Chapter 8
Transitions and Trends
The nineteenth century was a time of transition, and its closing decades reveal as much in Baptist life. Women received more opportunities to serve in leadership roles, and immigrants who flooded into America benefitted from ministries directed especially toward their needs. Other aspects of Baptist life, like the practice of church discipline, began fading into the background near the turn of the century. Baptist church manuals written between 1850 and 1900 attempted to instill a pattern of church life that would stand the test of time; however, they came to reflect an ideal from the past rather than a practice of the present. Perhaps the most notable transitions related to theological institutions. New schools were built, new directions were taken, and new challenges were faced. Baptist leaders living at the end of the century, like Charles Spurgeon and John Clifford, confronted this era of transition by adopting differing views on tradition and progress.
Visibility for Women and Immigrants
Women have nearly always outnumbered men as members of Baptist churches, but the paucity of female office holders, such as pastors or deacons, can obscure the impact women have had in initiating, organizing, and supporting Baptist causes. Baptists differ on whether it is biblical or discriminatory to exclude women from the offices of pastor, elder and deacon. In either case, prior to the twentieth century few women aspired to the pastorate, and few claimed to be victims of discrimination. Women often viewed their responsibilities as belonging to a separate sphere than those of men. In fact, seating in many Baptist churches was segregated according to gender well into the nineteenth century, a practice that changed not in the name of equality but in order to seat families together. Many Baptist churches had both deacons and deaconesses, recognizing that certain ministries to women were best performed by other women, in particular preparing them for baptism and visiting them when they were sick. However, deaconesses were not normally ordained in the nineteenth century, nor did they serve the Lord’s Supper.
Women attended church in greater numbers than men, and they proved themselves to be more than passive hearers of their preachers’ sermons. Abigail Harris, a New Jersey Baptist, listened with considerable discernment to her pastor, writing to a friend that he “made a good discourse from 1 John 5 and 10.” She added, however, that he rambled a bit and that she disagreed with his statement that faith was “as manifest to every real Christian as the book which he held in his hand was to the eye of the spectator.” She concluded, “I could not agree with him, for I believe that there is many a child of God that has not that visible witness given to them.” Many women not only took notes during sermons, but some also distributed copies to members of their family. Women often wrote letters counseling their friends with passages from Scripture and offering encouragement.
Women impacted Baptist life in numerous ways: as authors of hymns and fictional literature, as guardians of the home and child-care workers in Sunday schools, as philanthropists for voluntary societies, and as leaders in higher education for women. Special gatherings, many of which were designed to encourage spiritual growth for women, were common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Between 1837 and 1852, for example, women at Prospect Place New Connexion Chapel in Bradford, Yorkshire, provided mutual spiritual benefit during their “experience meetings.”
Maria Saffery, “The Good Shepherd” (1834)
There is a little lonely fold,
Whose flock one Shepherd keeps,
Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold,
With eye that never sleeps.
By evil beast, or burning sky,
Or damp of midnight air,
Not one in all that flock shall die,
Beneath that Shepherd’s care.
For if, unheeding and beguiled,
In danger’s path they roam,
His pity follows through the wild,
And guards them safely home.
O gentle Shepherd, still behold,
Thy helpless charge in me,
And take a wanderer to Thy fold,
That trembling turns to Thee.
Some women conveyed their Christian experiences through poetry, much of which was set to music and made into hymns sung by men and women alike. Annie Sherwood Hawks published her first poem at age fourteen, and by the end of her life she had written more than 400 hymns. Her most famous hymn, “I Need Thee Every Hour,” reportedly came to mind as she went about the daily routine of caring for her family and home. Having her thoughts on the Lord while her hands were at work reflects the typical expectations of a nineteenth-century Christian woman. Hawks gave the poem to her pastor, Robert Lowry, who in turn set it to music and provided its refrain: “I need Thee, O I need Thee/ Every hour I need Thee/ O bless me now, my Savior/ I come to Thee.” After her husband died, Hawks testified that the song even comforted her: “I did not understand why this hymn had touched the throbbing heart of humanity. It was not until long after, when the shadow fell over my way, the shadow of a great loss, that I understood something of the comforting power in the words which I had been permitted to give out to others in my hour of sweet serenity and peace.” Maria Grace Saffery, whose husband and son were both English Baptist pastors, was another accomplished hymn writer. Her poem “The Good Shepherd,” published in multiple denominational hymnals, highlights the affectionate care of the Lord for his people.
Baptist women made their mark in and outside the home. The Women’s American Baptist Home Mission Society, formed in 1877, adopted the phrase “Christ in every home” as its motto. The society’s founding president, Rumah Avilla Crouse, considered it a high calling to serve as a wife and mother. African-American women, such as Sophia Packard and Harriet Giles, established the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary in 1881, later known as Spelman College. The school illustrated the noteworthy gender, ethnic, and economic diversity among Baptists of the late nineteenth century: it was founded by women in a church where the pastor was a former slave and was funded in part by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller Jr.
A few Baptist women sought and received ordination to the ministry during the nineteenth century, beginning with M. A. Brennan, who was ordained by the Bellevernon Free Will Baptist Church of Pennsylvania in 1876. Even though Free Will Baptists were open to women’s ordination, their churches ordained only two other women prior to the turn of the century. Lura Maines was called as pastor of two Free Will Baptist churches in Michigan, and Louisa Fenner ministered to Free Will Baptist churches in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Two women from the Northern Baptist Convention, May C. Jones and Frances E. Townsley, were ordained in 1882 and 1885 respectively. Jones’s ordination was controversial but ultimately successful. When opponents of the action walked out of the ordination meeting, it opened the door for her supporters to move forward. She served as interim pastor of Seattle’s First Baptist Church (1882) and then as pastor of six other Baptist churches throughout the area that became Washington State in 1889. Frances Townsley preached regularly throughout New England before becoming pastor of Fairfield Baptist Church, Nebraska. Since she was not an ordained minister, the church regularly sent for male pastors to preside over the Lord’s Supper and officiate at weddings. The inefficiency of this process led the church to pursue ordination for Townsley, who initially resisted in order to avoid controversy. Criticisms notwithstanding, she consented after fourteen Baptist churches participated in her examination and unanimously recommended her for ordination. Seventh Day Baptists were also open to women serving in leadership, as demonstrated by the ordination of Experience Fitz Randolph Burdick, who pastored several churches in New York from 1885 to 1890.
Though nineteenth-century Baptist women made their greatest contributions to the church behind the scenes, their most notable visibility came through their participation in mission societies. Women who served on the mission field usually accompanied their husbands, as the appointment of single women was rare. In addition to believing that Scripture differentiated between men’s and women’s roles in the church, Baptists wanted to prevent the gospel itself from becoming confused with Western concepts of social equality. Women who served alongside their husbands were often referenced in missionary magazines as “& wife,” using the husband’s name alone, according to the custom of the times. That women were not entirely overshadowed by men is demonstrated by the 1872 publication of Arabella Wilson’s Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons. Wilson’s goal in memorializing Ann Hasseltine, Sarah Hall Boardman, and Emily Chubbuck—the successive wives of Adoniram Judson—was to provide spiritual biographies of women who exemplified “Christian heroism and fortitude” in service to their “Heavenly Master.” By providing full biographies of each woman, Wilson went beyond the standard practice of promoting female piety through Christian fiction.
The need for female missionaries became evident as Baptists entered Asian countries where gender roles were deeply embedded. The Triennial Convention appointed its first single female missionaries to Burma in 1832. Harriet Baker became the first single woman appointed as a missionary by the Southern Baptist Convention when she was sent to Canton in 1849. Nearly twenty-five years elapsed before the SBC appointed its next two single, female missionaries in 1872, Lula Whilden and Edmonia Moon. Sometimes single missionaries alleviated their own obstacles by getting married while on the mission field. The group known as “The Serving Seven,” a Canadian missionary team that included two married couples and three single persons, exemplifies this trend as the latter three each married missionaries after arriving in Burma.
In addition to their service on the mission field, women took the lead in organizing societies that raised funds to support missionaries. Such societies often functioned as auxiliary organizations of existing mission agencies. Hannah Maria Norris proved to be one of the most effective organizers among Canadian Baptist women, forming thirty-two societies throughout the Maritime Provinces in the span of only three months. She later became a missionary to Burma, and the societies she founded contributed to the formation of the Woman’s Baptist Mission Union in Moncton (1884). The Woman’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of the East, headquartered in Boston, and the Woman’s Baptist Missionary Society of the West, headquartered in Chicago, were both formed in 1871 by women connected to the American Baptist Missionary Union. Women’s home mission societies were also formed in Boston and Chicago, with the stated purpose of promoting “Christianization of homes by means of missions and mission schools, with special reference to the freed peoples, the Indians, and immigrant heathen populations.” Such target groups underscored the concern that many women felt for the poor and marginalized.
The Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), formed in 1888, involved two women whose names became associated with Christmas and Easter offerings for international and North American missions, respectively. Its beginnings can be traced to a missionary prayer meeting in 1867 arranged by Ann Graves, whose son was a medical missionary serving in China. When Dr. Roswell Graves reported to his mother the success he had in teaching Bible stories to Chinese women, who in turn shared the stories with their families at home, she responded by calling the meeting. The following year Graves organized a meeting for women who were accompanying their
husbands to the Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore. Graves read to the women letters from her son, inspiring them to continue seeking ways to assist in the mission work. That led to additional gatherings coinciding with SBC annual meetings. Additional support for women’s societies came from Henry Allan Tupper, secretary of the Foreign Mission Board (FMB), who led Southern Baptists to organize Central Committees in each state to establish mission societies. The culmination of these efforts was the formation of a national committee, the WMU. As an auxiliary to the SBC, the WMU appointed its own leaders and determined its own strategies while working through the established mission network of Southern Baptists.
The two women whose names became associated with SBC missions offerings were instrumental in the early success of the WMU. Charlotte Diggs “Lottie” Moon was a gifted linguist who set aside her intention to become a teacher after she responded to a missionary sermon, telling her pastor, “I have long known that God wanted me in China.” Moon served in Tengchow and Pingtu for nearly four decades, drawing her last breath on Christmas Eve 1912. Her dedication to serving the Lord in a strange land was demonstrated by her willingness to adopt Chinese customs and by her refusal to accept well-deserved furloughs until her post could be filled in her absence. Moon’s suggestion in 1888 for a week of prayer followed by a mission offering during the Christmas season was heartily embraced by the WMU and became an annual event. Annie Armstrong, corresponding secretary of the WMU, recommended the Christmas offering be named in Moon’s honor.
Armstrong proved to be an exceptional organizer for the WMU, framing its constitution and nearly tripling its local affiliates in her two decades of service. She was particularly helpful in curbing women’s interest in the Gospel Mission movement, an approach to missions with Landmark tendencies that called for local churches to withdraw support from denominational entities and support their own missionaries. The movement’s chief propagator, Tarleton Perry Crawford, even influenced Moon to criticize the FMB, but Armstrong remained fully committed to the WMU’s role as an auxiliary to the SBC. She took the unprecedented step of publicly rebuking state WMU leaders who sympathized with Crawford. Both Moon and Armstrong were instrumental in raising awareness of and finances for Baptist missionary work. Despite persistent criticism regarding their roles and challenges in relating to denominational boards, both women insisted on continuing their work in cooperation with the SBC.
Immigrants became the focus of various missionary efforts toward the latter half of the nineteenth century. Twenty million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1890. Baptists were concerned about the changing cultural and religious landscape but also sensed an opportunity to evangelize. J. Lewis Shuck was successful in reaching the Chinese population in California, partly due to his previous mission work in China. Baptists reached immigrants of other nationalities thanks to leaders who shared their ethnicities. Swedish Baptists who were forced out of their country due to religious persecution found security in the Midwest. Wiberga and Gustaf Palmquist founded the first Swedish Baptist church in America at Rock Island, Illinois, in 1852, and John Alexis Edgren founded the Swedish Baptist Seminary of Chicago in 1881. By the end of the century, more than 20,000 Swedish-American Baptists were worshipping in their own language in more than 300 churches. German Baptists took root in Canada and the United States, largely through the work of August Rauschenbusch and Conrad Fleischman but also with the help of the General Missionary Society of German Baptists and the ABHMS. German Baptists formed their own denomination in 1851 and created their own school, with courses taught in their own language, at Rochester Theological Seminary in 1858. The ABHMS also promoted evangelistic work among the Hispanic population of Texas, the Polish population of Michigan, French Canadians in New England, and Italians in New York.
Baptists proved innovative in their evangelistic methods, evidenced by the introduction of the chapel train car in 1891. The idea for using a railroad car as an evangelistic tool—complete with pulpit, pews, stained glass, and an organ—originated with the American Baptist Publication Society in conjunction with a number of Baptist railroad executives, including Colgate Hoyt and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Evangel, the first of seven chapel cars, began its inaugural trip in Cincinnati, Ohio, with Boston Smith as its host evangelist. Smith conducted services and distributed Bibles and Sunday school literature at each stop through Minnesota, North Dakota, Missouri, and Montana. For the next fifty years the chapel car ministry provided evangelists and missionaries with opportunities to share the gospel throughout the United States.
Church Manuals and Church Discipline
Less visible than other changes in the late nineteenth century but no less significant was the disappearance of practices that had formed and shaped Baptist identity during centuries prior. Such elements that faded with time included ordering churches strictly according to Scripture, employing pastoral visitation as a means of soul care, and practicing church discipline on a regular basis. These transitions were a striking departure from the procedures outlined in dozens of church manuals and treatises on polity written by Baptists during the nineteenth century. Such manuals and treatises were rooted in the Bible and attempted to outline the New Testament pattern of church organization.
Church manuals specialized in describing the Baptist rationale for church structure, offices, membership, worship, and discipline. Among the most popular manuals were William Crowell’s The Church Member’s Manual (1845), J. Newton Brown’s The Baptist Church Manual (1853), Edward Hiscox’s The Baptist Church Directory (1859), and J. M. Pendleton’s Church Manual (1867). While manuals focused on multiple issues, treatises usually dealt with singular topics, such as W. B. Johnson’s The Gospel Developed (1846), Joseph Baker’s Church Discipline (1847), J. L. Reynolds’s Church Polity, or the Kingdom of Christ (1849), P. H. Mell’s Corrective Church Discipline (1860), Eleazar Savage’s Manual of Church Discipline (1863), and William Williams’s Apostolical Church Polity (1874). J. L. Dagg supplemented his A Manual of Theology (1857) with A Manual of Church Order (1858). Church covenants were the most important statements regarding behavioral expectations for Baptist church members. They were brief declarations, normally one page in length, which focused on core Christian beliefs and shared Baptist values. Those who wished to join a Baptist church in the nineteenth century subscribed to the covenant of that local church, whereupon their private lives became public property.
Polity was of utmost importance to nineteenth-century Baptists. Even so, they differed on many issues, including whether churches should have elders in addition to pastors and deacons or whether the pastoral office was synonymous with that of an elder. A transition was clearly underway as W. B. Johnson advocated for a plurality of elders in the local church, whereas Pendleton, writing some two decades later, believed a single pastor would suffice with the aid of deacons. Pastors were often referred to as “Elder” with their name following during the first half of the nineteenth century, but by the twentieth century the term “Reverend” had come into vogue.
The role of the pastor was understood primarily in terms of preaching and providing oversight to the church, though often pastors were expected to conduct pastoral visitation as well. Hiscox noted in his Church Directory that the minister must first of all be a teacher, referring to his work behind the pulpit, but is “peculiarly . . . the pastor” when he visits the flock: “He must know his people in their homes; must know their joys and sorrows as they themselves will relate them. They must know him, as they cannot know him in pulpit supply. Both he and they miss boundless good if this is not done. These visits must be brief and religious. They should not degenerate into social chit-chat, or even into religious gossip.” The fact that pastors were not as keen on this advice toward the end of the nineteenth century is evidenced by Hiscox’s words to the up-and-coming generation: “Young ministers may find it hard work, and dread it as a drudgery; but they will come to feel differently when for a few times they have been able to comfort the sorrowing, relieve the burdened, and know the luxury of doing good to those in trouble.” Authors of manuals and treatises cited examples of pastoral visitation in an attempt to encourage the practice. Reminiscing about the life of P. H. Mell, pastor of churches in Georgia and president of the SBC for nearly fifteen years, his son wrote: “Very much of his power as a preacher lay in the way he had of getting close to his people. His custom was to visit all of them and so anxious were they not to miss the expected pleasure that he made engagements ahead often as far as three months.”
Church manuals and treatises also informed church members of their duties within the body. One of the chief expectations was attendance at all meetings, including worship and business. Crowell echoed what virtually every church covenant stipulated:
Church members are bound to attend all the meetings of the church, when in their power, to feel a deep interest in its welfare, to seek its peace and prosperity by devoting their abilities of every kind to its service. This they virtually pledged themselves to do, in becoming members. They have no right to scatter their attendance on different meetings, to the neglect of those in the church.
The idea that members were under obligation to submit their lives to the congregation was consistent with the Baptist understanding that the church “has no right to alter the terms or conditions of membership, but must conform strictly to those prescribed by the Lawgiver; much less can the will of the pastor be allowed to change these conditions . . . still less can the desire or judgment of the candidate himself modify the divinely prescribed conditions.”
The terms of membership, according to Hiscox’s Manual, included a regenerate heart, agreement with a confession of faith, the reception of baptism, and a lifestyle evidencing Christian belief. If a person failed to meet any one of these terms, he or she would be refused membership. Hiscox was critical of Baptists who allowed unregenerate persons to take part in the life of the church instead of insisting on being born again as the first requirement for membership. The profession of faith was a testimony given by the candidate for membership in front of the congregation as a way of personally vouching for his or her change of life. Hiscox described the public sharing of one’s spiritual experience as “the old Baptist way, from time immemorial,” while realizing it was falling out of favor. “This custom,” he wrote, “must be heroically maintained.” Some churches offered members an opportunity to question candidates after they gave their testimonies, and most Baptist churches required a unanimous vote for a person to be granted membership.
Baptism was the symbolic expression of one’s profession of faith, and Baptist churches required it. Gregory Wills relates the story of a woman who was refused membership in a Baptist church in 1856 because she believed her infant baptism was sufficient and should be accepted by members of the church. The pastor, Basil Manly Jr., based his refusal to admit her on the virtual unanimity of Baptist churches in his day: “Why should she set up her judgment against that of the whole body of churches of the only people under heaven who are striving to keep the ordinance of baptism as Christ delivered it?” This was not a Landmark position but rather a basic premise that Baptists shared regarding entry into the church.
The final requirement for obtaining membership in a Baptist church, a lifestyle evidencing Christian belief, was also a requirement for maintaining membership. A mere profession, even if theologically sound, did not suffice if a person’s lifestyle was sinful and reckless. Hiscox’s observation in this regard was both representative and blunt: “An external Christian life must corroborate the profession of an internal Christian faith, . . . And if there cannot be a good degree of conformity between the professed and the practical, persons had better remain out of the Church than to enter it.” Those who joined the church and subsequently fell into sin were subject to a process of church discipline, a topic mentioned in virtually every church manual of the time. Baptists leaned heavily on core passages about discipline: Matthew 18:15–17; 1 Corinthians 5; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; and Titus 3:10. Church manuals provided step-by-step instructions on how to exercise discipline in a biblical, loving manner. Typically, Baptists distinguished between private and public offenses and responded to each category of sin differently. Ideally private offenses were addressed in private, with the offender repenting of his offense and making restitution to the offended person outside the purview of the church body. In cases where a public sin was committed or a private offense could not be resolved, church members were expected to address the issue among “two or three witnesses.” If an offender still did not repent, the case was brought before the church body, usually during a monthly conference meeting.
Historians have used the phrase “moral court” in referring to this stage of Baptist church discipline. The entire congregation was expected to participate in determining the merits of a case and the outcome for the accused. In order to keep the church’s reputation pure in the community, testimony against church members was allowed by those with no church affiliation; and, unlike civil court procedures in the Southern states, slaves could testify against whites. Some accusations were deemed superfluous, and sometimes a person was acquitted of the charges. If evidence convinced the church that the accused was guilty, the accused could admit to the charges and express heartfelt sorrow, in which case the church would normally offer an admonition to avoid similar sins in the future, followed by a public extension of the church’s forgiveness.
Church Discipline in Baptist Churches
Just as soon as these and other gross crimes are proved upon one that is “called a brother,” he should be withdrawn from.
1. For the sake of public morals and the reputation of the Church, she should testify unmistakably. This course would meet with approbation more heartily from no one than from the offender himself if he is a Christian; for to such the honor of the Master and the reputation of His Church are dearer than his own good name, or even than life itself. . . .
2. For the good of the offender himself. If he is not a Christian, he should not be a member of the Church; if he is a Christian, excommunication will not harm him. Corrective discipline, even in its highest censures, is an act of kindness to the offender, and designed not to injure but to reform. Such was the effect of the discipline inflicted upon the incestuous man at Corinth. While undisturbed by his brethren and permitted to go on in sin with impunity, he seemed not to be aware of the enormity of his crime; but after expulsion he is brought to reflection and penitence.
Those who were found guilty in spite of their professed innocence, as well as those who admitted their guilt but rejected the church’s authority over them, were excommunicated, or excluded from the life of the church. Baptists did not believe that excommunication affected one’s eternal destiny, but there were more immediate ramifications. A person excluded from the church was no longer referred to as “Brother” or “Sister,” could not receive the Lord’s Supper or help select the church’s officers, and could not participate in church conference meetings. Having been dismissed from one Baptist church, unrepentant offenders could not simply join another Baptist church, as membership covenants required that transfers arrive “in good standing” with their former congregation. One goal in every case was restoration of the offender, which occurred once repentance was expressed by the offender and evident to the church body.
While church manuals provided instruction on how to conduct disciplinary meetings, they did not address specific cases. In general, sins such as sexual immorality, drunkenness, theft, Sabbath-breaking, absenteeism, and heresy led to discipline. In cases involving special circumstances, churches sometimes asked for advice during associational meetings or through Baptist periodicals as a means of gathering the opinions of leaders whose years of experience and detachment from the situation aided in resolving the matter biblically. Queries ranged from the curious to the more consequential, with questions being raised about the meaning of the unpardonable sin and whether a man could serve as a deacon if his wife had left the faith.
Several noticeable shifts occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth century, signaling the demise of church discipline as a regular practice. Dancing, considered by antebellum Baptists a “worldly amusement,” no longer received automatic censure and even put Baptists on the defensive as they tried not to alienate their younger members. Many Baptists stressed “formative” discipline over “corrective” discipline. Attention was given to enlisting members in church activities with the hope that they would find less time for and have less interest in mingling with the world. By the end of the nineteenth century, Baptists turned their attention toward evangelism and away from discipline. Larger churches enabled members to live their lives in anonymity, and questions of morality in an ever-changing culture were easier left unanswered. Gregory Wills’s summary observation reveals much about the change in Baptist practice: “No one publicly advocated the demise of discipline. No Baptist leader arose to call for an end to congregational censures. No theologians argued that discipline was unsound in principle or practice. No ‘freedom party’ arose to quash the tyranny of the redeemed. It simply faded away, as if Baptists had grown weary of holding one another accountable.”
Baptists and Temperance
The fading of church discipline did not mean Baptists stopped registering their disapproval of sin. In many cases that responsibility fell to benevolent societies. An example of this was the temperance movement. Prior to the nineteenth century, Baptists took no offense at moderate or medicinal uses of alcohol. Pastors were served after-dinner drinks when staying as guests in people’s homes, and some packed an extra flask for the return trip. Prominent English Baptists, such as Matthew Vassar and John Jones, participated in the industrial production of beer. Baptist legend even credited one of its own rough-and-tumble preachers, Elijah Craig, with inventing Kentucky bourbon. In 1886, however, the Southern Baptist Convention began adopting resolutions against alcohol, declaring it to be “opposed to the best interests of society and government and the progress of our holy religion.”
The beginning of the temperance crusade by Lyman Beecher in the 1820s and its acceleration following the formation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1874, helped shift Baptists from approving of moderate drinking toward advocating total abstinence. Jesse Mercer, a leading Baptist pastor in Georgia, illustrates this shift well. Mercer drank brandy for medicinal purposes and also stated that he did not believe casual drinking to be a sin. Not only did he change his mind and habits after learning that others were citing his example as an excuse to drink to excess, but he also formed a temperance society and published a temperance paper. Baptists in England underwent a similar transformation coinciding with the founding of the Baptist Total Abstinence Association in 1874. Canadians began their crusade that same year with Letitia Youmans founding a branch of the WCTU in Ontario.
A major reason for the change in attitude regarding alcohol consumption was the personal harm and domestic abuse that resulted from liquor becoming more accessible. Women, who were seen as protectors of the family unit, gave particular impetus to the temperance movement. While most historians associate Frances Willard with the success of the temperance movement on a national level, hundreds of other women were responsible for mobilizing their churches and towns to embrace abstinence. When W. A. Borum, a Baptist pastor in Mississippi, attempted to suppress the sale of alcohol by using the pulpit and the newspapers, he found no traction. Then one Sunday evening he reportedly stated that “the way to put whiskey out of Greenville [is] to get the women of the community to sign a resolution to the effect that they [will] exert themselves to prevent the men of their families from signing another petition of a saloon keeper for a license to sell liquor.” His subsequent call for a “Deborah to take the lead” went unheeded until the following day when a young lady came to his study and said that God had laid it on her heart to take up the task. Within a week many of Greenville’s women had signed the resolution, and it was noted, “The men were not so aroused at first, but they soon heard from home.”
Southern Baptist Convention Resolution Against Beverage Alcohol
Resolved, That we, the members of the Southern Baptist Convention, reassert our truceless and uncompromising hostility to the manufacture, sale, importation and transportation, of alcoholic beverages in any and all their forms. We regard the policy of issuing government licenses for the purpose of carrying on the liquor traffic as a sin against God and a dishonor to our people. We furthermore announce it as our conviction that we should by all legitimate means oppose the liquor traffic in municipality, county, state, and nation.
Furthermore, we announce it as the sense of this body that no person should be retained in the fellowship of a Baptist church who engages in the manufacture or sale of alcoholic liquors, either at wholesale or retail, who invests his money in the manufacture or sale of alcoholic liquors, or who rents his property to be used for distilleries, wholesale liquor houses, or saloons. Nor do we believe that any church should retain in its fellowship any member who drinks intoxicating liquors as a beverage, or visits saloons or drinking places for the purpose of such indulgence.
As attitudes toward alcohol changed, Baptist commentaries on the Bible did too. John Gill’s eighteenth-century explanation of Titus 1:7, which states that a pastor should not be “given to wine” (KJV), stipulated that while drunkenness was not permitted, “it is lawful for persons in such an office to drink wine, and sometimes absolutely necessary.” Hezekiah Harvey wrote of the same verse in 1890: “If not absolutely prohibitory of wine, [the text] certainly requires temperance in the use of it.” By the time prohibition became federal law, some Baptist commentators were claiming that positive references to wine in the Bible either referred to diluted forms of alcohol or unfermented grape juice. The latter option, though not impossible, was improbable since grape juice did not become an acceptable substitute for communion in Baptist circles until James Welch, a Methodist layman and temperance sympathizer, perfected the pasteurization process in 1869, thus enabling grape juice to be mass produced. Notably, Primitive Baptists continued to make their own communion wine well into the twentieth century.
Theological Institutions and Changes in Theology
The temperance movement was one of the few occasions in Baptist history where theological conservatives and liberals worked toward the same goal. The divide became more apparent in the area of theological education. Baptist institutions of higher learning were founded with hopes of training pastors who would “earnestly contend for the faith which was delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3 KJV), but often they drifted into theological liberalism, forcing constituents to either reclaim their original vision or concede that a new era had arrived.
McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, was a case in point. As we saw in chapter 4, Baptists arrived in Ontario just prior to the nineteenth century, but it took nearly eighty years for them to establish a successful school for training pastors. A Scottish-Canadian pastor, Robert Alexander Fyfe, led the way in the establishment of Canada Literary Institute, McMaster’s predecessor institution, located in Woodstock. Fyfe studied at the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution in New York before assuming the pastorate at Toronto’s March Street Baptist Church (later Bond Street Baptist Church and today Jarvis Street Baptist Church). He and seven other pastors called for a convention to discuss starting a school for pastors, and four years later, in 1860, the Canadian Literary Institute opened with seventy-nine students and five teachers. The school’s motto, generated by Fyfe, was Sit Lux, or “Let there be light.”
Fyfe’s commitment to training pastors was indefatigable. His teaching load consisted of six hours of instruction per day for five days a week; his service to the church included preaching on Sundays and leading Sunday school classes; and his summer travels were spent raising money for the school. He took only two vacations during his seventeen-year tenure as principal of the institute, leading some to conclude that his death in 1878 resulted from overwork. The institute’s move from Woodstock to Toronto occurred through the influence and leadership of William McMaster, an Irish immigrant and Baptist layman who had become one of the wealthiest men in Toronto. McMaster made his fortune in the wholesale industry but later involved himself in banking, where he helped found the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1867. His interest in relocating the institute stemmed from his desire to have a Baptist presence in the heart of one of Ontario’s most influential cities. In 1881, the Toronto Baptist College opened, in large part due to McMaster’s gift of over $100,000. The school was renamed McMaster University after a million-dollar gift was given from McMaster’s estate.
Canadian Baptists had longed for a college that would train pastors in godliness as well as academics. In an earlier attempt to establish such a school in Montreal, Benjamin Davies, a Welsh Baptist scholar who served as the school’s principal, declared, “Much as we desire a learned ministry, we desire a pious ministry more. . . . It is our solemn conviction that no literary attainments, no powers of rhetoric, can give fitness for the work, if the heart be not engaged in it.” In the same vein the founding deed of Toronto Baptist College set forth an evangelical statement of faith. Those associated with the school were required to affirm “the divine inspiration of the Scriptures . . . and their absolute supremacy and sufficiency in matters of faith and practice”; “the election and effectual calling of all God’s people, [and] the atoning efficacy of the death of Christ”; “the necessity and efficacy of the influence of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification”; and “the everlasting happiness of the righteous and the everlasting misery of the wicked.” Personal piety was encouraged through the “McMaster Hymn,” a song written by Daniel Arthur McGregor as he lay on his deathbed just one year after becoming principal at Toronto Baptist College.
In spite of its founders’ intentions and the safeguards their successors put in place, McMaster’s reputation for gospel preservation was called into question when it hired William Newton Clarke in 1880 and accusations of heresy were leveled against several professors by T. T. Shields in the twentieth century. Details of these events can be found in chapter 10, but the foundation for them was laid in the mid-nineteenth century as modernization began encroaching into nearly every area of life. The democratic and industrial revolutions combined with scientific and intellectual revolutions to challenge the old boundaries of thought. Though Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) is often cited as the most significant book to challenge traditional Christian orthodoxy, higher biblical criticism had been pouring out of European universities for at least a century prior to its publication, calling Scripture into question on philosophical and ethical grounds. Higher criticism opened another door for doubt to find its way into the pulpit and pew through the halls of academia. While Baptists were aware that schools like Harvard and Yale had departed from the vision of their founders, many were caught unaware when theological progressives emerged in their midst, as occurred at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary when it became the first American school to dismiss a teacher for promoting liberal theology.
D. A. McGregor, “Jesus, Wondrous Saviour” (1889)
Jesus, wondrous Saviour!
Christ, of kings the King!
Angels fall before Thee
Prostrate, worshipping.
Fairest they confess Thee
In the Heavens above,
We would sing Thee fairest
Here in hymns of love.
Fairer far than sunlight
Unto eyes that wait
Amid fear and darkness
Till the morning break;
Fairer than the day-dawn,
Hills and dates among,
When its tide of glory
Wakes the tide of song.
Life is death if severed
From Thy throbbing heart.
Death with life abundant
At Thy touch would start.
Worlds and men and angels
All consist in Thee;
Yet Thou camest to us
In humility.
Jesus! all perfections
Rise and end in Thee;
Brightness of God’s glory
Thou, eternally.
Favour’d beyond measure
They Thy face who see;
May we, gracious Saviour,
Share this ecstasy.
Crawford H. Toy was dubbed “modernism’s first martyr” when his career at Southern Seminary abruptly came to an end. Toy was a graduate of Southern and would have become a missionary to Japan were it not for a shortage of funds. He also likely would have become the husband of Lottie Moon were it not for his evolving views on the inspiration of Scripture. Moon’s decision to rebuff his romantic overtures was based on her foresight of their theological incompatibility; administrators at Southern Seminary were not as prescient. When he was hired to teach Old Testament interpretation and oriental languages in 1869, he professed to be in full agreement with the seminary’s Abstract of Principles, even delivering an inaugural address in which he claimed the Bible was “in every iota of its substance absolutely and infallibly true.” However, his academic training at the University of Berlin and growing interest in German philosophical theology soon led him to differentiate between the truth of spiritual matters and the fallibility of historical assertions. As a result, he denied the Genesis creation account in favor of Darwinian evolution, rejected Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in favor of the Documentary Hypothesis, and reinterpreted messianic predictions in the Old Testament from a rationalistic perspective. James Boyce and John Broadus, Toy’s colleagues at Southern, attempted to convince him to change his views and even shifted his teaching responsibilities to prevent him from teaching in areas where his thoughts on inspiration would have an impact. Toy carried his views into every class, however, and his popularity among students increased his visibility among the Southern Baptist constituency. Pressure was brought on the seminary to force Toy’s resignation, which he submitted in 1879 under the impression that it would be rejected. He knew his beliefs were out of step with the seminary but was convinced, as were many progressive theologians, that he was helping the church transition from an outdated orthodoxy to an accommodating theology more suited to the modern age. To Toy’s surprise, his resignation was accepted by all but two of the seminary’s eighteen trustees. Southern Seminary had rendered its verdict, on behalf of the denomination, that fidelity to the past was the seminary’s direction for the future.
Positive Statement of the Doctrine of Inspiration
This may be briefly comprehended in three points:
1. The Bible is truly the Word of God, having both infallible truth and divine authority in all that it affirms or enjoins.
2. The Bible is truly the production of men. It is marked by all the evidences of human authorship as clearly and certainly as any other book that was written by men.
3. This twofold authorship extends to every part of Scripture, and to the language as well as to the general ideas expressed.
Or it may be summed up in one single statement: The whole Bible is truly God’s Word written by men.
In spite of his disappointment at the trustees’ decision, Toy found employment at Harvard, where his continued drift leftward raised no hackles at all. Broadus was likely more distraught than Toy, as revealed in a letter to his wife: “We have lost our jewel of learning, our beloved and noble brother, the pride of the Seminary. God bless our Seminary, God bless Toy and God help us, sadly but steadfastly to do our providential duty.” Broadus’s mourning over Toy’s departure from the seminary was later multiplied when Toy left the faith altogether. To prevent future challenges to biblical authority, Southern Seminary elected Basil Manly Jr., author of the Abstract of Principles, as Toy’s replacement only two days after his resignation. In 1888, Manly published The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration Explained and Vindicated.
Not all Baptists who embraced progressive thought went as far as Toy. Many were more circumspect in their teaching and their conclusions. Alvah Hovey, professor and later president at Newton Theological Seminary, and Calvin Goodspeed, professor of systematic theology and apologetics at McMaster, were known as careful, irenic scholars who responded to modernism with minimal adaptation of their theology. Other theologians, like Ezekiel Gilman Robinson, professor and president of Rochester Seminary, and Augustus Hopkins Strong, professor and later president of Rochester, were mediating theologians who held to orthodox beliefs in general but took new directions in areas of special interest to them. Robinson emphasized experience over doctrine and embraced a form of evolution. Strong also emphasized experience over doctrine at times, embraced a form of evolution, and viewed some higher biblical criticism positively. Both blazed new paths for Baptists and taught in institutions somewhat open to progressive thought, though neither could be described as a full-fledged theological liberal.
In general Baptist theologians of the nineteenth century continued to hold common theological convictions but began to differ in their methodological approaches. For example, John L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) and Strong’s Systematic Theology (1886; revised in eight editions through 1909), which were both frequently required in Baptist colleges and seminaries, drew similar conclusions pertaining to the truthfulness of Scripture, the unity of the Godhead, the fall of humanity, the freeness of salvation, the uniqueness of the church, and the reality of eternity. Their differing approaches to ascertaining theological truth, however, were apparent. Dagg’s Manual of Theology lacked appeals to any authority outside of Scripture, whereas Strong’s Systematic Theology drew from philosophical and natural theology in conjunction with the biblical text. Dagg essentially reproduced what Baptists had believed in the past whereas Strong attempted to make a statement about what Baptists should believe in the future. Neither methodological approach lasted long beyond the nineteenth century, but both men rightly gained a place among the most influential theologians of their time.
Southern Seminary experienced another crisis leading to a resignation when its president, William Whitsitt, published an article claiming that English Baptists did not baptize by immersion until 1641 and that American Baptists followed no earlier than 1644. Whitsitt was not the first person to propose this theory, but his subsequent book, A Question in Baptist History, raised eyebrows among Landmark Baptists, who strongly believed the denomination had its beginnings in the first century. Whitsitt’s publications, based on documented evidence, exposed the impossibility of their claims. Although history was on Whitsitt’s side, Texas pastor and Southern Seminary trustee Benajah Harvey Carroll was against him, and he proved to be the stronger of the two. Whitsitt was especially vulnerable to opponents because of his shifting views on Baptist ecclesiology. Though he was president of the seminary, he privately advocated abandoning the practices of immersion and closed communion. These views placed him in opposition to the Abstract of Principles. Under increasing pressure Whitsitt resigned the presidency in 1898. His views on Baptist origins, however, were vindicated the following century.
Charles Spurgeon on Orthodox Christology
To talk of improving upon our perfect Saviour is to insult him. He is God’s propitiation: what would you want more? . . . There is but one Saviour, and that one Saviour is the same forever. His doctrine is the same in every age and is not yea and nay. . . . What a strange result we should obtain in the general assembly of heaven if some were saved by the gospel of the first century, and others by the gospel of the second, and others by the gospel of the seventeenth, and others by the gospel of the nineteenth century! . . . We should need a different song of praise for the clients of these various periods, and the mingled chorus would be rather to the glory of man’s culture than to the praise of the one Lord. No such mottled heaven, and no such discordant song, shall ever be produced. . . . To eternal glory there is but one way; to walk therein we must hold fast to one truth, and be quickened by one life. We stand fast by the unaltered, unalterable, eternal name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Theological modernism was not merely a topic of academic debates. The legendary “Down Grade Controversy” demonstrates that tension regarding modernism existed at the grassroots and denominational levels, involving as it did two titans of English Baptist life, Charles Spurgeon and John Clifford.
Spurgeon was pastor of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, the largest Baptist church in the world. He was such a celebrity that he often had to ask members of his church not to attend the Sunday evening services in order that visitors might find a seat. His sermons eventually filled over sixty-four volumes, totaling over twenty million words. He was a wordsmith whose statements ranged from the seemingly harsh (“There is enough dust on some of your Bibles to write damnation with your fingers”) to the stirringly gentle (“The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on [Christ’s] shoulders. If He bids us carry a burden, He carries it also”). Spurgeon was immensely active outside the pulpit—founding a college, writing more than 150 books, and starting dozens of ministries to care for London’s poor. Spurgeon was indebted to the English Puritans, whom he considered to be, in John Bunyan’s words, “valiant for truth.”
It was no wonder, then, that when Spurgeon encountered modernistic theology, he attempted to rebut it in order to defend the gospel and protect his flock. In his newspaper, The Sword and the Trowel, Spurgeon declared of modernism, “A new religion has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese.” He alleged that the new theology led to decreased church attendance, deviant doctrine, and openness to worldly amusements. Spurgeon fully expected that once he sounded the trumpet, Baptist leaders would follow him to the battle, but he was mistaken. The Baptist Union, meeting in 1887, effectively ignored the alarm.
Spurgeon gained their attention, and the attention of the evangelical world, when he resigned from the Baptist Union that same year. When leaders of the Baptist Union, including Clifford, approached Spurgeon to ask that he return, Spurgeon declined on the basis of the Union’s refusal to curb theological deviance within its ranks. His proposal that the Baptist Union adopt a confession of faith, which would disqualify those holding liberal theological views, was declined; and, in a remarkable turn of events, the Baptist Union voted to censure Spurgeon for his actions. Clifford spoke for many moderates when he queried, “Is it too late to ask Mr. Spurgeon to pause and consider whether this is the best work to which the Baptists of Great Britain and Ireland can be put?” Clifford believed union among Baptists was necessary for expanding their influence and reforming society; Spurgeon believed union without agreement on doctrinal boundaries was unwise and ungodly.
When the Baptist Union formally adopted a confession, it passed overwhelmingly: 2,000 members voting to approve with only seven declining. Yet Spurgeon was convinced the vote simply revealed how broadly the confession could be interpreted. Thus, he never rejoined the Union. Whether the “Down Grade Controversy” led to Spurgeon’s untimely death in 1892 is debatable, but a passing of the guard seems to have taken place as Clifford went on to become the first president of the Baptist World Alliance, the premier global organization for Baptist ecumenism (see chap. 9). By the end of the nineteenth century, denominational cooperation among British Baptists trumped doctrinal conviction. The Baptist Union had rendered its verdict on Spurgeon and his theology, concluding that it was a relic of the past.
For Further Study
Deweese, Charles W. Baptist Church Covenants. Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1990.
George, Timothy, and David Dockery, eds. Theologians of the Baptist Tradition. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2001.
Harper, Keith, ed. Rescue the Perishing: Selected Correspondence of Annie W. Armstrong. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004.
———, ed. Send the Light: Lottie Moon’s Letters and Other Writings. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2002.
Morden, Peter. Communion with Christ and His People: The Spirituality of C. H. Spurgeon (1834–1892). Oxford: Regent’s Park College Press, 2010.
Nettles, Tom J. Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Fearne, Ross-Shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2013.
Williams, Michael, and Walter Shurden, eds. Turning Points in Baptist History: A Festschrift in Honor of Harry Leon McBeth. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2008.
Wills, Gregory A. Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785–1900. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Questions for Discussion
1. In what ways were women involved in Baptist life during this period? How would you assess the following: “Prior to the twentieth century, few women aspired to the pastorate, and few claimed to be victims of discrimination.” Does this claim diminish their roles in the church in any way?
2. How were Baptists involved with immigrants toward the end of the nineteenth century? Do you know of any Baptist ministries designed to assist immigrants today? If so, which ones?
3. Baptists introduced the chapel train car as a means of sharing the gospel throughout the rural United States. Can you think of any other innovative techniques Baptists have used in the past that have more or less become obsolete?
4. What was the purpose of church manuals? What information do they reveal to us about transitions in Baptist life since the nineteenth century?
5. Describe the process of church discipline in nineteenth-century Baptist churches. What were the steps and possible outcomes? Why did it decline? Do you think a renewed emphasis on church discipline would help or hurt churches today? Explain your answer.
6. Describe the relationship between Baptists and the temperance movement. How did the changing attitudes toward alcohol affect Baptist interpretation of the Bible? Can you think of other areas in Baptist life where similar interpretive shifts have occurred? If so, explain.
7. Describe the establishment and development of McMaster University. In what way did its founders attempt to combine learning and piety? Were they ultimately successful in keeping this approach? Why or why not?
8. Who was Crawford Toy, and why was he controversial among Southern Baptists? Which do you believe is more important, a teacher who is popular with students or a teacher who is faithful to the vision of the institution?
9. Describe the life and contributions of Charles H. Spurgeon. What was his role in the Down Grade Controversy, and how did it affect British Baptist life? What limits would you place on denominational cooperation and doctrinal conviction in a similar situation?