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Baptists in
the South and |
Research Assessment and Varieties of Baptists in the South An Assessment of the Three Main Research Matrix for Southern |
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Baptists in
the South and |
Research Assessment and Varieties of Baptists in the South An Assessment of the Three Main Research Matrix for Southern |
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Varieties of Baptists in the South, 1850-1870: A Brief
Overview Three main types of Baptists existed in the South during the Civil War era: Free Will Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and Southern Baptists. Free Will Baptists (known at the time as General Baptists) were the earliest of these groups, predating the Sandy Creek Church, which was founded in 1755 by Shubal Stearns and Daniel Marshall. Baptists in the South owe much to the Arminian theological heritage of General Baptists, but their numbers were small in both the 18th and 19th centuries. Primitive Baptists in the South were birthed in the early 1800s in reaction to increasing denominationalism among Baptists at large. Originally known as "anti-mission" Baptists, numerous branches of strict Calvinistic-oriented "Primitivists" arose, and although they attained notable prominence and influence in some southeastern states (such as Tennessee and Alabama), especially in the 1830s to the 1850s, they nonetheless remained a distinct minority within Baptist life in the South. Lastly on the scene were Southern Baptists, birthed in 1845. Their heritage dates back to the 18th century and the merging of Regular (Calvinistic) and Separatist (former Congregationalist churches who converted to the Baptist faith during the First Great Awakening) Baptists in the South into United Baptists at the turn of the 19th century. These Baptists formed the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845 in reaction to perceived hostilities from northern Baptists, primarily over the issue of slavery. (Regular, Separate and United Baptists continue to exist in small numbers, largely in Appalachia.) The newly emergent and emerging statewide Baptist denominational organizations typically affiliated with the new SBC. Despite the late formation of the SBC, Southern Baptists immediately represented the majority of Baptists in the South, dominating Baptist life in the region, as they do today. NOTE: The decades of the 1850s and 1860s represent the more immediate context of the Civil War era, although the birth of the SBC in 1845 is critical in that the formation of the Convention was the result of the same forces and pressures which would ultimately lead to the Civil War itself. (Sources: Baptists in the South by William L. Lumpkin, and Baptists Around the World by Albert W. Wardin)
An Assessment of
Freewill, Primitive and Southern Baptists in Terms of Civil War Literature Concerning Primitive Baptists, two works are known: Charles C. Carrin, Effects of the Pioneer Civil War Period on the Old Baptist Church in the United States, (Statesboro, GA: Primitive Baptist Minister's School, 1969), and Primitive Baptists of the Wiregrass South: 1815 to the Present, by John G. Crowley (University Press of Florida, 1999). Published literature dealing with Southern Baptists is more numerous, although still quite scarce. Rufus Spain, in At Ease in Zion: Social History of Southern Baptists 1865-1900 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), puts Baptists and the Civil War in larger perspective, but deals largely with the post-war years. Jesse C. Fletcher, in "Effects of the Civil War on Baptist Churches" (BHHS Journal 32, 3-4), provides a brief overview of local church life during the war, but only from a distance. In effect, work on any and all areas of Baptists and the Civil War is needed. |
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Research Matrix for Southern Baptists and the Civil War* Baptist Groupings Top-Bottom, Sources Left-Right |
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* In terms of secondary sources, a number of authors reference Southern Baptists when discussing the Civil War, some in more detail than others. C. C. Goen in Broken Churches Broken Nation is one example: he examines Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians leading up to the Civil War. As these works are general assessments of religion and the Civil War, they are not included herein. ** Of the thirteen Confederate states (including Missouri and Kentucky), all but Missouri, Tennessee and Texax (see below) had state Baptist organizations. Listed in order of founding, they were: South Carolina (1821), Georgia (1822), Virginia (1822), Alabama (1823), North Carolina (1830), Mississippi (1836), Kentucky (1837), Arkansas (1848), Louisiana (1848), Florida (1854). Tennessee Baptists initially formed a Tennessee Baptist Convention in 1833, but it was dissolved in 1842 in favor of two regional organizations. A second, and permanent, Tennessee Baptist Convention was formed in 1875 via a reunion of regional organizations (which numbered three at that point). Minutes of the Tennessee regional organizations are available. Texas Baptists were also divided on the state level. A state organization was formed in 1848, but in 1855 it divided into two regional organizations. In 1886 the regional organizations (now numbering three) merged into one. Records of the three Texas regional organizations are available. *** Most of the state Baptist organizations within the thirteen Confederate states had news journals in operation during the Civil War era (date of origin in parenthesis), including Alabama, (Alabama Baptist,1843), Georgia (The Christian Index, founded in 1822), Kentucky (The Western Recorder, 1825), North Carolina (The Biblical Recorder, 1833), South Carolina (Confederate Baptist, 1862), Tennessee (The Baptist, 1835), Texas (Texas Baptist Herald, 1855; see below) and Virginia (The Religious Herald, 1828). The state papers were typically owned by Baptist individuals, but approved by the respective state conventions. These news journals are the best primary sources for Baptists in the South of this era. The Georgia news journal voiced the most conservative Baptist views, while the Virginia and Kentucky news journals voiced the most liberal Baptist viewpoints, and the Tennessee news journal (under the editorship of the controversial J. R. Graves), provided the loudest voice of dissension of the Baptist status quo. Texas Baptists had several aborted attempts at publishing a newspaper, including the Texas Baptist, published from 1855-1861, finally resulting in the publication of the Texas Baptist Herald from 1865 into the 1880s, which was eventually superceded by the Baptist Standard, founded in 1892. Other states, including Alabama and South Carolina, also had numerous temporary, and sometimes competitive, Baptist publications. As a whole, these Baptist news journals represented the various voices of Baptists high and lowly (at least among literate Baptists), via editorials, letters to the editor, sermons, articles, commentary, etc. **** Baptist associations began forming in the South in the early 19th century. Relatively few Baptist Associations (with the exception of Georgia associations, which were numerous) actually existed during the Civil War era. Following is a representative list of some states and some (if not all) of their Baptist Associations as of the Civil War era (only "Southern" Baptist Associations are included; there were, however, some Primitive and Free Will Baptist Associations in existence also, with Primitive Baptists being particularly strong in states such as Tennessee and Alabama). In some cases, some Associations crossed state lines to include churches in a neighboring state. The information below is intended to be representative rather than exhaustive, and is culled from secondary sources, namely, histories of certain state Baptist conventions. Alabama (?) -- Flint River, Muscle Shoals, Mount
Zion, Cahawba, Alabama, Bethel, Beckbe (later named Bethlehem) SOURCES of Associational Information: Alabama (Wayne Flynt, Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie, 1998); Florida (Edward Earl Joiner, A History of Florida Baptists, 1972); Georgia (James Adams Lester, A History of the Georgia Baptist Convention 1822-1972, 1972); Tennessee (Albert W. Wardin, Tennessee Baptists: A Comprehensive History 1779-1999, 1999), Texas (Centennial Story of Texas Baptists, 1936); Virginia (Garnett Ryland, The Baptists of Virginia 1699-1926, 1955)
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