richmond College and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  And he lived and breathed Baptist ways.

Over a century ago, he preached a sermon on “The Baptist Position.”  He said, “Baptists are often misunderstood and misrepresented.”  He enumerated Baptist distinctives and included the following:

1. “A regenerated church membership – every member first a member of the body of Jesus Christ through the regenerative power and work of the Holy Spirit”;
2. “Only believers-regenerated persons are proper subjects for baptism”; and
3. “The right of every man to civil and religious liberty, hence the entire separation of church and state.”

Trainham served in the same territory where, a century earlier, Baptists had been jailed and otherwise persecuted for their faith while they struggled to secure soul liberty for the nation.

Trainham also emphasized Baptist church polity with its “love of democracy.”  He said: “Every member of a Baptist church has all the rights, privileges, and authority of every other member.  The whole congregation of a local church constitutes the governing power in a Baptist church.  From its decisions there is no appeal.  There is no court of higher resort.”

“No church or combination of churches can exercise authority over another church.  Each can receive, discipline, and dismiss members; call and depose its ministry; and formulate and operate its own plan of Christian activity.”

“Baptists hold that every church of Christ is independent of every other church.  While many churches may be one in faith and practice, there is no organic union.  Each is sufficient for its own interpretation and execution of divine law, each sufficient for its own government.”

Another Baptist hallmark is priesthood of the believer.  Trainham declared:  “Baptist church government puts the emphasis upon individuality as does no other.  It affords greater opportunity for individual development, cherishes as a sacred heritage the right and duty of individual study and interpretation of God’s holy book, and lays greater responsibility upon the individual for the welfare and prosperity of Zion.”

What about the Bible?  Trainham exclaimed:  “We regard it as the Word of God.  It was written by holy men as they were moved of the Holy Spirit, and hence it is God’s Word.”

What about creeds?  Trainham stated the Baptist case when he said:  “We believe [the Bible] to be a sufficient guide for faith and practice.  We are unwilling to accept anything else as binding upon our hearts, consciences, or lives.  Hence we have no creed.”

The paper on which Trainham wrote his sermon has become brown and brittle; but within congregations in Northern Virginia, the principles which he preached remain alive.

July 2008 Edition

Alfred E. Dickinson has been dead for over a century, yet his writings continue to inspire.  From 1865 until his death in 1906, Dickinson was editor of the Religious Herald, which he and Jeremiah Bell Jeter had purchased following the Civil War.  Dickinson traveled widely on behalf of the Herald; and in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Herald was read by an inquiring public across the United States.  It was said that Dickinson was “the most influential man of his time in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

In 1889 he delivered an address before the Roanoke Association (today’s Pittsylvania Association) at their centennial meeting held in Chatham.  The address soon found itself into print, and the words which had been first spoken in Chatham, Virginia, were read around the world.  The address was entitled “What Baptist Principles Are Worth to the World,” and some one million copies were printed, including translations into several other languages. 

Although the speech and the written address were a masterpiece, the style would be largely unappealing to today’s generation.  Even worse, many of today’s Baptists would not even recognize, appreciate, or embrace the fundamental principles outlined by Dickinson and once so precious to Baptists.  Truly they have become endangered principles.

What did Alfred Dickinson say?  First, he insisted that Baptists “have been worth something to the world.”  He emphasized that “they have stood for soul liberty, for converted church membership, for loyalty to Christ as the only King in Zion.”

“Baptists did not stumble upon religious liberty.  Turn back and see from the sufferings endured by our Baptist fathers at what cost this liberty we now enjoy was obtained and how joyfully those fathers paid that price in the dungeon and at the whipping post.  It is no mere accident that wherever Baptist views have prevailed, men have been left to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences with none to molest or to make them afraid.”

“Soul freedom as surely comes with the adoption of Baptist principles as day comes with the rising sun.  It is the inevitable, logical outgrowth of the doctrine that each must hear for himself, repent for himself, believe for himself, confess Christ for himself, and be baptized for himself – that as we come one by one into the world, so we must go to Christ one by one…”

“The doctrine of regenerated church membership, like the light of the sun, goes everywhere and everywhere opens the way for the highest civil and religious liberty.”

“Baptists have always and everywhere protested against union of church and state.  [Baptists are] the natural enemies of every principle which would enslave the soul.”
“Our form of church government has been of unspeakable value to the world.  With us the function of the local church, our only ecclesiastical authority, there is room for the development of liberty of thought and speech…”

“If Baptists have ever failed to be in line with all movements looking to human freedom and progress, then in every such case they have gone counter to their own foundation principles.  In their own ecclesiastical organization (the local church) there is protest against every form of tyranny in religious matters, and in the equality among its membership there is a suggestion of that civic freedom which is beginning in some measure to be realized.”

“If it be the true theory of the republic that ‘that community is governed best which is governed least,’ then it is a truth which finds striking exemplification in our simple but effective – and effective because simple – church polity.”

Alfred Dickinson delivered his address in turbulent times.  In the 1880s he had witnessed the divisions wedged by the fundamentalist Baptists called Landmarkers.  He said:  “So-called Baptist champions have turned their guns upon their own citadel.  They have too often found additional vent for their pugnacious impulses in keeping up a lively fight at home within their own lines.  There is nothing such Baptists like so well as hot water – the hotter the better for them.  If necessary to make things lively, they will invent new tests of Baptist orthodoxy of which our Baptist fathers never so much as dreamed.  Anything is to their liking if it serves to foster and torment dissensions and distract and destroy feeble churches.”

Dickinson observed that “the worst enemies to any good cause are those who profess to be its champions and yet, in their teaching and living, misrepresent its spirit and aims.”

“What are Baptist principles worth to the world?” asked Dickinson so long ago; and the reply:  “Baptist principles have not only been valuable to the world, but invaluable.”  We must claim them anew for our time in history.  The Baptist principles of soul liberty, religious freedom, complete freedom of conscience, priesthood of each believer, and congregational democracy should still resonate with people of the 21st century.  Baptists were a part of their times and even ahead of their times.  Baptist principles still have worth to the world.

June 2008 Edition

Baptists in Virginia have three statewide offerings which bear the name of an outstanding female missions personality.  The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering memorializes the work of a Virginia-born-and-reared missionary, the renowned Charlotte Diggs “Lottie” Moon.  Her work is so well known and her life so legendary that scarcely a word of identification needs to be made.  Across the long years, the annual offering has helped fund the major portion of the operating needs of the International Mission Board, SBC. 

The late Everett Deane, longtime treasurer of the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board), used to laugh about a time he took a deposit to the bank.  The account was identified as the Lottie Moon account; and a teller, who obviously was not a Baptist, said:  “I sure would like to meet this Miss Moon sometime.  She must be the wealthiest woman in the world!”

Lottie Moon was wealthy in the depth and extent of her love for her fellow humanity.  She was converted at age 18 in a meeting held at First Baptist Church, Charlottesville, in 1859 and was baptized by John A. Broadus, who became identified with the creation of a theological seminary for Southern Baptists.  She was appointed to the China missions field in 1873.  She appealed for support from the Baptist women of the South; and in 1888 the first annual Christmas offering was taken. 

Lottie Moon so identified with the Chinese people that she suffered along with them during times of famine.  She literally starved along with them.  She died on Christmas Eve, 1912, on her way home to Virginia.

Annie Armstrong was not a Virginian; but she did live nearby!  She was born and she died in Baltimore.  She was converted at age 19 and was baptized by Richard Fuller, a powerful preacher who was something of a bridge himself between Baptists of the North and the South.  Fuller was pastor of Seventh Baptist Church when Annie Walker Armstrong accepted Christ, and in 1871 Fuller led in the organization of a new church, Eutaw Place.  Annie Armstrong was among those who joined the new church.  She taught “the infant class,” which usually referred to young children below age 12, for three decades.

The “woman’s work for women” movement caught the imagination and inspiration of many women, including Miss Annie.  In 1888 she was present in Richmond, Virginia, when Woman’s Missionary Union, SBC, was organized.  From the founding until 1906, Miss Annie served as the corresponding secretary of WMU, SBC.  She was the glue which kept the organization together.  In the lean years, she paid for her travel expenses.  For years, she refused a salary. 

As early as the 1890s, women were giving through the WMU for home missions projects.  A week of “self-denial” emerged, and the offering was the fruit of the harvest.  In 1934, WMU named the annual offering for Annie Armstrong.  She died four years later.  The offering became known as the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for Home Missions.  It was a companion to Miss Lottie’s Christmastide offering for missions around the world.

Several states chose to name their state missions offerings after female missionaries or missions-support personalities.  In 1998 Virginia Baptists – through their General Association – proudly named their state missions offering after Alma Hunt.  A daughter of Virginia, she was born on October 5, 1909, in Roanoke, Virginia.  She grew up in the First Baptist Church of her hometown.  At age 10, she was baptized by John Vines, who was pastor of the church and known for his missions support.  But it was Vines’ wife, Valeria Mabel Vines, president of Virginia WMU, who took the young Alma Hunt under her tutelage.  When young Alma flubbed over parliamentary law in the Girls’ Auxiliary, Mrs. Vines said:  “Now, Alma, just sit down and get back up and start over.”

As a youth and young woman, Alma Hunt was active in the life of her church, serving as superintendent of the young people’s department of the Sunday School.  Beginning in 1932, she served as recreation leader at the Young Woman’s Auxiliary conferences at Ridgecrest.  It was a beginning, but it was still a long way from executive leadership.

In 1944 she became dean of women at William Jewell College.  It was from her college administrative position that she was elected as executive secretary of Woman’s Missionary Union, SBC, in 1948.  From her bright personality to the bright red fingernail polish, she stood out among all the rest of the women.

She possessed a lively and engaging manner, while at the same time displaying executive material.  During her tenure of 26 years, she brought the national organization to great heights.  The giving to the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings dramatically increased.  A national headquarters building was secured.  And Miss Hunt became a recognized figure on denominational platforms around the world.

In 1974 she retired from the national position, but she really never quit giving of herself.  For 35 years of so-called “retirement,” she served as an unofficial (and sometimes official) ambassador of goodwill among Baptists.  She accepted countless speaking engagements and always hit the mark in her presentations.  She clearly was Virginia’s premier figure in the arena of missions and denominational involvement.  She offered her name to every good cause, including the Virginia Baptist Children’s Home ministries and the state missions offering of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and the Woman’s Missionary Union of Virginia. 

Three remarkable women (and two of them daughters of the Old Dominion) are the people behind the annual missions offerings supported by Virginia Baptists.  They are women to know.  They are women yet to follow in terms of giving.

May 2008 Edition

For Baptists, especially Virginia Baptists, they were a stellar couple.  They were the epitome of achievement and of leadership.  They were stars in a world which respected service and humility. 

Today their faded photographs stare from an old album.  On the walls of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society there are two oil portraits of him, as well as a marble bust.  On a parlor wall in the Grace Baptist Church in Richmond there is a classically posed oil portrait of her.  Their likenesses survive and so do, in some fashion, their accomplishments.

The couple was the Jeters – Jeremiah Bell Jeter and his fourth wife, Mary Catherine “Kate” Jeter.  In the custom of women taking men’s surnames, she had a list as long as a freight train.  Mary Catherine Williams was her birth name.  Her father deserted her mother and his daughters.  In the Petersburg of the early 19th century, there were few ways for a woman to make a living.  Mary Catherine’s mother became a sought-after seamstress who made fashionable clothes for the wealthy women of the city.  Several marriages gave Mary Catherine more last names:  Jennett, Dabbs, and, finally, Jeter.

Death was a frequent visitor in the 19th century, and Jeremiah Jeter and Mary Catherine Williams Jennett Dabbs had experienced much grief.  Both must have wondered if it was the better part of good judgment to have taken yet another hand in marriage. 

Jeter confided to a friend that he was smitten, “bewitched” by the Widow Dabbs.  She probably was enchanted by the tall, distinguished, and prominent preacher who was pastor of Grace Street Baptist Church in Richmond.  She had come into the city, giving her home along Nine Mile Road in Eastern Henrico to General Lee for his military needs.  In the city the two became acquainted, and on May 5, 1863, 145 years ago this spring, a remarkable union took place.

Jeter already was arguably the most prominent of the 19th-century Baptist ministers in Virginia.  As a youth, he had been the General Association’s first state missionary along with his friend, Daniel Witt.  The self-styled “Bedford Plowboys” had covered the state by horseback for two years, preaching and observing where one day Baptist churches might be planted.  Already Jeter had occupied some of the choicest pulpits, including Morattico on the Northern Neck (the great mother church of Baptists in the area) and First Baptist Church of Richmond.

Jeter was known beyond Virginia.  He was among those who helped form the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845.  He was the first president of its Foreign Mission Board.  He was instrumental in every endeavor to develop and promote Richmond College, the Baptist school. 

Together Mary Catherine and Jeremiah Jeter were an unbeatable team.  After “the War,” the two, along with A.E. Dickinson, purchased the Religious Herald, the state Baptist newspaper.  Jeter wrote the editorials and Mary Catherine wrote the women’s page, columns for children, and book reviews.  The Herald became widely read across the country.

Mary Catherine was asked by H.A. Tupper of the Foreign Mission Board to promote the cause of missions by raising funds for a home for the Moon sisters, Lottie and Edmonia, in China.  She led the Virginia women in the organizing of what became known as Woman’s Missionary Union of Virginia.  The Virginia women did take the Moon house project as their first undertaking.

Mary Catherine led in organizing the first home for the aged to be operated by Baptists in Virginia.  It could be argued that it was the forerunner of the Virginia Baptist Homes.  She also founded the first home in Richmond for unwed mothers.

The wedding in May 1863 was the beginning of an eventful 17 years for the Jeters and, through them, for all Virginia Baptists.

April 2008 Edition

In the recent past, Virginia Baptists have welcomed several new presidents to the educational and theological schools affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia.  Michael Puglisi became president of Virginia Intermont College in the fall of 2006, and last November David Olive was inaugurated as president of Bluefield College.  Also in 2007, Ron Crawford became president of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, and Mark Olson was elected president of the John Leland Center for Theological Studies.

This month in our history, on Friday, April 11, the University of Richmond inaugurates its ninth president, Edward Ayers, who is an historian by profession.  Ever since its humble yet hopeful beginnings, the University of Richmond (as academy, seminary, college, and, since 1920, as university) has been a bright jewel for Virginia Baptists.  They birthed and nurtured the institution.  They contributed in fat times and lean times.  They gave of their sons and daughters.  And although, in November 1999, the official relationship changed between UR and the BGAV, there remains an overall positive impression of the institution in the minds of many Virginia Baptists.  They are proud that it has acquired a lofty status in American higher education, yet they believe that it always was an academically rigorous institution for whichever period of time is examined.

Nearly all colleges and universities worth their salt claim “excellence.”  It should be expected that all institutions of higher learning, from community colleges to Ivy League schools, should offer the very best educational advantages.  The University of Richmond, like many other church-related and value-based institutions, also offered something beyond book learning, athletics, and social camaraderie.  It was one of those places which believed that mankind has a spiritual dimension.  It still acknowledges the spiritual side by offering chaplains, worship services, and religious life opportunities.

In 1936 James H. Franklin, a native Virginian and president of Crozer Theological Seminary “up North,” returned to his alma mater, the University of Richmond, to address an alumni gathering.  Seventy years ago the school was Baptistic in its chief constituency, alumni, and donor base.  The Religious Herald published Franklin’s address verbatim. 

The times may have changed, yet Franklin’s message is timeless.  He began by reminding his audience that Virginia Baptists early valued the educated mind.  “These plain people called Baptists,” said Franklin, “desired more trained leaders to propagate principles of freedom in religion.”

In 1783 some Virginia Baptists were sending money to aid the Baptist school in Rhode Island which became known as Brown University.  In 1788 a large committee of Virginia Baptists was appointed to consider establishing two seminaries in Virginia, one on either side of the James River.  Nothing materialized until Edward Baptist opened his little Dunlora Academy in 1830.  It is from that academy that the University of Richmond historically has chosen to trace its lineage.  The academy and its successor, the Virginia Baptist Seminary, were supported by the Virginia Baptist Education Society.  In 1840 the seminary became Richmond College, a liberal arts school.  Generations of Baptist clergy and laity received their undergraduate education at Richmond College.  In 1914, largely through the support of the Baptists of the General Association, the school relocated to its expansive campus in the western suburbs of Richmond and added an entirely new college for women, Westhampton. 

James Franklin said:  “I understand the freedom of spirit which I, a country lad, found in old Richmond College and which, God grant, shall obtain here so long as one stone rests upon another in these stately buildings.  I found no coercion.  Even the courses were elective.  Not even the study of the Bible was compulsory, and attendance upon all religious exercises was voluntary.  I now understand it.  It was a tradition from the distant past – a glorious heritage – Freedom of the Spirit!”

Speaking in 1936, Franklin said:  “We may soon be facing serious limitations on freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly.  We hear many voices calling on us to support the Constitution of the United States, but often the orators are forgetting that the first amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly.  And let us not forget that the plain people called Baptists, who were the spiritual ancestors of the founders of Richmond College, were largely responsible for that first amendment.”

“The soul of man must be free.  History seems to teach that there is no permanent progress, except in the freedom of the spirit.  Hence we repudiate all dictators, ecclesiastical, theological, political, or industrial; and if we are true to our principles, we shall insist upon equality of opportunity – religious, civic, economic, and otherwise – for men everywhere, regardless of race, social status, or other conditions.  Nothing less than that is consistent with our traditions and heritage.”

“A fundamental principle among those who founded Richmond College was the need for personal righteousness.  Nothing is more necessary today as we seek solution for our baffling problems, such as racial hatreds, economic injustice, and international conflicts.  We can never have a new society without men and women who have been spiritually renewed.  We need constantly to bear in mind a fundamental teaching of this school, generation after generation, that only as men are made better shall we get a better world.”

Who was James H. Franklin?  He was born into a family of plain and hard-working folks in Pamplin, Virginia, and he found Christ in that home as well as in Elon Baptist Church, where he was baptized and ordained.  He first learned about Richmond College when he saw a certificate in his grandmother’s Bible.  It was one of the certificates given when a contribution was made to restore the college’s endowment in the 1870s.  When he arrived at the college in homespun, he had 75 cents in his pocket.

After Richmond College, he attended Southern Seminary and for a while lived in Colorado.  He came into the tribe of Baptists known then as the Northern Convention and, later, as the American Baptist Convention.  A Virginian, he had become a Northerner.  For 22 years he was foreign secretary of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society and traveled the world.  Following World War I, he toured France on behalf of religious and reconstruction work and was made a member of the Legion of Honor.

In 1934 Franklin delivered his own inaugural address as president of Crozer Seminary.  His address stressed the historic Baptist tenet of freedom – “academic freedom in this case, but freedom controlled by the Cross of Christ and expressed in sacrificial service; and in conclusion he unfurled to the breezes the banner of a Crozer interdenominational, international, and interracial.” 

We should expect academic excellence at all of our schools, public and private; but at the schools which have worn and yet unfurl the Baptist banner, we should expect something more.  It is this something more which has made “our Baptist schools” distinct.  At our two theological institutions, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and the John Leland Center for Theological Studies – as well as at Bluefield, Intermont, Oak Hill Academy, and the two military schools, Hargrave and Fork Union – we find that the something more is the underlying yet pervading Christian influence with its freedom of the Spirit.

March 2008 Edition

Exactly two centuries ago, on March 19, 1808, John Spencer was born in Buckingham County, Virginia.  Unless he is part of your family tree or you are a history buff in a Buckingham Baptist congregation, you probably have never heard of John Spencer.  It is understandable.  He never wrote a book.  He never headed some large organization.  He devoted his entire ministerial career to “weak, struggling churches.”  He never did anything which would have earned him fame as the world defines it. 

In his own lifetime, he was not well known beyond the borders of Buckingham County.  He likely never attended a state Baptist meeting and certainly not a national meeting.  He lived out his days and died in the county of his birth.  His was a very small world.

And it is a world which has not changed dramatically even after two centuries.
The area was (and remains) rural.  There were many scattered farms with isolated homes.  In the period, there were only about three Baptist churches; and they, too, were at considerable distance from each other.  The three were Providence, Union, and Buckingham.  The three together might have had 275 members at the beginning of the 19th century.  Even today the churches are small and scattered across the countryside.

About the only visible changes from the Buckingham of the 19th century are the paved main highways.  In Spencer’s day they all were dirt, and they were either dusty or muddy depending on the weather.  

In about 1829, at age 21, Spencer was converted and joined one of the Baptist churches.  The next year he began preaching.  In those days, there was no seminary for the Baptists in Virginia.  Often a young minister would study under the guidance of an older minister.  It is not certain that Spencer ever had this opportunity.  In Powhatan County, Edward Baptist had opened a small academy for ministers at his farm.  But it appears that John Spencer could not take advantage of the schooling.  He was self-taught, and he primarily relied upon one book, God’s Word, and one publication, the weekly Religious Herald.

It was said that although lacking formal theological training, he was “a most original preacher.”  He developed his own style.  He discovered his own sources for sermon illustrations. 

The story is told that once when the district association – known since 1832 as the James River Association – met, the preacher assigned to deliver the annual sermon failed to appear.  The moderator began to buttonhole the ministers, desperately attempting to fill the slot on the program.  Several college-educated ministers declined, “saying they had no time for preparation.”  When John Spencer was asked, he agreed with a stipulation:  “A text was to be set down upon a slip of paper, which he was not to see until he was ready to begin to preach.”  No preparation.  John Spencer would have to depend upon instant inspiration and native ability!

The stipulation was met.  As he approached the pulpit desk, he was given the Scripture text.  Afterwards, it was observed by his fellow preachers that he had presented his message with sound Bible knowledge and scored a preaching victory.

John Spencer – obscure and unheralded – was the primary human instrument in conveying a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ to some 3,000 converts.  It would appear that over the course of his eighty years in one locale, he must have touched practically all the lives within his world.  He married and buried most of the people of Buckingham.

John Spencer was not unlike most of the Baptist ministers of his generation.  They largely were self-taught, self-giving, and, for the most part, self-supported.  Many of them were farmers, merchants, and schoolteachers as well as pastors.  They were the backbone of the Baptist ministry.  This month in our history we remember and salute just one of those old soldiers of the cross.

February 2008 Edition

Exactly a century ago this year, in 1908, Edgar Young Mullins, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, published The Axioms of Religion.  It quickly became a landmark in Baptist literature.  Generations of Baptist preachers learned the axioms and repeated them to their congregations. 

What were the axioms?  Check my column in the Religious Herald with the publication date of February 7 for the full listing and additional information about Mullins.  For this e-newsletter column for the month of February, “the love month” since it boasts St. Valentine’s Day, allow me to quote from Mullins’ classic on the sixth axiom – the social axiom.  In essence, it was to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

A century ago, Mullins wrote:  “The true imitation of Christ consists not in asking ‘What would Jesus do?’ merely, but in asking ‘What would Jesus have us to do?’  Christ cannot be copied.  He is less a model for us than an archetype.  We may imitate but not copy him.  To copy Christ would be to attempt to cure the blind by anointing his eyes with clay mixed with out own spittle.  To imitate him is to devise measures legal and otherwise to relieve and to prevent blindness.  To copy Christ is to attempt to feed the hungry thousands by a miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes.  To imitate Christ is to labor for equitable social conditions, just laws, and equal privileges for men that they may earn their own bread.  To imitate Christ is not to take sides with labor against capital or with capital against labor in the contest for rights, but rather to teach capital and labor to perform their respective duties.  Christ did not deal directly with human rights, though no teacher ever did so much to establish them.  He dealt with human duties knowing that this was the point needing emphasis.  Christ was not concerned so much with property as he was with persons.  He valued men more than houses or lands.  Our statute books exhibit their distance from him in nothing more than in their overweening regard for property along with slight consideration of life and person.”

“We are disloyal to Christ so long as we regard the political or commercial world as a foreign country to the Christian.  To think of it as under the curse of God is virtually to deliver it over to the dominion of Satan.”

“Christ cannot be claimed as the special patron of any particular reform movement.  The Socialists and Communists try to claim him [again, remember that this was written 100 years ago], and so the individualists, and the anarchists, and revolutionaries of all kinds.  But he is greater than they all.  His cause absorbs all the truth in each of them.  These little systems have their day and then they cease to be.  They grow to maturity and flourish like the trees of a forest and then, dying, fall piecemeal to fertilize the soil below.  He is the sun which warms the soil in which lie slumbering the seeds of his kingdom and causes them to germinate and grow up to supply spiritual bread for mankind.”

Mullins wrote much more.  The social axiom constitutes only one chapter in his book of over 300 pages.  But in a month where we deliberately consider love of friends and even strangers, it is interesting to ponder the full dimension of the social axiom.  If we place Christ at the head of our lives, a place he wants to occupy, our entire attitude toward our neighbors next door and around the world will change.  What is best for them?  What would make them prosper and enjoy life to the fullest?  What can be done for their benefit?  Remember, Mullins said that it was not so much “What Would Jesus Do?” (which became a maxim in our time) but “What Would Jesus Have Us to Do?”  And then to have the courage and creativity to do it.

Edgar Young Mullins and his wife, Isla May Mullins, were once newcomers in Richmond, Virginia.  As young marrieds, they came to Richmond for the young minister to accept an administrative post at the Foreign Mission Board.  It was to be a new position.  At first, it was classified as “assistant secretary” to the “head man” in the days when the top executive was known as “the secretary”; but Mullins countered that he would prefer the title of “associate secretary” and it was granted. 

The new position was to be in the area of education – educating the Baptist people on the fundamentals of foreign missions work and its full potential.  Robert J. Willingham, the long-time executive head of the Board, was to continue in administrative work.  But it soon became evident that the plan of two “associates” in the key leadership would not work.  The younger man carried his disappointment quietly, not even sharing his frustrations with his wife.

The young couple barely had settled on the Richmond scene.  They could not have met very many social friends beyond the inner circle of the Foreign Mission Board, but they soon would discover that there were many unknown friends.

A pastoral invitation came to Mullins.  It was for one of the most enticing pastorates in the Northeast, the Newton Centre Church in Massachusetts, which was near the Newton Theological Institution, Harvard, Wellesley, and Brown.  It included people of educational attainment and accomplishment.  Since the Foreign Mission Board position had become a disappointment, it was clear that he should accept and repack the moving boxes.

As a last duty for the Board, he undertook a missions trip to Texas.  It was in February, 1896.  While on this trip, Mullins received a message which every parent fears.

The couple’s seven-year-old son, Wheeler, suddenly had taken ill.  Isla May called for a doctor and in the days of home visits, a physician visited the Mullins’ home.  He felt the fever and examined the little patient.  He pronounced it “a slight digestive disturbance.”  After another day, the doctor came again and found the patient seemingly improved.  The doctor had not been gone but a few minutes before the mother noticed a change in her son.  She cried out for someone to get in touch with the doctor.

In those critical moments, little Wheeler mouthed the words of a Sunday School song, “I live for those who love me, for those who know me true.”  Within minutes, he was dead.

Years later, Isla May Mullins wrote of the moment when her son passed into eternity.  “Before the spirit quite passed, a strange thing happened.  Beside [me] stood the Master himself, gently waving.  It was a spiritual vision, but so well defined that years have not dimmed it and eternity will confirm it.”

And what about those Richmond neighbors, the people whom they had barely come to know?  “Richmond poured out its heart of kindness for the bereaved young mother, alone in her great sorrow,” recalled Isla May Mullins.  “But I only smiled and said that I was not alone, which no one could understand, but which did not lessen the flow of loving thoughtfulness during the five days when I waited for the coming of husband and father.”

What would Jesus do?  What would Jesus have us to do?  Twelve years later, when he penned the axioms of religion, E.Y. Mullins must have recalled the outpouring of love by friends and strangers and realized that he and his wife had experienced the sixth axiom of religion – the social axiom – the love of neighbor.

January 2008 Edition

New Year’s Day should be a national holiday for Baptists. It’s made for them. With all its traditional and natural emphasis on new beginnings and resolutions, why, it’s designed for Baptists.

One of the chief Baptist distinctives is the doctrine of regeneration. In theory, at least, it means that each believer is a changed, born-again, regenerated creature. Baptists have held that a collection of those changed folks, gathered together, constitute a church. It is a powerful thought.

Jeremiah Bell Jeter, the preeminent Virginia Baptist leader of the 19th century, articulated the time-honored Baptist distinctives in his landmark Baptist Principles Reset. He wrote: “A spiritual, or regenerate, church membership lies at the foundation of all Baptist peculiarities. Repentance, faith, regeneration were conditions of admission to their fellowship.”

John A. Broadus, the great seminary leader, stated: “We hold that a Christian church ought to consist only of persons making a credible profession of conversion, of faith in Christ. Maintaining that none should be received as church members unless they give credible evidence of conversion, we also hold in theory that none should be retained in membership who do not lead a godly life.”

Broadus’ last statement seems foreign to contemporary Baptists, but in the old days Baptist churches routinely and regularly disciplined the flock for all manner of transgressions.  The concept of church discipline offered the church community opportunities to deal openly and constructively with the paradox of sin within a regenerated people. It also solved many a dispute without resort to civil courts.

And, more importantly, it offered redemption. The old church records may report the exclusion of a member for some infraction, yet on the next page the records may tell that the guilty party confessed, asked forgiveness, and was reconciled – redemption and grace.

Old-time Baptists also welcomed the Holy Spirit to move among them in seasons of revival. In a sense, Virginia Baptists were products of revival. The impact of the Great Awakening in New England was felt among some of the Baptists who adopted the name of “New Lights” or “Separates.” As historian Garnett Ryland explained: “[They] insisted on vital faith as a prerequisite to church membership.”

Two powerful preachers among the Separate Baptists, Shubal Stearns and Daniel Marshall, brought revival fires to Virginia. Lives were challenged and changed; churches were planted and prospered. In yet a later revival, the two diverse groups of Baptists in Virginia – the Separates and the Regulars – came together and formed a union.

Revival became a part of Baptist tradition. Many a church set aside one or two weeks each year as invitations for revival to break forth within the community.  Often it did, and with mighty results. Many an old-time Baptist church left the revival open ended and hoped its “protracted meeting” would kindle a flame of religious zeal which would burn brightly till the next meeting.

Rededication offered another avenue for Baptists. And usually instead of an avenue it was an aisle – a church aisle and a waiting hand from a welcoming minister – that provided the means for a renewal of those within the community of believers.

Charles Spurgeon, the English evangelist, put it this way: “You must have a new heart and a right spirit and baptism cannot give you these. You must transform your sins and follow after Christ; you must have such a faith as shall make your life holy and your speech devout.”
        
Francis Wayland, the American Baptist leader, stated: “The change of heart is called, in the Scriptures, ‘regeneration,’ and hence our belief is that the church of Christ is made up wholly of regenerated persons.”

Walter Rauschenbusch, the “Social Gospel” figure, said: “Now consider how great a thing it is for a church body to assert that a man may and must come into direct personal relations with God and to adapt all its church life to create such direct spiritual experiences in men. I have met people in other churches who not only have no such experience themselves but they doubt if anybody can have it. It seems presumption to them for a man to assert that he knows he has received pardon from God and is living in conscious fellowship with him. Yet what’s all the apparatus of church life good for if it does not help men to that experience?”

Any day is a good day to be made anew in Jesus. But somehow New Year’s Day offers Baptists a special opportunity. Its traditions of resolutions and renewals seem downright Baptistic!

December 2007 Edition

Each one of us has a favorite Christmas story.  As you might expect, mine come out of the pages of Virginia Baptist history.  Robert Healy Pitt was the dean of religious newspaper editors in America when he died in 1937.  For some 50 years he had been associated with the Religious Herald, which he served as senior editor from 1906 until his death.  His writings often included glimpses into earlier periods of life in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Below are his Christmas memories as shared in the Herald in December 1926.  The article is included in a collection entitled Christmas among the Baptists of Virginia, which has been published by the Virginia Baptist Historical Society.

“The Christmas season has passed in the case of this writer through three quite distinct seasons.  First, the Christmas of childhood days.  Many years have passed, years filled with duties, responsibilities, joys, griefs, all manner and all variety of human experiences.  Nonetheless, those [childhood] days come back in memory with a clearness of detail almost startling.”

“The scenes that are recalled were laid in a quiet and remote country section [known as Middlesex County, Virginia].  They date in the middle 1860s, during a part of which Virginia was engulfed in the great war of ’61-65.  Notwithstanding all the horrors of war and of the collapse which followed, the Christmas scene was joyous for the little ones.”

“To be sure, its joys were simple.  Expenditures for the celebration of the season were very limited, but the traditional stocking was hung at Christmas Eve.  And the eager boy or girl was glad to find in it, bright and early Christmas morning, something like these:  a big red apple, an orange, a bunch of raisins, a little striped peppermint candy, a few homemade cakes, and in the war years a handful of chestnuts, which became a little later a handful of almonds, pecans, and palm nuts.  This would about conclude the list of presents for the youngsters…but the zest with which the children of that day enjoyed these simple things is fully equal to that with which the more sophisticated boy of [today] welcomes his more elaborate and costly gifts.”

“The Christmas table was well laden.  The inevitable turkey was at hand, the country ham was on deck, oysters were in abundance…The tide of youthful blood ran high in our veins, and the simple winter sports of the countryside were keenly relished.  Alas, how far away and yet how neat it all seems!”

“A later stage of the Christmas season came when the boy had grown…and had his own children around him.  Then the season brought a new pleasure…in seeing the little faces glow and in hearing the little voices cry out with delight.  It is good to have one season in the year when we are thinking more of the comfort and happiness of others than our own.”

“Now the third stage has come.  The children are all grown and married.  They come back for a brief season and their coming is in itself a Christmas joy beyond computation.  They bring with them the third generation and everybody knows that the chief folk in that large family circle will be the little folk.  And so the grandchildren take charge.  Now they must have more costly, elaborate novelties.  Yet the childish laugh will ring out and the joy of the childish hearts will be just as merry and just as contagious as ever.”

“What a blessed Savior He was who brought into a world of gloom and darkness so much light and gladness.  Nowhere, save where the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ reigns, is there a season of the year when the vast majority of our people are thinking of how to give pleasure to others rather than themselves.  [Let’s] take the spirit of Christmastide into all the rest of the year.”

And so we should, even in our time of Christmas 2007.  Merry Christmas!

November 2007 Edition

Last month this column told about a man – Henry Keeling Ellyson, the long-time executive leader of Virginia Baptists in the 19th century – and his vision: the planting of new church starts wherever the railroads placed depots.  No matter how expansive and bold a vision, it can do little without money.  Just as the old locomotives needed to be stoked with coal, the Virginia Baptist enginery needed to be fueled.

Charles Hill Ryland, a Virginia Baptist leader of the period and treasurer of “the Baptist school,” Richmond College, realized better than most folks that the General Association would never move forward without a great push.  In 1881 on the floor of the BGAV annual meeting held at Grace St. Church, Richmond, Ryland presented a motion “that a committee of 22 (one from each District Association, if practicable) be appointed to inquire and report what plans, if any, should be devised for securing a more active cooperation between this body and the churches and District Associations of the State.”

For the most part, the district associations were weak, and many of the churches unresponsive to the great challenges which were before Virginia Baptists; most of the churches had no plan for systematic giving to the state association, and the various Boards (Education, Sunday School, and Bible) were competing for funds.  As for the latter problem, Ellyson once remarked:  “We do not complain that too much was given to the other Boards, but too little to this [one for state missions].”

The State Mission Board had 34 missionaries scattered across Virginia.  They performed Herculean work.  In one year alone, they had organized 4 new churches, begun construction on 15 houses of worship, preached 3,251 sermons, and were instrumental in the conversion of over 1,200 persons. 

The Mission Board seldom had sufficient funds to meet in a timely fashion the salaries of their missionaries.  At the same 1881 meeting, Ellyson reported that the treasurer had a balance in hand of $963.50 and the Board needed $5,272.80 just to pay the back salaries.  Multiply those figures many times over to get some idea of what they mean in today’s dollars.

In short, the churches were not giving to meet the very programs which their representatives had approved.  Ellyson pleaded to the messengers:  “You touch now only the tips of the fingers of many of the 532 churches which are among your givers.  You must get near enough to take hold of them with so warm a fraternal grip that they shall all feel through you the heart-beatings of the whole Baptist brotherhood and be drawn into closer union and more active service.”

Ryland’s Committee on Cooperation was a giant leap forward.  Baptist leadership across the state began to discuss the problem of adequate financing in light of mammoth needs. 

In 1882, the General Association met at the Warrenton Baptist Church.  Ryland delivered the annual sermon and he used the opportunity to match vision with resources.  The sermon was immediately recognized for its impact and importance.  The Religious Herald published it in full. 

Charles Ryland minced no words.  He told his listeners that out of the 700 churches only 200 were responsible for most of the missions dollars.  He called nongiving churches “parasites” living off the generosity of others. 

“As long as the association can feed and clothe them,” he said, “they are willing to stand by.  This association is no mint for the coinage of money.  We are only the dispensers of what our people voluntarily contribute.  Let us seek churches who give nothing and teach them that it is more blessed to give than receive… [and] train and develop our churches that are not now doing their duty.”  One-third of the churches had absolutely no plan for collecting missions offerings!

Ryland’s sermon text was Ecclesiastes 8:5:  “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.”  He knew the time was right, and there was sufficient wisdom among Virginia Baptists for the task.

He pleaded:  “Oh! Let us not persist in dragging the weak, impracticable, ineffectual methods of the past behind the car of progress.  They have served their day.  Praise them and let them go.”

As for giving money to the separate Boards and not to the State Mission Board, Ryland urged:  “Let the Association calmly consider whether there is not a demand for a separate department, an additional department, a board of collection… whose sole duty it shall be to cultivate the field of resources, to educate the churches, to increase your means.”

An immediate result of Ryland’s sermon was the continuing of the Committee on Cooperation.  Over the years it cultivated an awareness and a willingness to cooperate.

It was not that Virginia Baptists were small and without means.  At the time six Virginia Baptist churches were among the eleven largest churches in the entire SBC.  There just had been no plan for giving.  Charles Ryland and the Committee on Cooperation supplied that plan and the work of Virginia Baptists took giant leaps forward.

October 2007 Edition

Henry Keeling Ellyson became possessed with a vision.  It is the mark of any effective leader that a vision is forthcoming and that it is articulated.  Ellyson was the executive leader of Virginia Baptists.  His actual title was corresponding secretary.  It was a humble title which really did not consider the magnitude of the responsibilities.  If he were serving today, he would be known as the executive director, the CEO of the Mission Board and the General Association.

Ellyson was a young man when he was elected to the position in 1848.  He was a month shy of his 25th birthday.  He was granted a salary, but he never claimed it.  In the nearly 45 years that Henry Keeling Ellyson served Virginia Baptists as a leader, he never received any financial compensation.  But circumstances never required it.  He earned his livelihood as editor of the Richmond Dispatch, a newspaper which he developed into a statewide respected source of news and opinion.

Ellyson had been in the leadership post of Virginia Baptists for over 25 years when he began to articulate a new vision.  He needed others to catch his vision.  And so he began to present it over and over again.  In short, his vision was that the Baptists should climb aboard the Iron Horse and develop new churches at every railroad depot.  He realized that the railroads were taming the vast western landscape of Virginia and he envisioned a continuous string of Baptist churches from Winchester to Bristol.

In 1875 the Mission Board and the General Association promoted a motto: “Virginia for Jesus – in every neighborhood a Baptist church.”  Ellyson reminded the messengers to an annual meeting of the BGAV that “verily the Lord is with us, and bids us go up and possess the land in his name.”

In 1879 he appealed:  “There are at the present time most potent reasons why the Valley and Appalachian divisions should receive a large share of our labors… great lines of railway already in operation and others soon to be built, open to it the markets of the world, and furnish an easy highway for the incoming thousands of our own… to enter.”

In 1881 he stated:  “In a few months 500 miles will be added to our railroads… factories, farmhouses, villages, and towns will follow.  Missionaries of Christ should go close after the track-layers to plant mission stations for the thousands who will come into our midst upon these highways of trade.  If Baptists would keep pace with the growth of Virginia, they must give this Board ample means to occupy every position opened to Christian laborers.”

But how could the Mission Board and the General Association “possess the land” with little money to fund such a bold vision?  The State Mission Board was operating with declining receipts.  Ellyson maintained:  “This reduction in our income is not due to any lack of effort on our part to keep the churches advised of the needs of this work.  The Board has had direct communication with nearly every pastor… through their clerks, deacons, and thousands of their members, so that they cannot plead want of information for their waning interest in State Missions.  We do not complain that too much was given to other Boards, but too little to this.”

“If it would impracticable to increase their annual gifts to the churches, which we are far from believing, it may be well to consider whether you are not seriously weakening the right arm of your strength by withdrawing so large a part of your offerings from State Missions.”

“You have stationed us as sentinels on the watch towers of our Virginia Zion, and we would be faithless if we did not warm you of the threatened dangers.”

Only a few churches were carrying the financial load for the many.  In an age before the development of the Cooperative Program and the expectation of systematic giving, the major portion of income had to come from dramatic appeals which were made over and over again.  After Ellyson delivered the annual report on state missions at a BGAV meeting, someone would move that subscriptions and pledges and offerings be taken to pay the salaries of the state missionaries.  A better way had to be developed.  A Committee on Cooperation was formed, and the committee studied the overall situation of financing the work of state missions.  The Committee began to recommend and the BGAV adopted measures which encouraged financial participation by all the member churches.  The vision could be given a sound foundation.

By 1882 there were 2,398 miles of railroads and more to be constructed.  New villages and towns were being created.  With adequate financial assistance, the General Association was planting new churches and/or erecting new church buildings from Winchester to Harrisonburg to Clifton Forge, a town where the C&O and the Richmond & Alleghany had a junction, to Central in Montgomery County which was on the Norfolk & Western line.  Even in the East, the new or improved work was at the railroad depots – Newport News, the eastern terminus of the C & O, West Point, and the eastern terminus of the Richmond & Danville Railroad.  By 1885 the State Mission Board had 71 state missionaries occupying fields across the state. 

At last, the motto “Virginia for Jesus” was becoming a statement of fact. 

September 2007 Edition

A century ago, this month in our history, the men in many Baptist churches were being approached about missions.  Earlier in the spring in Richmond, on the day before the opening of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, men from across the South had gathered for a meeting of possible significance.  They had come to the Calvary Baptist Church in downtown Richmond.  They had sensed the enthusiasm around organizing men for missions.

It is likely that every one of those men had a wife or mother or sister or aunt or grandmother who was a member of a women’s missionary society.  After all, women had embraced missions support some 90 years before these men gathered in Richmond.  There had been a few early men’s missionary societies, but they never caught the fervor of the societies organized by and for women.  There had been numerous men supportive of missions, but they had no central and organized group.

All of that was about to change.  The meeting in 1907 would rally the Baptist men of the South.  The program had been well planned by Joshua Levering, a layman from Baltimore and a powerhouse in political circles as well as the SBC, and W.J. Northen, a former governor of Georgia.  Before the meeting was over, the Laymen’s Missionary Movement had begun.

Virginia Baptists immediately embraced the Movement.  Two key laymen in Virginia – Lewis Bosher of Richmond and Livius Lankford of Norfolk – were effective organizers within the state.  They visited churches and kept repeating the motto adopted at the founding meeting of 1907:  “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.”
They asserted that if the laymen of all the leading denominations in the USA would tithe their income, the amount would fund “all home benevolence and evangelize the heathen world in this generation.”  The lay leaders maintained that regular systematic tithing and giving would eliminate “the present pitiful begging system of [church and missions] financing.”

“We are God’s stewards,” said the Virginia laymen, “and it behooves us to be just and honest.  We should give the tenth (some should give more), of our income: first, because it is God’s direct command over and over again and endorsed by Jesus Christ; second, because we thereby promote our spiritual and temporal interests.  Brethren, read and pray over God’s challenge.”

Within three years, the Virginia laymen had a representative to promote the Movement within each of the district associations.  These local chairmen were charged with encouraging laymen to give regularly to missions, to practice tithing, to hold missionary rallies, and to “urge men to pray more.”

By 1913 the Movement had grown to the point of requiring “a field secretary” to coordinate the work.  John Thompson Henderson, president of Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, a Virginia Baptist school, was elected; and for the next 30 years, in addition to his work in higher education, he gave leadership to the Movement.  Henderson was known to the Baptists of Virginia especially for his service as president of the BGAV.

In 1926 the Laymen’s Missionary Movement became known as the Brotherhood.  By mid-century, any Southern Baptist church big enough to have a signboard out front also had an active Brotherhood.  In the late 1950s, the Brotherhood also assumed responsibility for the missions education of boys through directing the Royal Ambassadors or “RAs,” which previously had been directed by Woman’s Missionary Union. 

Beginning in the mid-fifties, Virginia Baptists were led in their men’s missionary work by staff members at the Virginia Baptist Board.  Across the years, a succession of capable men led the program, including George Euting, James Meade, Gene Williams, and Lloyd Jackson.  In time, the Brotherhood’s men’s work became known as Baptist Men.  With the restructuring of the SBC in the 1990s, the Brotherhood Commission was dismantled and the assignment for missions emphasis for men was placed in the domain of the North American Mission Board, SBC.  Today NAMB has a program called Baptist Men on Mission (or BMEN for short).  Besides missions education, the BMEN program encourages the overall spiritual development of men as churchmen, husbands, and fathers.

A century of organized men’s missions emphasis, by whatever name and under whatever denominational entity, has accomplished great things for Kingdom work.  Men have gathered, met “real live” missionaries, learned about needs at home and abroad, considered their participation, and acted. 

Today, a scan of the annual of the BGAV in the section which reports church statistics reveals many “zeros” when it comes to reporting organized missions work for men and boys.  It does not mean that there is absolutely no missions activity for and by males.  There are men active in partnership missions, on construction teams, in disaster relief, in toolbox ministries, in visiting sick and shut-in members, and engaged in personal missions activities.  Whether they know it or not, the year of 2007 is something of an anniversary for all the men of the Baptist churches.  The movement which began a century ago yet remains alive.

August 2007 Edition

In August 1707, a great experiment was just underway.  Only a few days earlier in July, five churches had formed the Philadelphia Baptist Association.  It was the first Baptist association in the United States, and it was patterned after Baptist associations in England.

“The Philadelphia,” as it became known, gave rise to the organization of others which proved influential within their spheres:  Charleston in South Carolina, formed in 1751; Kehukee in North Carolina (and for a while spilling over into southern Virginia); Ketocton in Virginia, 1766; and Warren in Rhode Island, 1767.  Another very influential early association was Sandy Creek, which was established in 1756 in North Carolina.  Sandy Creek had a direct influence especially across the southern tier of Virginia.  Walter B. Shurden, the highly regarded dean of Baptist historians, developed an entire thesis about the influence of “the Charleston tradition” and “the Sandy Creek tradition.”

The movement to establish local “district” associations among Baptists was a stroke of genius.  Otherwise, these independent, autonomous congregations had no cohesive form, no means of communication, no interchange of ideas.  The concept of freely cooperating through associations was at the root of denominationalism.  It brought the several into one, while preserving the uniqueness of each church. 

For Baptists, there never would be “the Church” but many churches.  And it was more than mere semantics.  Theron Price explained:  “Early Baptists had a high doctrine of the local congregation precisely because they took with radical seriousness the reality of the church of God.  A local church was important just because it was meant to be, in its own time and place, the embodiment of the whole church.  Each church was independent.  But all churches were interdependent.  They were congregations expressing a common faith, walking together in a common calling, and sharing a common experience.  Their interdependence was expressed in the principles of association and cooperation.”

It was in the annual meetings of the associations that wider community was built.  The Baptist people from one hollow met their cousins from the next hollow.  The Baptist people from over the mountain glimpsed another perspective by crossing over, sharing in a great meeting, and breaking bread together.  They heard some of the choice preachers of their day.  When the missions movement took hold, they personally encountered missionaries at the ‘ssociation meetings.  When churches had doctrinal questions, they sent queries to sound out their fellow baptized believers.  In time, the associations became great training grounds for the churches and allowed local leadership to develop.

In the 1700s, some Virginia churches and associations sent delegates to the Philadelphia Association’s meetings.  It, therefore, had an influence upon the early Virginia Baptists; but it also had a far wider influence.  Directly or indirectly, the Philadelphia touched all of Baptist life in America.  Its Confession of Faith became the basis of much of the doctrinal thought of the Baptists.

Cathcart’s Encyclopedia (1881) said it best:  “The influence of the Philadelphia Association has been greater in shaping Baptist modes of thinking and working than any other body in existence.  It has been the warm friend of missions at home and abroad, its ministers making missionary tours all over our country.  It has always been the friend of Sunday schools.  It was a tower of strength to our persecuted brethren in other colonies in times when they suffered great legal oppression.  It gave them financial aid and good counsel, and lent the weight of its great influence in seeking a redress of grievances from men in power, and it has ever demanded liberty for all men to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences.”

The Philadelphia led the way in support of Baptist seminaries and schools of higher learning.  They supported what became Brown University.  They set a noble example; and the Virginia Baptists as early as the 1780s were hoping to emulate in the areas of education.  The bold plan was to establish not one but two seminaries of learning on either side of the James River.  The plan never materialized, but the seed of the idea had been planted.  In 1830, the Virginia Baptist Education Society was formed, and it supported private academies of learning for ministers.  In short order, the Virginia Baptist Seminary was created, which evolved into Richmond College or today’s University of Richmond.  Other schools followed.  In our time in history, we have witnessed the creation of two seminaries in Virginia.  Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and the John Leland Center for Theological Studies might be considered the ultimate fulfillment of the early vision of Virginia Baptists.

The Philadelphia undergirded missions; and once the movement spread, Virginia associations were quick to join the chorus for missionary promotion and support.  At least one “district” association, the Goshen, even had its own missionary-sending board in the 19th century.  Several of the Virginia associations in urban areas developed local missions, especially in the form of “goodwill centers.”  In time, the larger associations added staff for community missions and developed the concept of associational missions in even greater ways.  The Philadelphia supported Sunday schools; and the Virginia associations became champions of the Sunday schools, as well as all other forms of religious education.  Often the district associations would sponsor special “schools” on various topics.

In the essentials, we have not wavered much from the same concept of associationalism of 300 years ago.  We have not surrendered one whit of our independence on the local church or local association levels while embracing other Baptists and enlarging our tent.  We have not ceased in our understanding that we can do more together than separately.  We have not abandoned an appreciation for the educated mind nor lessened our enthusiasm for the practical value of Sunday schools and church training.  We have embraced creative new ways to “do missions.”  The experiment is still working!

July 2007 Edition

Every Fourth of July the flags fly from front porches and the bunting drapes many a public building.  The afternoons may be devoted to backyard cookouts or family picnics, but the evening in a town or city worth its salt is ablaze with fireworks.  It is a time of national pride, harkening all the way back to the patriots who secured independence in the American Revolution.

Where were the Virginia Baptists in that time of struggle and triumph?  As individuals, many of the Baptist persuasion were engaged as soldiers in the war.  As a people, they were organized and campaigning for full religious liberty.  When the dust settled and a new order emerged, the Virginia Baptists wanted the old system of a state church to be gone, replaced by complete freedom of conscience.  They wanted to be free of any connection between the government and an established church.

In the meantime, they did what they could.  The Separate Baptists’ General Association petitioned the General Assembly to permit them to supply preachers for the Colonial troops, and the offer was accepted.  Jeremiah Walker and John Williams, two powerful preachers, “went and preached to the soldiers when encamped in the lower parts of Virginia.”  George Washington himself knew his Baptist neighbors and declared that they were “uniformly and almost unanimously the firm friends of civil liberty.” 

The war captured much of the attention of the preachers and people.  Great hopes were placed upon the success of the endeavor.  The growth and expansion of the Baptists almost took a second seat to the first priority of securing independence from Great Britain and all the tyrannical laws which had been imposed.  Some of the key leaders among the Baptists fell away, and there was general spiritual decline among the Baptist people.

Robert Baylor Semple’s history of 1810 pictured the situation:  “Perhaps we may add, that many did not rightly estimate the true source of liberty, nor ascribe its attainment to the proper arm.  In consequence of which, God sent them liberty, and with it, leanness of soul.”  The cause of spiritual life languished.  And once peace and independence were won, Semple pinpointed another enemy:  the pursuit of economic opportunity and wealth.  Some of the best and brightest of the Virginia Baptist clergy removed themselves (and many within their congregations) to the new western territory of Kentucky. 

“The love of many waxed cold.  Some of the watchmen fell, others stumbled, and many slumbered at their posts.  Iniquity greatly abounded.  Associations were but thinly attended, and the business badly conducted.  The long and great [decline] induced many to fear that the times of refreshing would never come, but that God had wholly forsaken them.”

Where was the zeal which had persisted so long, especially during the time of persecution?  Some mocked the Virginia Baptists:  “Their enemies often reproached them.”  It seemed that the great movement of Baptist growth and development had halted.  Some of the most loyal of Virginia Baptists wondered aloud about their downfall.  Semple worded it in biblical language:  “Oh! That it were with us as in days past, when the candle of the Lord shined upon us.”

And then the Lord of the harvest did His work.  In 1785, along the James River, revival fires began to ignite.  “It spread, as fire among stubble.  Continuing for several years, in different parts:  very few churches were without the blessing:  How great the change!”

The general revival of the 1780s was emotional in its display.  “It was not unusual to have a large portion of the congregation prostrate on the floor; and in some instances, they have lost the use of their limbs.  Screams, cries, groans, songs, shouts, and hosannas, notes of grief and notes of joy, all heard at the same time, made a heavenly confusion, a sort of indescribable concert.  Even the wicked and unenlightened were astonished and said, ‘The Lord hath done great things for this people.’”

The great revival continued from 1785 to at least 1792:  seven years of remarkable spiritual experiences.  Thousands were converted and the effect was seen not only among Virginia Baptists, but also among those of other denominations. 

As in almost anything, there were positive and negative results even to the great revival.  There surprisingly was a decline in the number of young persons expressing a call to the ministry.  John Leland wondered if it was because “the old preachers stand in their way.”    The Baptists gained a degree of social recognition and even respectability which carried as much negative as positive results.  Something of the beauty in “simplicity and plainness” vanished as the Baptists began to formalize their worship and adopt the ways of more socially acceptable religious societies.  “Party spirit and even vanity” began to divide Baptists, especially among the ministers. 

All in all, the Baptists came out the better because of the great revival.  More souls were added into the Kingdom.  With religious liberty secured, energy could be directed to evangelism and eventually to practical missions.  New churches were planted.  Crude wooden meetinghouses gave way to brick and stone.  The Virginia Baptists were on the rise once again!

In July, Baptists can enjoy patriotic fervor as well as anyone.  They can fire off the crackers and rockets.  They also might give some thought to what comes after celebration of temporal victories.  The spiritual side of mankind also needs victories.  The post-Revolution revival provided something truly worth celebrating.

June 2007 Edition

June is always celebrated for the emancipation of the slaves in the United States.  On June 19, 1865, the slaves in Galveston, Texas, heard a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation; and forever after, “Juneteenth” has been celebrated around the world.  The full legal steps also were taken in June 1865, following the Civil War, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed, thereby abolishing slavery. 

Prior to the Civil War and to the constitutional change, there were some Virginia Baptists who freed their slaves.  Thaddeus Herndon and Traverse Herndon, two brothers from Fauquier County, Virginia, were among the progressive Baptists who sent their slaves to Liberia.

Thaddeus Herndon was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in May 1807.  He was the first son of the family; but there would be three other sons, all destined for the Baptist ministry!   The Herndons became a family of note among the Baptists of Northern Virginia. 

Thaddeus was baptized in 1828 into the fellowship of the Long Branch Church.  He had come under the good influences of William F. Broaddus, one of the most prominent Virginia Baptist leaders of the period.

Almost from the beginning of his religious conversion, Thaddeus Herndon became known as “as sweet singer and gifted in prayer.”  The pastor had enough confidence in the young man that he turned over the prayer meetings to him.  It was from those experiences that the desire to enter the Gospel ministry was born.

Thaddeus was licensed and ordained and set apart as an evangelist or local missionary, laboring in the several counties of Northern Virginia.  He traveled considerable distances by horseback to visit those who needed to hear the joyous news of the Savior.  When he finally accepted two settled pastorates in Prince William and Loudoun, he still had to commute – again, by horseback – and do this week after week for a total of 40 years.  Someone estimated that he would cover a thousand miles by horseback each year just to visit his flocks.

It is no wonder that Thaddeus was described as a “stalwart, courageous, self-sacrificing, faithful country preacher, of the saddlebags type.”  Those bags would be loaded with supplies, religious tracts, Bibles, and testaments.

He was “gifted in prayer.”  Every day in the Herndon home, at morning and night, the family, servants, and guests were gathered for family devotionals.  One former overnight guest once admitted that he had been “convicted of sin and led to Christ” because of his host’s prayers for him.  The guest later became a minister!

But the full measure of Thaddeus Herndon and of his wife, Mary Fannie Gibson Herndon, was revealed when they freed their slaves.  The Herndons – Thaddeus and his brother Traverse – reached the conclusion that slavery was morally wrong.  They also realized that there was a solution to their dilemma.

In 1821 a group of freed slaves emigrated to Africa and settled in Liberia.  Among the group were Baptists from Richmond including Lott Cary and Colin Teague and their families.

Several years earlier, in 1815, the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society had been organized with Lott Cary as the secretary and Robert Baylor Semple, one of the leading figures in American Baptist life, as president.  Their purpose was to raise funds for African missions.  The American Colonization Society also fostered the concept of sending freed slaves to Africa.

The Herndons discovered that there was a way to reconcile their moral dilemma.  They could send their slaves to Liberia.  It was no small sacrifice to follow their convictions.  Their slave property was valued in antebellum dollars at $30,000.  They also knew that they would be breaking a close relationship.  Thaddeus himself said:  “We have lived together.  We have grown up together.”

The Herndons provided the necessities of life for their departing servants.  They purchased clothing, bedding, tools, equipment, and books including a family Bible for each family.  They even gave the former slaves a journal in which they had recorded the vital information of births and deaths and notes recorded by the Mistress of the farm, Mary Fannie Herndon.  They asked that the departing friends maintain the journal.

Thaddeus accompanied the servants to the ship.  An account survives of the parting scene.  It was said that the old Master began to address the servants and at times became “so choked for utterance” that he could scarcely continue.

He reminded the group that some had been “appointed by the church to watch over” the others, and he offered a special word for their benefit:  “You are chosen to admonish, guide and counsel the others, not to lord it over them, but gently and kindly to watch over their souls.”

In the hold of the sailing ship, Herndon held a prayer meeting.  Remember that he was “gifted in prayer.”  Everyone knelt and prayers were offered for safety and for a future filled with promise.  An eyewitness to the scene told of the “bursts of grief and sobs from men, women, and children.”

The years have flowed and the relationship between Liberians and Virginia Baptists has continued and strengthened.  Imagine this if you will:  the spiritual descendants of the Herndons and the spiritual descendants of those servants have – as equal brothers and sisters beneath the throne of the Father – joined hearts and hands in missions partnerships.  Today there remain opportunities for the Baptists of Virginia to assist the people of Liberia.  The Glocal Missions and Evangelism Team of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board can supply information on how individuals and churches can be of assistance.

May 2007 Edition      

In May 2007 our minds and hearts continue to be absorbed with the tragedy at Virginia Tech, which captured the world’s headlines on April 16.  It set into motion a response by Virginia Baptists – individuals, churches, collegiate ministries, Virginia Baptist Mission Board staff – which illustrated once again Christ-like compassion. 

For many of us, it brought to mind another time of crisis.  On Tuesday September 11, 2001, the day began as one of those magnificent fall days.  The sky was brilliant blue.  The air was refreshing.  And, like April 16, 2007, an unthinkable tragedy occurred in the morning and the beauty of the day could not overcome it.

This writer was working at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, mounting a new exhibit.  A telephone call alerted us to turn on the one little television set in the building.  At first, we thought it was an accident caused by a plane that went astray.  It soon was revealed that it was no accident and that a deliberate attack was unfolding before the eyes of the nation.

The next day I brought in the newspaper accounts and asked our research assistant to begin what likely would become a growing file.  For want of a subject heading, I asked her to label the file:  September 11.  Nothing else would be needed to describe its contents.

The file did grow and now is about two inches thick.  It contains the stories, especially the stories of the Virginia Baptist response to the tragedy.  There were two fronts available for ministry:  New York City and the Northern Virginia and District of Columbia area affected by the attack on the Pentagon.

The executive committee of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board arrived at the Resource Center that fateful Tuesday morning for their regular meeting.  The committee immediately turned to prayer.  The main item of business that day was the introduction of John Upton, who was to be recommended at the BGAV meeting to succeed Reginald M. McDonough as executive director.

The staff of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board experienced a double blow that week.  On September 12, Nat Kellum, the beloved treasurer of the General Association and its Board, died from a heart attack.  On September 14, the staff gathered on the front steps of the Resource Center and held a prayer meeting.  A month later, the Mission Board held its regular October meeting and adopted a statement of affirmation of the many ways in which ministry was offered to those so directly affected by the attacks.

All Virginia Baptists were proud to know that their disaster relief’s feeding unit would be sent to New York City.  From September 14 – 28, some 75 volunteers from Virginia Baptist churches provided 55,567 meals for relief workers clearing the debris from the site of the World Trade Center.  The North American Mission Board reported that the various disaster relief teams working with NAMB had served over 238,000 meals.  Jim George, Dean Miller, and Terry Raines of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board staff coordinated the disaster relief response for Virginia Baptists.  Churches were encouraged to send disaster relief donations through the treasurer’s office of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. 

Churches also found their individual ways of expression.  The ancient bell of First Baptist Church, Richmond called people to prayer.  And the people responded in Richmond and beyond.  Churches across the Commonwealth experienced an increased attendance at worship services, prayer vigils, and other times for gatherings.

When the world turned upside down on Tuesday, every pastor in the land had to change the sermon for Sunday.  The Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies, a Virginia Baptist ministry partner, called for the pastors to send their sermons for inclusion in a book.  The collection was entitled For the Living of These Days…Responses to Terrorism.  Compiled by William H. Duke, the book became a source of reflection upon the power of Christian hope in the midst of tragedy.  All the proceeds from sale of the books went to the Virginia Baptist disaster relief ministry and enabled the purchase of additional feeding equipment.

Beyond the feeding ministry, Virginia Baptists also sent numerous volunteers to clean apartments near Ground Zero in New York City.  In relatively short order, they had cleaned over 300 residences.  Bill Latham, a member of West Side Baptist Church in Harrisonburg, shared his impressions of the relief effort in an article to the Religious Herald.  In part, he wrote:  “One day the firemen and the police will organize this area into a memorial or shrine that people from all over can come and view and get close to the story.  This is a new chapter in American history.  In the fine print will be a small kudos for the work of the Baptists.  There is a church seed-planting team in the area now.  They are trying to work out the logistics where a small church can be located.  It will start out as a mission and there will be enough good will and seeds planted that they can nurture.”

Following September 11 – and now following April 16 – Virginia Baptists have been planting good will and seeds of compassion, love, tenderness, and mercy.  Such seeds always seem to survive and bring forth good fruit in due season.

April 2007 Edition

In April 1797 – 210 years ago – a male child was born who must have screamed louder than any other newborn. He certainly had healthy lungs! In time, he became a noted Baptist preacher who was said to have possessed a “voice like a trumpet.”

Cumberland George made an impact upon Central Virginia – the then rural counties of Fauquier, Stafford, Culpeper, Rappahannock, and Orange – which was felt long after his passing. He held protracted revival meetings which brought an untold number of souls into the Kingdom. Only the Lamb’s Book of Life can adequately tell the story of Cumberland George’s influence. One – and only one – of those individuals was John A. Broadus, who was baptized as a youth by Cumberland George and who in full adulthood became the prince of preachers.

George was only a teenager when he became a believer, acknowledging Jesus Christ “as the Saviour of sinners.” The power of Christ continued to dwell upon his heart and mind; and in 1819, at age 21, he was set apart for the Gospel ministry in an ordination service at the Fredericksburg Baptist Church. No less a person that Robert Baylor Semple – “Mister American Baptist” – laid hands upon the young candidate.

Cumberland George was one of those “weeping” preachers. Absorbed in the subject of Christ and Him Crucified, acquainted with the cancerous sores of sin yet the balm of Gilead, fraught with the emotion and the fervor so expected in his time, Cumberland George sometimes scarcely could complete his sermons without giving way to tears. Unlike some others of his generation of preachers, he also could evoke those same emotions in his hearers. No one ever went to sleep during Cumberland George’s preaching!

Well, that is not exactly true. History reveals that during one of his sermons, Caleb Burnley, the schoolmaster for the village of Jeffersonton, nodded off. When he suddenly awoke, the schoolmaster called out: “Go on and finish conjugating that verb.”

The “pride of the Piedmont Baptists” also took great pride in the office which was bestowed upon him. It was a forgivable pride mixed with humility. He explained it best with the following pledge: “Let me never dishonor Thee nor the ministerial office in heart or life.” He knew that ordination alone would not shield him from any dishonor. He realized that he would have to constantly watch his own conduct and measure his own conscience.

The trumpet sounded. In the first 25 years of his ministry, by his own estimate, he preached “over 4,000 sermons.” In 1845, writing in Culpeper, he admitted that he had saved but few sermon notes. “I am sorry I did not enter a sketch of every sermon I ever preached. They might at least tend to humble me and make me more studious and prayerful.”

Cumberland George was active in the life of the General Association and an early advocate of missions. He delivered at least one of his sermons before a BGAV annual meeting. Probably the church most associated with his pastoral duties was the Culpeper Baptist Church, and there were others: Alum Spring, Jeffersonton, Mt. Salem, Reynolds Memorial, and Woodville churches.

In 1863 the trumpet was silenced. The burial spot with its modest stone marker may have been in the countryside, but in time the ever-encroaching suburbs of Culpeper enveloped the little graveyard. Today modern homes surround it, and one of the neighbors sometimes can be counted upon to keep it mowed.

Sermons never written and saved. Voices shouting into the open air. Churches embracing new generations. Sometimes it seems that all was for naught. The other side of the coin reveals sermons that touched sinners, voices that could not be recorded except in memories which fade, and churches which continue their ministry.

Cumberland George once declared: “In my ministrations may I be ever endued with power from on high, that, with all boldness and enlargeness of heart and of views, I may be enabled fluently to declare the whole counsel of God.” His words of benediction are every bit as valuable as all those 4,000 sermons!

March 2007 Edition

In March 1877 – 130 years ago – a dedicated Baptist layman named Milton Thomas Fristoe died at his home in Front Royal, Virginia.  He was only 49 years old, and yet he had already accomplished an outstanding record as a civic and church leader.  He also made a momentous personal decision which cast him into the role of a philanthropist.  With his death, a noble cause ultimately would benefit.  But I am ahead of my story.

Milton Thomas Fristoe was a man of modest circumstances.  The son of a Shenandoah farmer and his wife, Fristoe never had the opportunity of higher education.  He plunged into the business world, opening a general merchandise store and a hotel in the growing community of Front Royal. 

He served a variety of civil positions in the town.  At one time or another, he was sheriff, a justice of the peace, and a town supervisor.  When the famous William F. Broaddus held a revival meeting in the town, Fristoe was among his converts.  He became an active deacon and took a lead in the construction of a church building.  Front Royal Baptist Church was his second love.

Milton Thomas Fristoe’s first love was Sarah Eliza Stinson, also of the same neighborhood.  The couple had no children. 

In 1873 the Baptist General Association of Virginia held its “Semi-Centennial” meeting (or 50th anniversary) in Richmond on the campus of “the Baptist school,” Richmond College.  A great temporary tabernacle was erected to hold the crowd which attended.  Some say that as many as 5,000 – maybe even 10,000 – attended the great public meeting.  It was the largest religious meeting to date ever held in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Baptist ministers and laypersons from all across Virginia, and even from outside the state, descended upon Richmond for the meeting. 

It was a time of great celebration for several reasons.  First, it was a time of rejoicing for all the ways in which Almighty God had led the Baptists of Virginia, including the deliverance of His people from the bondage of a state religion and the ensuing persecution of colonial Baptists.  Second, it was a time for celebrating the accomplishments of the General Association, which had come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1823.  Third, it was a time to show to the world that the American South had risen from the ashes of the War Between the States. 

The Baptists of Virginia had suffered from the War.  Much of the military action had occurred on Virginia soil.  Church buildings had been destroyed.  Richmond College – again, the crown jewel of Virginia Baptists – virtually had ceased.  Its buildings had been used as army hospitals and were damaged.  Its students had scattered.  Its library had been hauled away by the invaders.  Its endowment was in Confederate bonds and now was worthless.  

A great campaign was mounted by the General Association to celebrate their anniversary by endowing their school.  Several prominent pastors were released by their churches to serve as fundraising agents.  Appeals were made that a memorial would be raised on the college campus to the Baptists who struggled to secure religious liberty, a subject dear to the hearts and still in the memory banks of Virginia Baptists. 

Virginia Baptists gave out their impoverished post-war finances.  They gave cents and dollars.  Many of them came to be a part of the festivities.

There were several well-known and outstanding speakers at the great meeting.  Jeremiah Bell Jeter – one of the original state missionaries known as “the Bedford Plowboys” – was fresh from his tour of duty as a commissioner of the Foreign Mission Board in Italy.  He stood before the crowd and made a large personal gift to the endowment campaign.  The main speaker of the day was J.L.M. Curry – one of the most prominent orators of the age – and he told the story of the struggle for religious liberty.  He held aloft the ancient lock and key from the Culpeper jail where Baptists had been imprisoned for their faith. And then he lifted the offering for the endowment. 

We are told that grown men and women wept after the appeal was made.  They remembered what their own grandparents had told them about the time of persecution and the movement to secure full freedom of conscience.  They opened their purses and wallets and gave cash.  They gave items of cherished jewelry including watches.

Among those in the crowd that day was the businessman from Front Royal.  Fristoe was a member of one of those old Virginia Baptist families which had members who were persecuted for their faith.  The story which Curry told resonated with him.  And he felt moved to give to the college, even though he had never attended a school of higher learning.  He appreciated what such a school could mean to generations unborn and glimpsed a vision of how he might share in such an accomplishment.

When he returned to Front Royal, he talked with Sarah about the noble cause.  Since they had no children of their own, they decided to make the college boys their sons.  He began to give and to give.  He made provisions in his will.  Finally, Sarah laid down the law.  She said that everything from their estates could go to the college; but one thing she had to retain as her very own:  the sewing machine! 

In the 1870s Fristoe established a charitable remainder trust!  He left his lands and buildings and other property to his wife for her lifetime.  After Sarah’s death, everything was to go to Richmond College and its endowment fund.  But for her lifetime, Sarah held on to that new-fangled sewing machine and to one other possession – her piano.  She wanted to keep her fingers busy.

The Fristoes became philanthropists for a cause bigger than themselves.  They saw a need, a worthy enterprise, and a lasting contribution.  Across the long years, numerous individual Virginia Baptists have been philanthropists – large and small – with gifts to worthy Baptist-related causes, including the several educational institutions identified with the General Association and the different benevolences such as the Virginia Baptist Children&rsqu