Robert Smalls, Forgotten Baptist Hero

In recent months I have written about the former African slave (and Baptist) Robert Smalls (1839-1915), who became famous for a daring exploit during the American Civil War, became a leading Baptist layman in the South during the Reconstruction era, and today is one of the 19th century's largely-forgotten Baptist heroes (at least in Baptist circles at large).

Within South Carolina black Baptist life, however, Robert Smalls is experiencing a renaissance during this 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. "The Life and Times of Congressman Robert Smalls" is a part of the S.C. State Museum’s traveling exhibits program. Having traveled around the country during the past three years with visitation of more than 75,000 persons, the exhibit is now en route to Tabernacle Baptist Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, the church were Smalls is buried. Read more about the exhibit that honors the life of this remarkable Baptist layman.

Conference: Baptists, Civil War and Emancipation

The annual conference of the Baptist History & Heritage Society is May 20-22 in Richmond, with the focus on Religion and the War Emancipation and Reconciliation.

The Virginia Baptist Historical Society and Center for Baptist Heritage Studies, both under the leadership of Baptist historian Fred Anderson, are co-sponsors.

For more information, read Fred's article about the event.

Soapstone Baptist Church

The Pickens Sentinel newspaper of Pickens County, South Carolina has a wonderful story about a small, historic church, Soapstone Baptist Church. The church was founded after the Civil War by freed blacks and has survived to this day, in the face of many trials.

Read the story here

A Seventh Day Baptist Historical Celebration

Seventh Day Baptists don't make headlines as much as some other Baptist groups, but their history in America traces back to the 17th century. This year is the 275th anniversary of the Seventh Day Baptist Church of Shiloh, New Jersey. The following article offers interesting and insightful tidbits about what Baptist church life was like in centuries past.

Click here to read the story.

"A Place for All Kinds of Consciences"

In 1853, the Free Will Baptist Quarterly debuts, appropriately printed in Providence, Rhode Island, the home of America's Baptist founder (and the father of Rhode Island), Roger Williams. This first edition of the periodical offers an assessment of Baptists' heritage of "Soul Liberty." Paying tribute to Williams and the Rhode Island colony's founding commitment as "A PLACE FOR ALL KINDS OF CONSCIENCES," the treatise rejoices that soul freedom has since been established throughout the American nation, while offering a few warnings to Baptists regarding the guarding of their spiritual heritage:

While the world's history teems with the records of soul oppression, it is a most happy thing that instances of it become less and less numerous under the light of Protestant Christianity, as years roll on....

This certainly indicates a great change since the days of John Cotton. Were he here now.... he [would] be susprised at seeing the wilderness all cleft away, populous cities risen up, and the country settled all over with hamlets; not only would he be disturbed by the hum of factories, and amazed at the enginery of travel among the hills; but he would be confounded to find that that Massachusetts too had become "a Place For All Kinds Of Consciences"—that her population had become steeped in those doctrines of religious toleration, those extreme views of liberty of conscience, which, in his day, were regarded as an element so dangerous to the State, that their advocates were driven away by the civil authorities....

..... it is not ignorance of the rights of conscience, so much as conscious disregard of those rights, of which society now complnins. Caught in the net-work of a subtle influence, men now yield to beguiloments, and under a sweet compulsion are led captive by Satan at his will. And it is the extent of this base abandonment of "soul-freedom," whether to a crafty devil or to crafty men, that constitutes the most fearful obstacles to the progress of Christianity.