The Presbyterian spy in the Baptist Church
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
The first Baptist church in Mississippi not only faced persecution from the Catholic church but was infiltrated by a Presbyterian spy.
In the 1790s the Spanish controlled the Natchez District, outlawing all public worship that was not Roman Catholic. However, in 1791, Baptist preacher Richard Curtis, Jr. organized a church on Coles Creek, 20 miles north of Natchez, later known as Salem Baptist Church. The Spanish governor, Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, allowed private Protestant worship, hoping to win them over to Catholicism. However, when the priests in Natchez complained of the public worship of the Baptist congregation, Gayoso arrested Curtis in April 1795, and threatened to confiscate his property and expel him from the district if he didn’t stop. Curtis agreed, but he and his congregation decided that didn’t prohibit them from having prayer meetings and “exhortation.” Curtis even performed a wedding in May for his niece but did so secretly.
Sometime in 1795, Ebenezer Drayton was sent by Governor Gayoso to infiltrate the Baptist meetings and send back reports. He reported that at first the Baptists were “afraid of me, and they immediately guessed that I was employed by Government, which I denied.” However, he convinced them that his “feelings were much like theirs… my being of the Protestant Sect called Presbyterians and they of the Baptist.” Thus reassured, they allowed Drayton to attend their meetings, but Drayton wrote letters informing the Spanish “Catholic Majesty,” as he called him, of their activities.
Thanks to Drayton, the Spanish learned that Curtis started to go back to South Carolina, but the congregation sent four men to chase him down and insist he stay and preach to them. Considering this God’s will, Curtis returned and continued to preach. Drayton reported that Curtis agonized over his decision to stay, but told his congregation, “God says, fear not him that can kill the body only, but fear him that can cast the soul into everlasting fire… I am not ashamed not afraid to serve Jesus Christ… and if I suffer for serving him, I am willing to suffer… I would not have signed that paper if I had then known that it is the will of God that I should stay here.”
Drayton had a low opinion of Curtis and the Baptists. He wrote that the Baptists “are weak men of weak minds, and illiterate, and too ignorant to know how inconsistent they act and talk, and that they are only carried away with a frenzy or blind zeal about what they know not what…” However, Curtis seemed sharp enough to realize there was spy among them, because in July 1795, he published a letter in Natchez, explaining why he stayed, defending his religious freedom, and saying he was deeply hurt by “the malignant information against us, laid in before the authority by some who call themselves Christians.”
Thanks to their spy, the Spanish knew exactly when and where the congregation met. In August 1795, they sent a posse to arrest Curtis and two of his converts, but they fled to South Carolina, where they remained until the Spanish were forced by American authorities to leave the Natchez District.
Dr. Rogers is the author of a new history of Mississippi Baptists, to be published in 2025.
Guest post: What happens to people who die having never heard about Jesus?
Copyright by Wayne VanHorn.
Dr. Wayne VanHorn is Dean at the School of Christian Studies and Arts at Mississippi College. This post was first shared on his Facebook page and is shared here with his permission.
I remember the first time someone asked me, “What happens to all those people who die having never heard about Jesus?” They did not think it was fair for them to go to hell because they happened to be born at the wrong time and place to be in the path of Christian witnesses. Admittedly, I was stumped. I had to do some Bible study and some serious thinking before I could let this question go. Over the years, a few things have happened or come to mind that help me answer the question more substantively.
1. I met a man from in-land China. He grew up in Communism whereas I grew up in Church. He was fed a steady diet of atheistic propaganda: no God, no Jesus, etc. while I was taken to church every time the door was open. One day my Chinese friend was listening to the radio. Poor atmospheric conditions in one part of the world some how enabled an evangelistic radio message to skip across the atmosphere; my Chinese friend heard about Jesus “accidentally.” With no Bible, no Church, no preacher, no missionary, or any other evangelic witness, my Chinese friend heard the Gospel, accepted Jesus, and devoted his life to telling his countrymen about the same Lord who is my Savior. I met “Peter” (we could not pronounce his Chinese name) at New Orleans Seminary. This encounter reminded me that just because I do not know how people in remote areas can hear the Gospel does not mean that they do not hear the Gospel.
2. I came across Titus 2:11, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men” (NASB) or as the KJV reads, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” Once again I realized God is at work in ways I might not know about, might not understand, might be oblivious to, etc.
3. As I studied the Bible, I learned more and more of a loving God, who has gone out of His way to make it possible for sinners to repent and to return to Him.
4. In his book, True for You But Not for Me, Paul Copan wrote, “Third, God’s loving and just character assures us that he won’t condemn anyone for being born at the wrong place and time.” (Copan, p. 189)
5. The Greek text of Titus 2:11, “Ἐπεφάνη γὰρ ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις” (Tit 2:11 NA27) utilizes the dative- locative-instrumental form of the adjective “all” and of the noun “men” or “people.” This means God’s salvation-bringing grace has appeared: a. to all people b. for all people. While I cannot fully understand just how God does that, it is not beyond HIS ability to do it.
6. Any impulse or concern I have regarding the un-evangelized is probably God prompting me to share His Gospel with others.
7. Jesus is the only way to salvation, to God, and to heaven, if not, Jesus died in vain. If any religion or any devotion or any sincerely held religious view will save people, Jesus’ did not need to endure the cross and despise the shame. BUT He did endure the cross and He did despise the shame for the joy set before Him (Heb. 12:2). So don’t worry about the un-evangelized, pray for them and witness to them whenever you get a chance. But whatever else you do, don’t let an atheist talk you out of your faith because he/she says it’s unfair that some people will go to hell because they did not get to hear about Jesus. Let me know what you think.
Spiritual equality of the races in antebellum Mississippi Baptist churches
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board
It may be surprising to modern readers to know that church minutes from Mississippi Baptist churches in the years before the Civil War gave every indication that while Black members were treated as unequal socially, they were treated as equal spiritually. That is, both Black and White members were received for baptism and by letter with the “right hand of Christian fellowship” and called “brother and sister,” and both Black and White members received church discipline.
In 1846, Hephzibah Church in Clarke County heard a report that a “colored sister Aggy” had “married a man who had a wife living.” They sent a committee to talk to her privately, and reported she confessed it was true but refused to change, so she was excluded from membership. However, in 1853 the same sister Aggy was repentant, forgiven, and restored to the fellowship of the church.
Bethesda Church in Hinds County had a special committee of five called, “the committee to wait on the blacks.” It was their duty to recommend any church discipline among Black members, as well as to recommend any Blacks who joined by experience of faith or church letter. This committee also invited “the widow Jones Peter to exhort the blacks when present.” In 1859, Bethesda Church charged a “Bro. J. T. Martin for striking with a stick and whipping a Negro boy of Bro. John H. Collins and against Bro. J. H. Collins prosecuting at law Bro. J.T. Martin and cultivating an unchristian spirit toward him.” A committee was sent to get the two men to reconcile, but when they refused, both men were excluded from membership. Apparently, the “committee to wait on the blacks” was made up of White members, and thus was patronizing and socially inequal; yet the very existence of the committee was a recognition of the spiritual value of all races, and their actions showed some genuine desire to protect Blacks such as the slave mentioned above.
In April of 1858, Ebenezer Church in Amite County investigated rumors that a member had killed a enslaved girl, but accepted testimony of two witnesses that her death was an accident. However, in December 1858, Ebenezer Church excluded a Peter A. Green because Green killed one of his escaped slaves when he apprehended him. This was an interesting case in which a White person was disciplined by an antebellum Mississippi Baptist church for killing a Black person. While the social inequalities allowed Green to escape murder charges, he did not escape the spiritual discipline of his church.
In no way am I implying that Blacks were treated as fully equal to Whites in Mississippi Baptist churches in the early 1800s. They were not given places of leadership and they were usually required to sit in a separate location from Whites. However, the evidence is strong that when it came to their spiritual value as brothers and sisters in Christ, Blacks were valued far more spiritually in the church than most modern readers would imagine.
SOURCES:
Minutes, Ebenezer Church, Amite County, April 17, 1858, December 18, 1858; Minutes, Bethesda Church, Hinds County, July 1849, October 1849, March 19, 1859, April 16, 1859; Minutes, Hephzibah Church, Clarke County, March 14, 1846, April 18, 1846; November 12, 1853.
Mississippi Baptist ministers to the Confederate Army during the Civil War
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Although not all white Baptists in Mississippi supported secession from the Union, they overwhelmingly supported the Confederate Army once the Civil War began. They especially felt the call to give spiritual support to the soldiers.
Mississippi’s legislature made ministers exempt from military service, but many of them volunteered for the military as chaplains, and others took up arms as soldiers. The Strong River Association sent two of their ministers to be chaplains in the Confederate Army: Rev. Cader Price to the Sixth regiment of the Mississippi Volunteers, and J. L. Chandler to the Thirty-Ninth.1 During this time, Baptist pastor H. H. Thompson served as a chaplain among the Confederate troops in southwest Mississippi. Thompson was the pastor of Sarepta Church in Franklin County, and simultaneously served as a chaplain to Confederate soldiers. In July 1862, Sarepta Church recorded in its minutes the resignation of Pastor Thompson due to poor health: “Resolved, that we accept the Bro. Thompson’s resignation but regret to part with him, as we found in him a faithful pastor, warm friend and devoted Christian, the cause of his resignation bad health. He has been laboring for some time under [handwriting illegible] and his service in the camps of the Army increased it to such extend that he sought medical advice which was that he should resign his pastoral labors.” 2
Chaplains actively proclaimed the gospel among the Confederate soldiers in Mississippi and Mississippians preached and heard the gospel as they fought in the war throughout the South. Matthew A. Dunn, a farmer from Liberty in Amite County, joined the State militia. From his military base in Meridian, Dunn wrote a letter to his wife in October 1863 that described nightly evangelistic meetings: “We are haveing [sic] an interesting meeting going on now at night—eight were Babtized [sic] last Sunday.” Sarepta Church in Franklin County recorded that a chaplain in the Confederate Army baptized one of their own who accepted Christ while on the warfront: “Thomas Cater having joined the Baptist Church whilst in the Confederate Army and have since died.” The certificate said he was baptized March 13, 1864, in Virginia by Chaplain Alexander A. Lomay, Chaplain, 16th Mississippi Regiment.3
One of the Confederate soldier/preachers would later become president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention and founder of Blue Mountain College. Mark Perrin Lowrey was a veteran of the Mexican War, then a brick mason who became a Baptist preacher in 1852. When the Civil War began, he was pastor of the Baptist churches at Ripley in Tippah County and Kossuth in Alcorn County. Like many of his neighbors in northeast Mississippi, he did not believe in slavery, yet he went to Corinth and enlisted in the Confederate Army. He was elected colonel and commanded the 32nd Mississippi Regiment. Lowrey commanded a brigade at the Battle of Perryville, where he was wounded. Most of his military career was in Hood’s campaign in Tennessee and fighting against Sherman in Georgia. He was promoted to brigadier-general after his bravery at Chickamauga, and played a key role in the Confederate victory at Missionary Ridge. In addition to fighting, he preached to his troops. One of his soldiers said he would “pray with them in his tent, preach to them in the camp and lead them in the thickest of the fight in the battle.” Another soldier said Lowrey “would preach like hell on Sunday and fight like the devil all week!” He was frequently referred to as the “fighting preacher of the Army of Tennessee.” He led in a revival among soldiers in Dalton, Georgia, and afterwards baptized 50 of his soldiers in a creek near the camp. After the war, the Mississippi Baptist Convention elected Lowrey president for ten years in a row, 1868-1877.4
First Baptist Church of Columbus, perhaps the most prosperous Baptist congregation in the State, lost many members to the war, and many wealthy members lost their fortunes. Their pastor, Dr. Thomas C. Teasdale, resigned the church in 1863 to become an evangelist among the Confederate troops. He often preached to an entire brigade, and in one case, preached a sermon on “The General Judgment” to 6,000 soldiers of General Claiborne in Dalton, Georgia, baptizing 80 soldiers after the sermon, and baptizing 60 more the next week. After the Union Army under Sherman attacked, he was no longer able to preach to the soldiers, and returned home to Columbus.5
NOTES:
1 John T. Christian, “A History of the Baptists of Mississippi,” Unpublished manuscript, 1924, 186; Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1861, 13-16.
2 John K. Bettersworth, “The Home Front, 1861-1865,” in A History of Mississippi, vol. 1, ed. by Richard Aubrey McLemore (Hattiesburg: University & College Press of Misssissippi, 1973), 532-533; Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Church, Franklin County, Mississippi, July 1862; Minutes, Bethesda Baptist Church, Hinds County, Mississippi, October 18, 1862.
3 Matthew A. Dunn to Virginia Dunn, October 13, 1863. Matthew A. Dunn and Family Papers, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi; Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Church, Franklin County, Mississippi, October 1865.
4 Christian, 135, 197; Robbie Neal Sumrall, A Light on a Hill: A History of Blue Mountain College (Nashville: Benson Publishing Company, 1947), 6-12.
5 Thomas C. Teasdale, Reminiscences and Incidents of a Long Life, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: National Baptist Publishing Co., 1891), 184-185.
8 principles of Biblical interpretation
Copyright by Bob Rogers, Th.D.
CONTEXT – How does this verse fit with the verses before and after, and the whole chapter?
LITERARY STYLE – What kind of writing is this? Is it poetry, history, a letter, law, prophecy, etc.?
GRAMMAR – What does the subject and verb of the sentence indicate is the writer’s main point? Note figures of speech, etc.
PARALLEL PASSAGES – The Bible is its own best interpreter, so compare what the rest of scripture says on the subject.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND – When, where and why was this written? What was going on at the time in history? What was the writer saying to people in his day and time?
TRANSLATION – Compare translations, to discern the best English word or phrase.
SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT – What has the Holy Spirit told you here, as you read and prayed over it?
CHURCH TRADITION – How have Christians around the world and throughout history interpreted this?
When contemporary Christian music was introduced to Mississippi Baptists
Article copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Although typical worship services were still dominated by hymns and Southern gospel songs, the “Jesus people” movement introduced contemporary music to the church in the early 1970s. Throughout the 1970s, it became common for Baptist youth choirs to go on tour, singing contemporary music at other churches. In December 1971, First Baptist Church, Long Beach, advertised in The Baptist Record that their youth choir would premier an hour-long youth musical composed by Otis Skillings, entitled “Love.” One of the most popular musicals, called “Celebrate Life,” was published by Broadman Press, the Southern Baptist publishing house. In 1972, Plantersville Baptist Church had one of the youngest choirs, ages 7-12, singing contemporary religious music on tour at churches in Mississippi in Alabama. One of the early groups popular among Mississippi Baptist youth was a hybrid between a college-aged choir and brass band called “Truth,” organized by Roger Breland from Mobile, Alabama. In 1971, Truth took the Mississippi Baptist Youth Night by storm, and were invited back in 1972 “by popular demand.”1
In 1975, Broadman Press published a new Baptist Hymnal which included some contemporary songs and spirituals, in addition to traditional hymns. Dan Hall, director of the Church Music Department of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, was one of the first to endorse the new hymnal. However, music styles became a divisive issue among Mississippi Baptists, as illustrated by months of debate in The Baptist Record in 1985. After a letter in August 1985 complained that “Christian rock” music was “demonic.” Soon letters were published every week, alternately defending and attacking “Christian rock” music. The debate continued for months until Randy Weeks of Columbus wrote a letter to the editor in rhyme, asking: “To rock and roll/ must I sell my soul/ as some insinuate?… For once more it seems/ humanity screams/ for answers to save all their lives/ and we spend our days/ thinking up ways/ to criticize Christians who jive.”2
SOURCES:
1 The 1973 annual meeting of the Mississippi Baptist Convention listed the congregational songs at each session, all of which were traditional hymns, such as “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name,” “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus,” and the Bill Gaither Southern gospel song, “He Touched Me.” Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1973, 39-41; The Baptist Record, December 16, 1971, 3; December 27, 1971, 7; October 19, 1972, 7; December 14, 1972, 1, 2.
2 The Baptist Record, March 6, 1975, 1; August 22, 1985, 11; August 29, 1985, 8; September 5, 1985, 6; September 12, 1985, 9; September 19, 1985, 9; October 31, 1985, 6; November 14, 1985, 5.
Dr. Rogers is currently writing a new history of Mississippi Baptists.
Mississippi Baptist responses to natural disasters in late 20th century
Article copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Hardly a year passed without a story of a natural disaster or fire destroying a church in Mississippi in the late 20th century, yet each time Baptists responded with a helping hand. Mississippi Baptists began to organize and prepare themselves to respond to disasters. Soon after Hurricane Camille in 1969, Southern Baptists began discussing a more efficient way to respond to disasters. The Mississippi Baptist Convention put together a van with supplies in the 1970s, and assigned the work to the Brotherhood Department.
The Pearl River “Easter Flood” shut down the city of Jackson in April 1979. Some 15,000 residents had to be evacuated by Thursday, April 17, and downtown was cordoned off. Although no Mississippi Baptist churches were flooded, the Baptist Building in Jackson had to close for a time. At least 500 Baptist families had flooded homes, particularly members of Colonial Heights, Broadmoor, First Baptist, Northminster and Woodland Hills Baptist churches. Several hundred male student volunteers from Mississippi College were bussed from their dorms in Clinton to Flowood to work on the levee. The Mississippi Baptist Disaster Relief van was on the scene, serving hot meals to 1,500 people. For weeks, volunteers met every Saturday to do repairs, and the MBCB executive committee endorsed a statewide offering for churches to aid in flood relief.1
Hurricane Frederic damaged churches in the Pascagoula area in September 1979. In September 1985, Hurricane Elena did damage estimated at $3 million to churches and Baptist facilities all over the Gulf Coast. Griffin Street Baptist Church in Moss Point had its back wall blown out. The pastor, Athens McNeil, quipped, “We’re open to the public… literally.” Elena also damaged Gulfshore Baptist Assembly, the seamen’s center, and it caused $1.5 million in damage to William Carey College on the Coast. Baptist relief units were on the scene right away, working in conjunction with the Red Cross. A number of Baptist churches served as shelters; some 250 people stayed at First Baptist Church, Pascagoula.2
A deadly tornado hit churches in Pike and Lincoln counties in January 1975, and another twister damaged churches in Water Valley in April 1984. The most destructive tornado during this time was the one that hit Jones County on Saturday, February 28, 1987. Five Baptist churches had property damage, and members of five other Baptist churches had personal property damage. “I have never seen such damage since I left the battlefield in Europe as I saw in Jones County,” wrote Don McGregor, editor of The Baptist Record. Immediately, the Mississippi Baptist Brotherhood Department began calling churches across the State for volunteers. The day after the Jones tornado hit, 325 volunteers, representing 55 churches, arrived at the Jones County Baptist Association to serve. Hundreds more volunteers arrived during the week; eventually 1,000 people helped with clean-up and relief supplies.3
SOURCES:
1 The Baptist Record, April 19, 1979, 1; April 26, 1979, 1; May 10, 1979, 1; May 17, 1979, 1; Author’s personal memory as a student at Mississippi College working on the levee for 17 hours in one day to stop floodwaters.
2 The Baptist Record, September 12, 1985, 3; September 20, 1979, 1; September 29, 1979, 1; September 19, 1985, 1, 3, 5.
3 The Baptist Record, January 16, 1975, 1, 2; March 5, 1987, 3; March 12, 1987, 3, 4; March 19, 1987, 2.
Dr. Rogers is currently writing a history of Mississippi Baptists.
Two unique Baptists from Yazoo City, Mississippi: Owen Cooper and Jerry Clower
Article copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Two of the most famous Baptists from Mississippi were laymen, not pastors. Both were members of the same church in Yazoo City, and one worked for the other.
Owen Cooper, an industrialist and deacon at First Baptist Church, Yazoo City, was a leader in Mississippi Baptist life for four decades, beginning in the 1940s. He founded Mississippi Chemical Corporation and led many humanitarian projects. Cooper eventually became the most influential layman in the Southern Baptist Convention in the twentieth century. He served as chairman of the board of trustees at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary at the time the seminary was relocated. He served on the Foreign Mission Board, where he worked closely with the area director for Southern Asia and the Pacific, Clinton native Jerry Rankin, on supporting indigenous missionaries in India. In 1959, he began serving on the Southern Baptist Executive Committee, a tenure that lasted 21 years. He was elected chairman of the SBC Executive Committee in 1971. In 1972, Cooper was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, serving two years. Other Mississippians had been elected president of the SBC, but they lived in other states at the time. Cooper was the first to live in Mississippi at the time he served as president of the SBC. An advocate for lay involvement in missions, Cooper was also the last layperson to be elected president of the denomination in the past 50 years. He died of cancer in 1986.
A native of Liberty, Jerry Clower was a fertilizer salesman who worked for Owen Cooper and a fellow church member of First Baptist, Yazoo City. When Clower released a record of his humorous stories, Cooper encouraged him, guaranteeing him a job if showbusiness didn’t work out. The record became a hit in 30 days, and the rest was history. In the 1970s, he began to appear regularly on “Country Crossroads,” a country and western show sponsored by the Southern Baptist Radio and TV Commission. In 1972, Clower nominated his boss and fellow church member Owen Cooper to be president of the Southern Baptist Convention with the memorable words, “Now y’all know he didn’t come to town on no watermelon truck.”2
SOURCES:
1 The Baptist Record, June 10, 1971, 1; June 22, 1972, 1; Don McGregor, The Thought Occurred to Me: A Book About Owen Cooper (Nashville: Fields Communications & Publishing, 1992), 94, 109, 127-128, 146, 149, 166-167, 169-170; “Owen Cooper (1908-1986) Business Leader and Humanitarian,” by Jo G. Prichard III, Mississippi History Now, accessed on the Internet March 7, 2023 at https://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/owen-cooper-1908-1986-business-leader-and-humanitarian;
2 The Baptist Record, September 14, 1972, 1; McGregor, 169.
(Dr. Rogers is writing a new history of Mississippi Baptists.)
How Mississippi Woman’s College became William Carey College
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
In the 1950s, the Mississippi Baptist Convention had to make a decision about what to do with Mississippi Woman’s College in Hattiesburg. Since reopening in 1947 under the leadership of Dr. Irving E. Rouse, the college enrollment grew steadily from 76 students to 149 by 1951. However, many felt that the all-female status of the college hindered its potential to grow. During debate over the issue, Sue Bell Johnson, wife of former president Johnson, prayed, “Lord, if Woman’s College can help bring in the Kingdom, save it.” In 1953, the Mississippi Baptist Education Commission presented the State Convention with two choices regarding the college: either close it, or make it co-educational. Messengers voted overwhelmingly to keep it open and make it co-educational. Then messengers took another vote on whether the college should be a junior college or a senior college, and by a vote of 304 to 291, they voted to make it a senior college. Knowing it could no longer be called “Woman’s College,” President Rouse suggested the name William Carey College, in honor of the 18th century English Baptist missionary to India who became the father of modern missions, and the new name was approved by the faculty and trustees. According to tradition, Rouse meditated in the forest adjacent to the college, and there felt inspired to name the school after the missionary. Thus, the college inherited the famous motto of William Carey, “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.”1
Even before Mississippi Woman’s College adopted its new name, the school began immediately to prepare for male students, erecting a male dormitory that opened in the fall of 1954. The administration knew that a quick way to bring in male students was by creating football, baseball, basketball and track teams. Les De Vall, head coach of Hinds Junior College in Raymond, was hired as the football coach. Billy Crosby, a member of the football and baseball teams, said that one day President Rouse asked if he would be interested in playing for Mississippi Woman’s College. Crosby thought, “I could just see the headlines: ‘The Skirts Lose Again.’” Nevertheless, Billy and 35 other players showed up that fall at the then-renamed William Carey College. With the addition of male students, the total enrollment in the fall of 1954 was 315 students. The football team posted winning seasons in its two years of competition, 1954 and 1955. An even greater spiritual victory occurred when Dr. Andy Tate, dean of men, led several of the football players to faith in Christ. These conversions sparked a revival in the men’s dormitory, and over 100 male students made professions of faith. Some of the athletes became ministers. The prayers of Sue Bell Johnson were already being answered.2
SOURCES:
1 Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1951, 114; 1953, 45; Donna Duck Wheeler, William Carey College: The First 100 Years (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), 43, 48, 49; The Baptist Record, May 13, 1954, 1; October 14, 2004, Special Supplement Celebrating the Jubilee of William Carey College.
2 Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1954, 113; Wheeler, 51, 53.
How Mississippi Baptist churches struggled during the Great Depression
Copyright 2022 by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
During the Great Depression, nearly every church had financial struggles, whether the church was large or small. First Baptist Church in Natchez had already begun a new building when the stock market crashed, dedicating their building in 1930. Unfortunately, the debt of approximately $25,000 proved a heavy burden during the depression, and it took them until 1945 to pay it off. The pastor, W. A. Sullivan, asked that his own salary be cut, and the difference be applied to the church debt. Despite this and other sacrifices, in January 1932 the church was unable to pay the interest on their loan. To avoid default, the church took out another loan to pay the interest on the first loan. It was not until 1939 that the financial situation improved enough that they began to pay down the principal on the debt; it took the Natchez church until 1945 to get out of debt1
First Baptist Church in Clinton borrowed money to build a new building in 1923, but struggled to pay the debt, as it was a small church, with a large majority of the members being college students with little income. The Clinton church’s building debt was a third of its income when the Great Depression came, and the church had little means to pay. In April 1933, the deacons recommended that the pastor serve a month without pay, and that payments to the debt be deferred for six months, paying only the interest. It would be another ten years before they finally paid the debt.2
Calvary Baptist Church in Jackson was a large congregation of 1600 members in 1930, but many members lost their jobs and left Jackson seeking work elsewhere. The hard times caused them to appoint a five-man committee to present a plan to cut expenses. At first, they proposed moderate cuts, eliminating salaries for choir members, getting rid of one telephone, and urging “strictest economy” in electricity and water use. But as offerings continued to fall, they slashed other salaries and stopped purchasing Sunday school literature.3
When the Great Depression started, C. J. Olander was pastor of several churches in the Rankin County area, including First Baptist of Brandon, Bethel, Fannin and Pisgah churches, and he started the church at Flowood. Olander wrote later, “The depression became so severe that the members [at Flowood] moved out for the time being and came back and reorganized.” The Brandon Church paid him $450 a year. To supplement his income, Olander sold milk to townspeople and kept a good garden for food. In 1935, Olander went to the Delta to pastor five churches at once, even though a friend warned him that if he went there, “you will never be heard of again and the folk will starve you to death.” Olander said, “It was bad, it was bankrupt, yet today as a result of that ministry there are six full time churches. There was Morgan City, Tchula, Blaine, Cruger, Sidon and Harmony.”4
Some churches managed to thrive despite the Depression. A. L. Goodrich was called to pastor First Baptist Church, Pontotoc, just 30 days before the banks closed. Rather than let it dampen his spirits, Goodrich focused on sharing the gospel and helping his community. The energetic pastor joined local civic clubs, he took leadership positions in his Association and the State Convention, and he organized the “Pontotoc Cotton Plan” to give hundreds of dollars to the Mississippi Baptist Orphanage. God blessed the church with an increase of 232 members during his years as pastor, 1931-1935. The Pontotoc church’s Sunday night worship attendance was equal to morning worship; they started three choirs, paid off an old debt and installed a pipe organ.5
Dr. Rogers is currently writing a new history of Mississippi Baptists.
SOURCES:
1 “A History of First Baptist Church, Natchez, Mississippi, 1817-2000,” Unpublished document, Archives, Mississippi Baptist Historical Commission, 17-19; Daniel A. Wynn, “History of First Baptist Church of Natchez,” in Forward to Freedom: The 175th Anniversary Celebration, First Baptist Church, Natchez, Mississippi, April 26, 1992.
2 Charles E. Martin, A Heritage to Cherish: A History of First Baptist Church, Clinton, Mississippi, 1852-2002 (Nashville: Fields Publishing, Inc., 2001), 93-96.
3 Randy J. Sparks, Religion in Mississippi (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 183.
4 Tom J. Nettles, The Patience of Providence: A History of First Baptist Church Brandon, Mississippi, 1835-1985 (First Baptist Church, Brandon, Mississippi, 1989), 69, 72-73.
5 The Baptist Record, January 3, 1935, 5.
The story of Dan Moulder, perhaps Mississippi’s greatest country preacher
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
One of the greatest country preachers in the history of Mississippi was the remarkable Daniel Wesley Moulder of Lorena in Smith County. He served as pastor of as many as 11 churches at once. Born on November 26, 1867, Moulder was in his 60s at the time of the Great Depression, yet “Brother Dan” was still going strong. He preached at different locations every weekend, multiple times every Saturday and Sunday, and even occasionally on Friday night. Moulder eventually served 42 different churches in Smith, Simpson, Jones, Rankin, Hinds, Covington and Scott Counties, 16 of which he organized. In 1932, he preached 330 sermons in churches of which he was pastor, and 40 more sermons in other churches. He baptized 117 people in 1932, received 75 other new members, conducted 70 funerals, and performed six weddings. In 1933, Moulder was already serving 10 different churches at once as pastor when he organized another at Lorena in Smith County. During the Great Depression, each weekend he preached to churches scattered across Simpson, Smith and Rankin Counties. He once told a preacher who said he had nothing to preach, “Get your Bible and go among your people. You’ll receive more than you’ll ever be able to preach.” When he died in 1953, he was buried at Goodwater Baptist Church in Smith County, the church where he had been ordained. The Mississippi Baptist Convention annual honored Moulder as “one of Mississippi’s greatest country preachers,” and the Smith County Baptist Association remembered him as “Mississippi’s most widely known and best-loved minister.”
Dr. Rogers is currently writing a new history of Mississippi Baptists.
SOURCES: The Baptist Record, March 17, 1932; January 5, 1933, 1, 5; December 13, 1990, 2; Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1953, cover page; Minutes, Smith County Baptist Association, 1953; Letter, D. W. Moulder to J. L. Boyd, January 14, 1927, Archives, Mississippi Baptist Historical Commission.
The Mississippi Delta preacher and his train ticket
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Mississippi Baptists are primarily a rural people, and during the Great Depression, many of these churches could only afford to pay their pastors with vegetables, chickens, eggs and meat from their gardens and farms. The only way that many small country churches could find a pastor was to have one come once or twice a month, and share him with other churches. In 1930, Will Turner, a leader from Straight Bayou Baptist Church in Sharkey County talked to C. C. Carraway, the young pastor of Midnight Baptist Church. Turner asked Carraway if he would preach at Straight Bayou, as well. Carraway, who was a student at Mississippi College, said he would. Turner asked how much his round-trip train ticket cost from Clinton to Midnight, and he said it was $4.28. Turner said, “Then that’s what we’ll pay you each time you come.”
Source: “Straight Bayou Baptist Church: The First Hundred Years, 1891-1991,” Straight Bayou Baptist Church, Anguilla, Miss., Unpublished document, Archives, Mississippi Baptist Historical Commission, 12.
Arthur Flake, the man from Mississippi who changed the face of Sunday School
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Arthur Flake was born in Texas, but moved to Winona, Mississippi in 1895 when he married Lena Nelson. A traveling salesman and department store manager, Flake was a gifted organizer who changed the face of Sunday School in the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1895 he organized the first Baptist Young People’s Union (B.Y.P.U.) in Mississippi in his church in Winona. He also served as a volunteer Sunday School superintendent in his church, and he was so successful that he was elected in 1909 as a field worker with the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1920, he was placed in charge of standardizing how Southern Baptists do Sunday School. He developed his famous “Flake’s Formula” for growing a Sunday School: discover the possibilities, enlarge the organization, provide a place, train the workers, and visit the prospects. Baptist historians point to God’s work through Arthur Flake as a major reason that Southern Baptists have had more growth through Sunday School than other denominations.
SOURCES:
“Flake, Arthur,” in Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, vol. 1, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1954), 440-441; Jesse C. Fletcher, The Southern Baptist Convention: A Sesquicentennial History (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 123.
Mississippi Baptists, Darwin’s theory and a confession of faith
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
The hottest topic among Baptists in the 1920s was alarm over the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution; this concern resulted in the adoption, in 1925, of the very first confession of faith of the Southern Baptist Convention. Mississippi Baptists were directly involved in these events.
The controversy heated up in 1921 when J. Frank Norris, the outspoken conservative pastor of First Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas, accused Baylor University of supporting Darwinism. Mississippi Baptists expressed concern over the teaching of the theory of evolution as early as 1922. On October 24, 1922, the Simpson County Baptist Association appealed to the State Convention to appoint a committee “to investigate the character of text-books used in the free schools and colleges of our state… especially if in these schools any teaching is discovered that contradicts the unmistakable teachings of the Word of God.” The State Convention president appointed a committee made up of Baptist educators, to investigate the matter. The committee failed to report in 1923, but that year, Mississippi Baptist evangelist Thomas T. Martin published an anti-evolution book entitled Hell and the High Schools: Christ or Evolution, Which? Martin criticized the educational elite, “a lot of high brows supported by your taxes,” and called on parents to take control of their children’s education.1
In 1924, J. W. Provine asked that the committee be relieved of its responsibility, “since the Committee is composed of those connected with the schools.” The Committee on Committees appointed a new committee at the 1924 State Convention, which reported a resolution the very next day, decrying that public school textbooks “almost universally teach Evolution,” and saying “the teaching of this hypothesis is both a perversion of science and a violation of the religious freedom of our people.” The resolution protested the use of tax dollars to oppose Christian doctrine, warned schools not to employ books or teachers that taught evolution, and petitioned the legislature of Mississippi to instruct the Text Book Commission “to adopt no books for use in our schools that teach the unproven hypothesis of Evolution.”2
In 1925, the state superintendent of schools responded by banning the teaching of evolution in the state’s classrooms, although the Mississippi legislature rejected a law against teaching evolution. However, Tennessee did pass an anti-evolution law in 1925, which sparked a controversy that was literally heard around the nation. John Scopes, a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was put on trial for violating the law. The famous lawyer Clarence Darrow defended Scopes, and the prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic nominee for president. The Scopes “Monkey Trial,” as it was nicknamed, turned into a media circus, as it was aired live on the radio and heard by millions. The following year, Mississippi also passed a law against teaching evolution. The American Civil Liberties Union offered to represent any teacher willing to challenge the Mississippi bill in the courts, but no one took them up on the offer.3
It was in this environment that the Southern Baptist Convention adopted its very first doctrinal statement in 1925. Although local churches and associations had published statements of faith for years, larger Baptist organizations had resisted doing so, believing their only creed should be the Bible. In response to concerns raised by J. Frank Norris and others about liberalism, particularly evolution, Baptists began discussing the possibility of having an official statement of faith. This feeling was strong in Mississippi, as in 1924, Mississippi Baptists adopted a resolution that requested that the trustees and faculties of Mississippi Baptist schools prepare a statement of beliefs to which each teacher would be required to subscribe. Similar discussions were happening in other states and at the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1924, the Southern Baptist Convention rejected a call to make a doctrinal statement binding, but it did elect a committee to write a confession of faith, chaired by SBC president and Mississippi native, E. Y. Mullins. With the national attention of the Scopes trial, Southern Baptists were ready to adopt the Baptist Faith and Message, a statement of faith recommended by Mullins’s committee in 1925.4
Mullins chose to model the Baptist Faith and Message after the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, which modified some of the strong Calvinist language of other Baptist confessions. Regarding God’s work of grace, the new faith statement said, “Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which he regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sinners. It is perfectly consistent with the free agency of man…” Instead of saying that Baptists were the only true church, as Landmark Baptists would have it, it simply said, “A church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel…” While the statement did not mention evolution, it affirmed that “Man was created by the special act of God, as recorded in Genesis.” The next year, in 1926, George W. McDaniel explicitly stated in his presidential address that Southern Baptists rejected evolution. A resolution was adopted making this “McDaniel Statement” binding on all those working for Southern Baptist institutions. Likewise, in November 1926 the Mississippi Baptist Convention adopted a statement of faith that all college faculty were required to sign. In the first sentence, it affirmed belief in “God the creator of all things.”5
SOURCES:
1 O. S. Hawkins, In the Name of God: The Colliding Lives, Legends, and Legacies of J. Frank Norris and George W. Truett (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2021), 95; Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1922, 28; Randy J. Sparks, Religion in Mississippi (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 182.
2 Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1924, 20, 26-28.
3 Sparks, 182; Thomas S. Kidd, American History, vol. 2 (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2019), 130-131.
4 Jesse C. Fletcher, The Southern Baptist Convention: A Sesquicentennial History (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 141-142; Robert A. Baker, The Southern Baptist Convention and Its People, 1607-1972 (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1974), 398-399; Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1924, 28.
5 Fletcher, 142-143; Baker, 398-399; Annual, Southern Baptist Convention, 1925, 72-73, Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1926, 21-22.
The beginnings of William Carey University
Copyright by Robert C. Rogers and the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Since Mississippi College was an all-male school, Mississippi Baptists were looking to sponsor a college for women in the early twentieth century, and the opportunity fell into their lap in Hattiesburg.1
A group of New Orleans businessmen had founded South Mississippi College in Poplarville in 1906, and then immediately moved it to land in the south part of Hattiesburg. Under the leadership of William I. Thames, it quickly grew, but then tragedy struck. On the night of February 28, 1910, a devastating fire destroyed the main building, eliminating classrooms, the library, and the auditorium. The school was forced to close. In 1911, W. S. F. Tatum, a wealthy lumberman and Methodist layman, bought the 10 acres and remaining two buildings. Tatum offered the property to the State of Mississippi for a “Normal College” (teacher’s college), but the site was rejected by the State. He then offered the property to his fellow Methodists, but they chose not to build another college, since they already had Millsaps College in Jackson. He then offered it to as a gift to the four Baptist churches in Hattiesburg. Those churches accepted the offer, formed a corporation, and the trustees hired W. W. Rivers from Arkansas to become president. Rivers secured a faculty, recruited students, and opened the school in September 1911 under a new name, Mississippi Woman’s College. They offered the debt-free college to the Mississippi Baptist Convention, and it was accepted by the State Convention on November 23, 1911.2
John L. Johnson, Jr. served as president of Mississippi Woman’s College from 1912-1921, and during his administration an administration building, Tatum Court, was completed in 1914, and brick dormitories, Ross and Johnson Halls, were added, as well as an infirmary and a model home to be used as a laboratory for domestic science classes. Enjoying rapid growth in enrollment, the campus expanded to 40 acres, and gained accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1926. By 1929, the college had 500 students. This school later became William Carey University, which will be the subject of a future blog post.3
Dr. Rogers is currently writing a new history of Mississippi Baptists.
SOURCES:
1 Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1900, 63.
2 Donna Duck Wheeler, William Carey College: The First 100 Years (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), 8, 16-17; Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1911, 55-56.
3 Wheeler, 8; Minutes, Mississippi Baptist Convention, 1919, 22-23; 1929, 55.
Bob Rogers 