As the story goes, an itinerant preacher once visited the Bluegrass region and proclaimed heaven to be "a mere Kentucky of a place." The Commonwealth's first Baptists certainly thought so as they began settling the region a decade before statehood. By 1785 a group of pioneering preachers formed the Elkhorn Association, widely regarded as the oldest Baptist association west of the Alleghenies. Often portrayed in the historiography as the vanguard of a new frontier democracy, the Elkhorn Association, on closer inspection, reveals itself to be far more complex. In A Mere Kentucky of a Place, Keith Harper argues that the association's Baptist ministers were neither full-fledged frontier egalitarians nor radical religionists but simply a people in transition. These ministers formed their identities in the crucible of the early national period, challenged by competing impulses, including their religious convictions, Jeffersonian Republicanism, and a rigid honor code-with mixed results. With a keen eye for human interest, Harper brings familiar historical figures such as John Gano and Elijah Craig to life as he analyzes leadership in the Elkhorn Association during the early republic. Mining the wealth of documents left by the association, Harper details the self-aware struggle of these leaders to achieve economic wealth, status, and full social and cultural acceptance, demonstrating that the Elkhorn Association holds a unique place in the story of Baptists in the "New Eden" of Kentucky. Ideal for course adoption in religious studies and students of Kentucky history, this readable work is sure to become a standard source on the history of religion on the Kentucky frontier.

In Mainstreaming Fundamentalism: John R. Rice and Fundamentalism's Public Reemergence, Keith Bates embarks on a thematic and chronological exploration of twentieth-century Baptist fundamentalism in postwar America, sharing the story of a man whose career intersected with many other leading fundamentalists of the twentieth century, such as J. Frank Norris, Bob Jones Sr., Bob Jones Jr., and Jerry Falwell.Unique among histories of American fundamentalism, this book explores the theme of Southern fundamentalism's reemergence through a biographical lens. John R. Rice's mission to inspire a broad cultural activism within fundamentalism - particularly by opposing those who fostered an isolationist climate - would give direction and impetus to the movement for the rest of the twentieth century. To support this claim, Bates presents chapters on Rice's background and education, personal and ecclesiastical separatism, and fundamentalism and political action, tracing his rise to leadership during a critical phase of fundamentalism's development until his death in 1980. Bates draws heavily upon primary source texts that include writings from Rice's fundamentalist contemporaries, his own The Sword of the Lord articles, and his private papers - particularly correspondence with many nationally known preachers, local pastors, and laypeople over more than fifty years of Rice's ministry. The incorporation of these writings, combined with Bates's own conversations with Rice's family, facilitate a deeply detailed, engaging examination that fills a significant gap in fundamentalist history studies. Mainstreaming Fundamentalism: John R. Rice and Fundamentalism's Public Reemergence provides a nuanced and insightful study that will serve as a helpful resource to scholars and students of postwar American fundamentalism, Southern fundamentalism, and Rice's contemporaries.

In step with the #MeToo movement and third wave feminism, women's roles provoke lively debate in today's evangelical sphere. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has a complicated past regarding this issue, and determining what exactly women's roles in home, church, and society should be, or even what these roles should be called, has been a contentious subject. In A Marginal Majority: Women, Gender, and a Reimagining of Southern Baptists, editors Elizabeth H. Flowers and Karen K. Seat and eight other contributors examine the SBC's complex history regarding women and how that history reshapes our understanding of the denomination and its contemporary debates. This comprehensive volume starts with women as SBC fundraisers, moves to the ways they served Southern Baptist missions, and considers their struggles to find a place at Southern Baptist seminaries as well as their launching of "teaching" or "women's" ministries. Along the way, it introduces new personalities, offers fresh considerations of familiar figures, and examines the power dynamics of race and class in a denomination that dominated the South and grew into a national behemoth. Additionally, the essay collection provides insights into why the SBC has often politically aligned with the right. Not only did the denomination become increasingly oriented toward authoritarianism as it clamped down on evangelical feminism, but, as several contributors reveal, even as Southern Baptist women sought agency, they often took it from others. Read together, the chapters strike a somber tone, challenging any triumphal historiography of the past. By providing a history of contentious issues from the nineteenth century to the present day, A Marginal Majority provides invaluable context for the recurrent struggles women have faced within the United States' largest Protestant denomination. Moreover, it points to new directions in the study of American denominational life and culture.

Perhaps no person exerted more influence on postwar white Southern memory than former Confederate chaplain and Baptist minister J. William Jones. Christopher C. Moore's Apostle of the Lost Cause is the first full-length work to examine the complex contributions to Lost Cause ideology of this well-known but surprisingly understudied figure. Commissioned by Robert E. Lee himself to preserve an accurate account of the Confederacy, Jones responded by welding hagiography and denominationalism to create, in effect, a sacred history of the Southern cause. In a series of popular books and in his work as secretary of the Southern Historical Society Papers, Jones's mission became the canonization of Confederate saints, most notably Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis, for a postwar generation and the contrivance of a full-blown myth of Southern virtue-in-defeat that deeply affected historiography for decades to come. While personally committed to Baptist identity, Jones supplied his readers with embodiments of Southern morality who transcended denominational boundaries and enabled white Southerners to locate their champions (and themselves) in a quasi-biblical narrative that ensured ultimate vindication for the Southern cause. In a time when Confederate monuments and the enduring effects of white supremacy are in the daily headlines, an examination of this key figure in the creation of the Lost Cause legacy could not be more relevant.

Local church history is important. What great thinkers have written and what denominational bodies have declared in resolutions and organizational ministries are important, but ""lived religion"" at the ground level provides a fuller picture of the story of the Christian faith. The fifty-year (1967-2017) story of Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, is one of those narratives that richly adds to our understanding of how faith has been lived in a particular setting. ""Different and distinctive but nevertheless Baptist"" is a phrase that tells the rich, unique history of Northminster Baptist Church. Baptist churches are known for claiming the priesthood of believers as a Baptist distinctive, but no church emphasizes it as much or implements it more than Northminster. Alongside a conscious lay emphasis, the church has had notable pulpit ministers like John Claypool and Chuck Poole (twice). Originally affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, its young professional base was seen as an alternative to First Baptist Church, Jackson. The church became involved in the Alliance of Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. At the same time, the theologically progressive church remained active in the Mississippi Baptist Convention-despite its frequent ordinations of women ministers-until its ouster in 2017. Northminster's story tells of a strong, notable, interfaith relationship with the Beth Temple Israel synagogue, an innovative social ministry (Wider Net) to the inner city of Jackson, and a theology of reverent worship that is liturgically ""high church."" Different, but proudly Baptist, no doubt.

It is now widely acknowledged that the Western world has been transitioning into a ""postmodern"" context for some time. Many, if not most, of the commitments that gained ascendancy during the Enlightenment are rapidly changing-including but not limited to our cultural sensibilities, manufacturing practices, philosophical theories, and political forms. Given these shifts, the challenge for Christians of all stripes is to strive to faithfully engage this world without acquiescence or retreat. In Inhabiting the World, Ryan Newson argues that resources contained in the ""baptist vision"" of Christian life are uniquely helpful in describing how Christians might transformatively and receptively inhabit the world as it now is. Newson unpacks the contours of a Christian identity centered around listening-to oneself, to others, and to the wild voice of God-and focuses his argument by engaging the work of theologian James Wm. McClendon, Jr. No mere ""report"" on McClendon's thought, however, Newson pushes back on and creatively extends McClendon's work, including into the fields of neuroscience, political theology, church practices, and ecclesial failure. Crucially, Newson's concern is less with what this tradition has always said and more with what we should say moving forward, outlining a positive vision that goes beyond merely saying what we are against. Altogether, he unpacks what a radical Baptist identity for today might look like while seeking to avoid many of the dead ends and false starts often associated with this tradition.

Established amid adversity in 1817, the First Baptist Church of Augusta, Georgia, ranks among the most important congregations in Southern history for having birthed the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. A Journey of Faith and Community offers new insight into the surprising role First Baptist Church of Augusta played in the formation of the South's now-largest denomination. Yet in a manner unusual for Baptist churches of the Deep South and in part reflective of the ethos of Augusta, the First Baptist congregation maintained significant relationships with Northern (American) Baptists into the twentieth century. Exemplifying the progressively conservative nature and rapid growth of early to mid-twentieth century urban Southern Baptist life, the church in the decades following dissented from a theologically-calcifying SBC by ordaining women to ministry, welcoming holistic ministry and missions, and transitioning into primarily a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship congregation. A Journey of Faith and Community is the story of how an outcast and disadvantaged people of faith grew into a large and influential Southern congregation while striving to remain true, amid changing cultural currents, to a Christ-centric heritage of freedom of conscience, religious liberty for all, and church state separation. At the same time this volume is a study of the close relationship between church and city, the historical intertwining of religion and the South, and congregational responses to modern demographics and religious challenges in America. From beginning to end, the story of the First Baptist Church of Augusta, Georgia, is a drama filled with surprises, plot twists, and concurrent narratives local, regional, and national.

Hanserd Knollys was one of the most influential Baptists of the seventeenth century. University educated, he provided guidance for Baptists on many key issues that formed their identity. In debate with other religious leaders he defended conscious commitment to Christ by each individual, the congregational character of the church, and the necessity of religious liberty. In addition to these three foundational beliefs, Knollys provided guidance for early Baptists on debated issues of practice. He endorsed the value of learning from the writings of inspired women, he endorsed congregational singing, and he supported raising funds for the support of ministers. In all of these matters he provided precedents and strong arguments for Baptist practice. Knollys served as pastor of a local London congregation, extended Baptist influence through preaching tours and provided a high standard of education in the schools he organized and led. Knollys provided long-term leadership for Baptists, signing early confessions of faith (1646, 1688) and participating in an early assembly of Baptist ministers in 1690 and 1691. Knollys was best remembered in the popular Baptist mind as a heroic figure who suffered persecution at the hands of the state through loss of property, extended exiles, and repeated imprisonments. His extensive writings addressed the major issues confronted by Baptists during this first century. By articulating Baptist interpretations he helped shape the denomination as much as any early Baptist writer. This book sets each of his major writings in its original context and thereby illumines early Baptist formations.

The Antipedo Baptists of Georgetown is the history of the First Baptist Church of Georgetown, South Carolina, as well as the history of Baptists in the colony and state. Roy Talbert, Jr., and Meggan A. Farish detail Georgetown Baptists' long and tumultuous history, which began with the migration of Baptist exhorter William Screven from England to Maine and then to South Carolina during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Screven established the First Baptist Church in Charleston in the 1690s before moving to Georgetown in 1710. His son Elisha laid out the town in 1734 and helped found an interdenominational meeting house on the Black River, where the Baptists worshipped until a proper edifice was constructed in Georgetown: the Antipedo Baptist Church, named for the congregation's opposition to infant baptism.
Three of the most recognized figures in southern Baptist history--Oliver Hart, Richard Furman, and Edmond Botsford--played vital roles in keeping the Georgetown church alive through the American Revolution. The nineteenth century was particularly trying for the Georgetown Baptists, and the church came very close to shutting its doors on several occasions. The authors reveal that for most of the nineteenth century a majority of church members were African American slaves.
Not until World War II did Georgetown witness any real growth. Since then the congregation has blossomed into one of the largest churches in the convention and rightfully occupies an important place in the history of the Baptist denomination. The Antipedo Baptists of Georgetown is an invaluable contribution to southern religious history as well as the history of race relations before and after the Civil War in the American South.

Melody Maxwell's "The Woman I Am "analyzes the traditional, progressive, and potential roles female Southern Baptist writers and editors portrayed for Southern Baptist women from 1906 to 2006, particularly in the area of missions.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) represents the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, yet Southern Baptist women's voices have been underreported in studies of American religion and culture. In The Woman I Am, Melody Maxwell explores how female Southern Baptist writers and editors in the twentieth century depicted changing roles for women and responded to the tensions that arose as Southern Baptist women assumed leadership positions, especially in the areas of missions and denominational support.
Given access to a century of primary sources and archival documents, Maxwell writes, as did many of her subjects, in a style that deftly combines the dispassionate eye of an observer with the multidimensional grasp of a participant. She examines magazines published by Woman's Missionary Union (WMU), an auxiliary to the "SBC: Our Mission Fields "(1906-1914), " Royal Service" (1914-1995), "Contempo" (1970-1995), and "Missions Mosaic" (1995-2006). In them, she traces how WMU writers and editors perceived, constructed, and expanded the lives of southern women.
Showing ingenuity and resiliency, these writers and editors continually, though not always consciously, reshaped their ideal of Christian womanhood to better fit the new paths open to women in American culture and Southern Baptist life. Maxwell's work demonstrates that Southern Baptists have transformed their views on biblically sanctioned roles for women over a relatively short historical period.
How Southern Baptist women perceive women's roles in their churches, homes, and the wider world is of central importance to readers interested in religion, society, and gender in the United States. "The Woman I Am" is a tour de force that makes a lasting contribution to the world's understanding of Southern Baptists and to their understanding of themselves.

Emily Chubbuck Judson (1817 1854) was a nationally known writer of the mid-nineteenth century. Writing as Fanny Forester, her creations appeared in the national magazines (The Columbian, The Knickerbocker, Graham's Magazine, The New Mirror) alongside works by Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and other literary icons of the era. Her work included children's books, essays, poetry, and fictional stories. She was a prolific letter writer. Volume 7 begins with a poem written when Emily was nine years old (1826) and ends with "My Angel Guide," written in 1853 prior to her death in June 1854. Between are several hundred of her poems, many of them newly discovered in the papers of her great-grandson, Dr. Stanley Hanna. This is all of her poetry published and unpublished as we know it. Also included are twenty fictional pieces from the magazines that are not included in her several published anthologies.

The Exiled Generations is a collection of poignant testimonials by individuals whose parents and relatives were purged from or left the Southern Baptist Convention in the wake of the fundamentalist takeover beginning in 1980. Building upon Professor Kell's earlier work, Exiled: Voices of the Southern Baptist Convention Holy War, which revealed the stories of those who were themselves expurgated, this new book details the experiences of their relations-the sons and daughters who saw their moderate-leaning parents lose pastoral positions, administrative posts, missionary appointments, or seminary professorships, and who faced their own often fraught relationships with their church home. Until now, the stories of this "lost generation" have never been fully told. In this collection, Professor Kell presents a diverse and wide range of voices. Some are well-known Baptist leaders, while others are ordinary people caught up in the remarkable changes in Baptist life over the past few decades. Here, they recount their feelings of loss as they were severed from youth fellowships and removed from church rolls. Many describe the lingering emotional effects of the heartbreaking conflict that dominated their childhood and adolescence. Their recollections reveal the full range of responses-anger, sadness, pathos, humor, intense inner reflection-to these enormous shifts. This volume shows the extent to which this group has struggled and wandered in emotional and religious exile. The Exiled Generations comprises rich primary sources for scholars and students who are exploring the profound strife that has rocked the Southern Baptist Convention. These deeply moving accounts will offer invaluable assistance to researchers analyzing the impact of the seismic changes within the denomination over the past thirty-five years.

Emily Chubbuck Judson (1817-1854) was a nationally known writer of the mid-nineteenth century. With pieces appearing alongside those by Edgar Allan Poe and James Fenimore Cooper, she walked in literary company second to none. She wrote children's books, essays, poetry and fictional stories. During her fascinating life, she was a prolific letter writer. In 1845, she met Adoniram Judson and they married in 1846. His pioneering work in Burma (Myanmar) made him famous as a Baptist missionary. After his death in 1850, Emily returned to the States in 1851 and spent the last years of her life writing and publishing a volume of poetry, a volume of missionary stories, and a memoir of her sisters who had died as young women. She also worked with Dr. Francis Wayland, president of Brown University, on a definitive biography of Adoniram Judson. Volume 6 covers the last twenty months of Emily Chubbuck Judson's life. She is increasingly impaired by the illness that was to claim her life on June 2, 1854. Most of the letters in this volume are from the Judson children-Abby Ann, Adoniram "Addy," Elnathan "Elly," Henry, and Edward, as well as George Dana Boardman, the son of George and Sarah Boardman (who became the second "Mrs. Judson"). They all addressed Emily as "Mamma." An appendix on the Judson children encompasses the time after Emily's death through 1914. The seven-volume series of The Life and Letters of Emily Chubbuck Judson (Fanny Forester) is published in cooperation with the American Baptist Historical Society.

The freedom and responsibility of choice is one of the basic tenets of Baptist beliefs. Seventh Day Baptists as a part of this Baptist heritage for over 350 years have upheld and practised that right. The decision to follow the Bible instead of ecclesiastical authority and tradition led them to accept the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath which sets them apart from other Baptists, but as Dr. Winthrop Hudson noted, "Seventh Day Baptists are separate but not sectarian." A Choosing People: The History of Seventh Day Baptists documents the history of this oldest Sabbath keeping Christian denomination within the framework of both religious and secular history from the Reformation in Europe to modern times in America. Mid-seventeenth-century origins amid persecution gave way to gradual decline in England but dramatic growth in America through development of associational relationships during the eighteenth century. Churches struggled to apply ideals of freedom and equality to harsh realities of the American Revolution and Civil War. Nineteenth-century expansion with the western frontier fostered organisation of a General Conference and related societies in missionary and educational outreach despite continuing tensions between autonomy and associational ties. A mission to China lasted one hundred years and spawned global extension leading to establishment of a World Federation of conferences at the same time that twentieth century social, scientific, organisational, ecumenical, and theological issues challenged all Christian groups. Originally published in 1992, this book has been thoroughly updated to the present and brings greater accuracy and thoroughness to this engaging history of the choices, struggles, and beliefs of Seventh Day Baptists.

Baptists in the South, rapidly rising to challenge Methodists numerically, helped align Southern religion with the South's black slave culture. The birth of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, formed in order to preserve God's will for the African race, signaled the inevitability of war. Middle Georgia remained outside the front lines of the war, the region's relative intactness allowing for the continuation of church life during the war years. While many white Baptists from Middle Georgia marched off to war - whether to fight or to serve as chaplains or army missionaries - others stayed behind and voiced their thoughts from pulpits, in associational meetings, and in the pages of newspapers and journals. While historians have often portrayed white southern Baptists, with few exceptions, as firmly supportive of the Confederacy, the experience of Middle Georgia Baptists is much more dynamic. Far from being monolithic, Baptists at the local church and associational level responded in a myriad of ways to the Confederacy. Patterns locally and associationally emerged and evolved as the war progressed, while differences between Southern and Primitive Baptists stood out. On a personal level, white Baptists' views of slavery and the Confederacy proved to be varied, numerous, nuanced, and dynamic - to such an extent that some individuals were unable to construct a consistent narrative as the war progressed. For their part, black Baptists struggled to shape their own destinies within a white man's world, strivings that grew more intense as the war progressed and freedom seemed within reach. The end of the war signaled new realities for both white and black Baptists of the South. For whites, old loyalties had been rearranged and the immediate future was bleak. At the same time, black Baptists emerged empowered as never before and set forth on the path of self-determination.

This title covers the life of an extraordinary Baptist. Jimmy Allen served as the last 'moderate' president of the Southern Baptist Convention concluding his second term in 1979, the first year of the emergence of a new 'fundamentalist' leadership of the convention. His life parallels the movement of Baptists in the South from a folk people rooted in a predominantly rural ethos into an urban, increasingly educated, and diverse people. He was an activist of the first order, engaging in state and national social agendas of civil rights, strict separation of church and state, and the application of the gospel in all areas of life. His commitment to social action was often lived out in a highly public way in partnership with President Jimmy Carter and it took him to China, Israel, Iran, and many other regions of the world to promote aggressive mission efforts. He was among the few Americans to visit with the Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian hostage crisis. Allen's ministry was often lived amid the stresses of mental illness and dysfunctions in his family as well as a major crisis with the HIV and AIDS viruses that took the life of his daughter-in-law and two grandsons. His is a story of trust in a faithful God amid personal suffering that led to remarkable contributions to America's religious faith.

This book deals with the life and work of an educator who fought the major theological battles of the twentieth century. William Owen Carver (1868-1954) was a denominational stalwart and longtime professor of Missions and Comparative Religion at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. For more than four decades he educated the denomination's ministers and missionaries. Carver was considered one of the brightest minds in the growing denomination, a distinction evidenced by a seminary building, denominational library, and Baptist school of social work that continue to carry his name. He was a prolific writer, managing editor of the SBC academic journal ""Review & Expositor"", and the first president of the Southern Baptist Historical Society. In addition to these contributions, Carver was a Southern Baptist ahead of his time, gently prodding Southern Baptists to see beyond the narrow confines of theological conservatism and to engage the modern world. In the process, Carver became embroiled in numerous denominational controversies, some of which still resonate in our world today. These stories are the subject of this book. Carver's controversies illustrate how freethinking Baptist leaders interacted with their more conservative constituency as they sought to equip the denomination for existence in a religiously diverse, scientifically oriented society.

Emily Chubbick Judson (1817-1854) is a well-known name, but for more reasons than most know. She was a nationally known writer (her pseudonym was Fanny Forrester) with pieces appearing alongside those by Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman, and she walked in literary company second to none. She wrote children's books, essays, and stories. Then, in 1845, she met Adoniram Judson and they married in 1846. Their work in Burma made them famous as Baptist missionaries. After his death in 1850, she returned to the States in 1851 and spent the last years of her life writing and publishing her essays and poetry, and helping to produce a biography of her husband. During her fascinating life, she was a prolific letter writer. This is the first volume of her life and works, with volumes 2 through 6 containing all of her letters. As these volumes are presented, readers and scholars in the future will find in this material encouragement for sharing more about the Judson lives, and the wonderful work they accomplished. Their humanity, their faith, and their deep commitment to their call should prove to be instructive and inspirational to each of our lives. Volume 1 consists of footnotes, time lines, and biographies that have all emerged out of the project itself. For example, many of Emily Chubbic Judson's letters are undated. To put them in sequence, the events, places, and people within the letters were identified so they could be understood and interpreted correctly; this resulted in a 'Cast of Characters' and 'Places and Events'. The 'Publication Time' puts Chubbick's writings in chronological order. The footnotes clarify and lend context to the names and faces, as well as the stories and the events within the letters, and the connectiveness between the letters. Volume 2 consists of the early letters Emily Chubbick Judson from the years 1836 through 1845.

In 1881, six months after the establishment of Abilene, Texas, seventeen residents met at the local public school building and chartered First Baptist Church of Abilene. These founders instilled a mission-minded focus in the new institution. While First Baptist was not the only institution that served Abilene, the church's importance cannot be overlooked. For over 125 years, First Baptist Church of Abilene has played a prominent role in the Abilene community. From its inception, First Baptist dedicated itself to meting the needs of Abilene. The missionary spirit led to the creation of numerous programs, other churches, and major institutions in town. Through its commitment to serving God through loving others, First Baptist played an indispensable roll in shaping the history of Abilene, Texas.

This is the first book-length study of this pioneer in American religious history. Nurtured in a Tennessee Baptist home, the grandson of a pioneer Baptist preacher and church starter, William Whitsitt grew up knowing and admiring the principle leaders of Landmarkism (Graves, Pendleton, and Dayton). His Civil War experiences and studies at the University of Virginia, Southern Seminary, Berlin, and Leipzig brought him to broader views and the historical-critical approach to historical and biblical studies, placing him at odds with narrow denominationalism and the popular myth of an unbroken succession of Baptist churches all the way back to the New Testament. The sixth professor elected to the Southern Seminary faculty, he succeeded Broadus to become the school's third president. In his private diary, he recorded his candid opinions of his colleagues, revealing a perspective not previously published on men of iconic proportions in Southern Baptists life - Boyce, Broadus, Manly, Robertson, Sampey, and Carver. Brilliant scholar and loyal Baptist, Whitsitt was a key leader in the original effort to mobilize the white Baptist churches of the South into an effective and centralized denominational organization to support missions and Christian education. His scholarly discoveries in original English Baptist documents offended Baptist sensibilities and the resulting national controversy led to his being hounded from office. At stake in the controversy was academic freedom and the fundamental issue of the struggle of Southern Baptists with the legacy of the enlightenment and modernity - the confrontation between the 'new learning' and the 'old faith'.

Born into slavery in 1853, taught to read by his half-white, half-black mother, and attending school in Washington, D.C., during Reconstruction, Samuel Robert Cassius is a fascinating and instructive example of the first generation of freed slaves in the United States. To Lift Up My Race, a collection of writings by Cassius, gives us the man-evangelist, educator, farmer, entrepreneur, postmaster, politician, and father of twenty-three-in a significant moment in the emergence of black culture and society between Reconstruction and the Great Depression. Chronologically and thematically organized, this book contains nearly all of the extant-and all of the crucial-writings of Cassius. Consequently, we see firsthand an ex-slave from Virginia who joins the Stone-Campbell movement (Churches of Christ) in 1883 and emerges as the most influential African American leader and evangelist in that movement. He traveled throughout the United States and Canada, "planting" congregations and propagating what he called the "pure Gospel of Jesus Christ." Cassius was also a remarkably successful fundraiser, often using humor in the articles he wrote for several publications, including the Christian Leader. In addition, Cassius was the author of such pamphlets as Negro Evangelization and the Tohee Industrial School (one of the "workingmen's schools" he helped to found) and The Letter and the Spirit of the Race Problem. In 1920, he published his most important literary work, The Third Birth of a Nation, a response to D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation. The volume offers readers the vision and the voice of a black preacher and writer who endeavored to correct the racism of white America while simultaneously altering the religious beliefs and values of black America, often clashing with and sometimes alienating both. Edward J. Robinson is assistant professor of history and biblical studies at Abilene Christian University. He is the editor of A Godsend to His People: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Marshall Keeble and author of To Save My Race from Abuse: The Life of Samuel Robert Cassius.

This title looks at the fight to defend and extend religious liberty by keeping church and state separate. For nearly two decades, Brent Walker has fought to defend and extend religious liberty for all and uphold the wall of separation between church and state in our nation's capital. First as the Baptist Joint Committee's legal counsel and as executive director since 1999, Walker articulates a cogent Baptist understanding of the importance of the First Amendment's religion clauses in protecting our God-given religious liberty. This collection of essays, speeches, sermons, and congressional testimony provides a living history of the modern era the life of the Baptist Joint Committee, now in its eighth decade. It includes historical essays dealing with the role of the pulpit in the fight for American independence, the involvement of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in fashioning the First Amendment, and the contribution of numerous Baptists like Roger Williams and John Clarke to our understanding of the proper relationship between church and state. It also addresses specific religious liberty issues such as school vouchers, charitable choice, the Ten Commandments, religion in the public schools, attempts to amend the Constitution, including testimony he has given before House and Senate committees on these and other issues. Both a lawyer and an ordained minister, Walker writes on church-state cases decided by the Supreme Court and about the justices themselves as well the theological underpinning of his passion for religious liberty. Sermons he has preached in Baptist pulpits across the land are also included.

Jesus Sound Explosion recalls Mark Curtis Anderson's quest for worldliness-through-rock as he came of age as a Baptist preacher's kid in the 1970s. All of the backsliding and revival, idealism and disillusionment one would expect is here, told with delightfully understated humor and set against the sounds of Led Zeppelin, Yes, and Bruce Springsteen. Here is a knowing look back on a time when Jesus Christ Superstar climbed the pop charts, ""The Cross and the Switchblade"" hit the big screen, and anxious parents played their kids' records backward in search of hidden messages from Satan.

The founder of Rhode Island and of the first Baptist Church in America, an original and passionate advocate for religious freedom, a rare New England colonist who befriended Native Americans and took seriously their culture and their legal rights, Roger Williams is the forgotten giant among the first English colonists. Now, Edwin S. Gaustad, a leading expert on the life of Roger Williams, offers a vividly written and authoritative biography of the most far-seeing of the early settlers-the first such biography written for a general audience. Readers follow Roger and Mary Williams on their 1631 journey to Boston, where he soon became embroiled in many controversies, most notably, his claim that the colonists had unjustly taken Native American lands and his argument that civil authorities could not enforce religious duties. Soon banished for these troubling (if farsighted) views, Williams wandered for fourteen weeks in bitter snow until he bought land from the Narragansett Indians and founded Providence, which soon became a sanctuary for religious freedom and a refuge for dissenters of all stripes. The book discusses Williams' journey back to London, where he sought legal recognition of his colony, spread his enlightened views on Native Americans, and (alongside John Milton) fought passionately for religious freedom. Gaustad also describes how the royal charter of Rhode Island, obtained by Williams in 1663, would become the blueprint of religious freedom for many other colonies and a foundation stone for the First Amendment. Here then is a vibrant portrait of a great American who is truly worthy of remembrance.

Shurden on Baptists: Assessments, Appreciations, Apologies contains articles, essays, and speeches given by Walter Shurden on Baptists. Walter Shurden is a longtime champion of the role of freedom in the Baptist tradition. Recognizing that freedom alone does not tell the whole story, Shurden also speaks to and from other cardinal Baptist convictions. Some of the materials in this volume appear for the first time and consist of speeches and addresses that Shurden has made at crucial points in recent Baptist life in America in the latter part of the twentieth century. Especially concerned with the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention and the resulting lack of emphasis on historic Baptist principles, Shurden addresses directly and indirectly the SBC controversy in several of the chapters of this book. More, Shurden emphasizes what makes Baptists distinctive in American religious life.