News

December 20, 1943: Eleven Baptist missionaries were captured and put to death by the Japanese in the Philippines.  ABHS has many folders of information about these martyred missionaries and their short time hiding in the jungle at Hopevale before they were captured. The accompanying drawing is of the Hopevale chapel.

December 16, 1769: Jesse Mercer, hymnist and co-founder of Mercer University was born in Halifax County, NC. ABHS is located on the Mercer University (Atlanta) campus.

December 15, 1836:  The first Baptist Church in Australia, Bathurst Church, was constituted by John Saunders.  ABHS has the original church records from many churches dating back to the 1691 records from First Baptist Church in Philadelphia.

On December 7, 1951, the first Baptist Women’s Day of Prayer was held.  It has become an annual event of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).  ABHS holds BWA archives including correspondence, World Baptist Journal, office files and program information.

December 7, 1951: The first Baptist Women’s Day of Prayer was held.  It became an annual event of the Baptist World Alliance.  ABHS holds many records from BWA including correspondence, financial records and conference programs.

On this day (Dec. 6) in 1776, the Virginia Assembly, led by Thomas Jefferson, passed a law denying funds for the Episcopal Church.  In most European countries, the state church gets government money.  This was also true in this country in colonial times. Now in this country no church gets government money to benefit the worship and religious program.

We have received $160 in gifts today, Giving Tuesday.  Our goal is $3000.  Please help us reach our goal.  Your gifts allow ABHS to preserve collections like original church records, and personal papers; open its doors to researchers who are writing dissertations, books and articles; and to help local churches know what and how to preserve their own records.

Nov. 1, 1812:  Luther Rice, the father of American Baptist of foreign missions, was baptized in Calcutta, India.  He returned to the USA to raise money for missionaries like Adonirum and Ann Judson.  ABHS has his journals and correspondence dating from 1803.

Nov. 3, 1635:  Roger Williams was banished from the colony of Massachusetts because he preached religious freedom, and the colonists had set up a Puritan theocracy.  No one who was not a member of that church had any rights in the colony.

Nov. 4, 1752.  Over 100 years after Williams’ banishment, Isaac Backus was still fighting the state church’s tyranny.  ABHS has published sermons, correspondence and a journal of family data in our collections.

Nov. 9, 1800.  Mary Webb organized the first missionary society called Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes.  Women’s Missionary organizations started schools, training centers, community centers and other mission programs.  They also recruited and trained women missionaries to staff  these programs.  Women’s Baptist Home Mission Society of the East, which was organized in Boston in 1877, was one of these.

Nov. 11:  Veteran’s Day. Baptists have been ministering to veterans from the time of the Revolutionary War, when David Jones was a military chaplain and the Civil War, when Joanna Moore taught veterans to read and write.  WW I and WWII, the Vietnam War and more recent conflicts have seen Baptist chaplains and Baptist soldiers.  ABHS has the personal correspondence and diaries of David Jones and a Letterbook with two sets of letters (1865) and goodbye notes from soldiers of the 56^th US Colored Infantry in Helena Arkansas (from the collection of Joanna P. Moore).

Nov. 15, 1961:  The Progressive National Baptist Convention was organized in Cincinnati.  ABHS has many books and newspaper articles about the history of the Progressive Baptists, as well as the Progressive News and the Convention minutes.

Nov. 18, 1961:  Isabel Crawford,died in Winona, NY.  She was a missionary to Native Americans.  ABHS has a collection of her papers and photographs, information about which can be found on our online archive, ArchivesSpace. The picture on this post is a Kiowa drawing from the Isabel Crawford collection.

Nov. 19, 1774:  Isaac Backus returned to Middleborough, MA, to find Baptists slandered as enemies of America (see November 4).

Nov. 24, 1910:  John E. Clough died in Rochester, NY.  Sent by the American Baptist foreign Mission Society to the Telegues of South India, he served for 46 years.  ABHS holds published and unpublished manuscripts of his, as well as correspondence, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks and biographical information.  His second wife was Emma Rauschenbusch.  ABHS has the missionary letters of John Clough from 1864-1918 and of Emma Rauschenbusch from 1920-1940.

Nov. 28, 1629:  John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, was born in Elstow, England.     ABHS has many copies of this work, the earliest dating from 1676.   The theme of the fall-Winter 2014 issue of the American Baptist Quarterly is “John Bunyan and the Baptist Academy.”

Nov. 29, 1908:  Adam Clayton Powell Jr.  was born in New Haven, CT.  A preacher and congressman, he is also known for his civil rights work.

ABHS has set a goal of raising $3,000 on Giving Tuesday, November 29.  This comes after Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  One way to participate in our fundraising goal and Cyber Monday is to do your Amazon purchases through smile.amazon.com.  Choose American Baptist Historical Society to receive a small percentage of what you spend. Prices are the same as if you were using the regular Amazon web address.  You can also give on Giving Tuesday (or any time) through our secure donation site, just click on the GIVE NOW button to the right.

New collections arrive each week. Creating an inventory and simple finding aid for a small handful of records plus storage in our climate-controlled, secure space costs $50 annually.  Larger groups of records cost more to prepare for storage, as well as for the space required. For one collection of 38 cubic ft boxes, 31 minute books, and a few oversized items, storage costs alone are $1000 per year, with additional dollars required for staff care, archival materials, or assistance for and supervision of those who want to read these records.

Primary Source, the ABHS quarterly newsletter, is now available in a digital edition which features color photos and embedded links. If you would like to receive this new digital copy, we need your email address. Please email us at abhsoffice@abhsarchives.org and put Digital Primary Source in the subject line. You will receive your Primary Source long before the US Postal Service delivers the paper copy.

October 4: Walter Rauschenbusch, Christian Social Gospel activist, was born in 1861, in Rochester, NY. ABHS holds the bulk of his papers, manuscripts and photographs. Rauschenbusch is pictured here.

October 5: William Carey, a leading Baptist missions proponent, was baptized in England in 1783.

October 8: John Clarke, an early advocate of religious liberty in New England, was born in England in 1609.

October 11: Four Baptists were brought before the Massachusetts court and told to cease ‘schismatical practices” in 1665.

October 14: The Warren Association in Massachusetts petitioned the Continental Congress for religious liberty in 1774. ABHS holds the Warren Association Minutes from 1767.

October 24: Ann Hasseltine Judson, one of the first American overseas missionaries, died in Burma at age 37 in 1826.

October 25: Ralph Elliott was fired by Midwestern Seminary (an SBC affiliated seminary) in the midst of the controversy over his Genesis interpretation in 1962. ABHS holds his personal papers.

October 31: John Mason Peck, pioneer missionary to the western frontier (Ohio and Illinois), was born in Litchfield, CT in 1789. ABHS holds his correspondence from 1833-1852 and a journal from 1854.

The American Baptist Historical Society is accepting nominations for the “George D. Younger Award for Excellence in Local or Regional American Baptist History”.  The deadline is May 1, 2017.

Projects eligible for nomination include but are not restricted to church anniversary celebrations, congregational or regional histories, oral history projects, or other historical programs that promote Baptist history in the local community or region.  The winner will be announced at the 2017 Biennial Convention in Portland, OR.  Nominations will be accepted for projects completed in either 2015 or 2016.

Nominations should include the following documentation:

1. cover sheet listing the name of the project and the name and contact information for the sponsoring church, group or institution,
2. a short (one or two page) description of the project or program, including a project timeline of the dates and locations of project events,
3. supporting material, such as program bulletins, newspaper clippings, and comments by those who participated, either by creating the program/project or as part of the targeted audience,
4. evidence of the quality (historical content and production quality) of the program or project,
5. written evidence or evaluations of the project or program may be supplemented by other records of the program, such as videos, newspaper clippings, audio-recordings, or photographic images,
6. evidence of impact on the targeted audience, with special consideration given for impact on a broader than Baptist community.

Mail nominations and supporting materials to be received at the Historical Society no later than May 1, 2017 to

The Younger Award                                                                                                                                                   American Baptist Historical Society                                                                                                                      3001 Mercer University Drive                                                                                                                             Atlanta, Georgia 30341-4155

For more information please call ABHS at 678-547-6680 or email ABHS@abhsarchives.org.

The New Baptist Covenant is holding  a summit in Atlanta now. Dr. Priscilla E. Eppinger, ABHS’s Executive Director, will bring greetings to the gathering on Thursday morning.  New Baptist Covenant was started in 2007 by President Jimmy Carter, who brought together prominent leaders from across the Baptist family. These leaders represented more than 30 Baptist organizations and over 20 million people. He challenged them to explore new opportunities for fellowship and cooperation. From this effort, a ministry of action named the New Baptist Covenant was born, uniting Baptists and renewing the pursuit of unity and justice on the local and national scale.

New Baptist Covenant churches, who are working together for racial justice and reconciliation, are not the first Baptists to come together with this goal.  In the 1890s black and white Baptist churches worked together to sponsor New Era Baptist Institutes to train leaders in the black churches.

Dr. Deborah Van Broekhoven, ABHS’s immediate past Executive Director,  will give a lecture on the New Era Baptist Institutes on Friday, September 30, at 7 p.m. in the Atlanta Administration and Conference Center, 2930 Flowers Road South, Atlanta.

For more information about this lecture, see our Post on August 26.  For more information on the current meeting, Google New Baptist Covenant.

The photo shows Rev. Alyssa Aldape, Rev. Heather Mustain sharing the Lord’s Supper, courtesy of the New Baptist Covenant.

1^st   First issue of the precursor to American Baptist Magazine was published in 1803.   It is the oldest extant religious magazine.

5^th Obadiah Holmes was brutally whipped in 1651 for religious beliefs, but he continued to preach during the whipping.

9^th   The first Baptist church in Oklahoma was organized in 1832 by 3 Blacks, 1 Creek Indian and 2 Whites.

17^th   Joseph Murrow organized the Indian Orphans’ Home in Oklahoma in 1902, the first Baptist orphanage for Indians.

18^th   Alderson Academy (in West Virginia) began classes in 1901 with 40 students.  It subsequently became Alderson-Broadus College.

19^th   The Philadelphia Association stated its support for local church autonomy in 1749.  ABHS’s collection of Philadelphia Association minutes goes back to 1770.

22^nd The first Baptist missionaries to Alaska, Ernest and Ida Roscoe, arrived on Kodiak Island in 1886 (see photo of Kodiak above).

23^rd The National Baptist Convention, USA Inc., was organized in 1895 in the Friendship Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA

26^th Joanna P. Moore, lifelong teacher in Southern Black communities was born in 1832.

Emma Rauschenbusch-Clough had her own perspective on the power of Christianity and revolutionary nature. In her time in India, she portrays a theology of suffering and the suffering of Jesus on the cross. During her time as a missionary in India, Emma witnessed and endured a terrible famine that cost the lives of many. Through this, however, the Madiga pariah tribe that she worked with desired to hear to words of Jesus, “Come to me, all who are weary and I will give you rest.”

She writes that the groups of Madigas would say, “Our God does not send trouble because He is thirsting for the lives of men. He has let this come upon us because He saw that men were going wrong—that they were doing puja to gods in whom there was no salvation. Jesus Christ, by dying for us, has taken all of our troubles upon himself.” Emma’s idea of the power of Christianity was the fact that it liberates people from their struggles, both within their souls and the social order.

This is further evidenced by the fact that when she discusses the preaching of the missionaries, she says “Their preaching was characterized neither by profound thinking nor by brilliant oratory. It was just the story of Christ and Him crucified told over and over again. Much as, in the days of primitive Christianity, simple but earnest men told the sublime story of the life and death of Christ to everyone, so these men went out to make Christ the centre of their thoughts and words.” The power of Christianity, to Emma, seems to be nothing more or less than Jesus himself. This is a similarity to her brother Walter Rauschenbusch, who discussed the personality of Jesus and how revolutionary that personality was and is.

I believe that we have some to learn from Emma today. We must keep in mind that Christianity does not involve any profound thought or speaking skills. The power of Christianity is in Jesus and his life and death. Christianity is about boldness, not depth of thought. Jesus must be our starting point: nothing more, nothing less. He also must be where we are going. We must reach out to our neighbors who are broken and hurting as Christ did. It is not the well who need a doctor, but the sick. Christ lived and died to take away the separation of us all. Christ has united us all in life and death. As Christ is one, we are one with him and each other. We must live this conviction out in boldness as Emma did. The work of the Kingdom is not easy, but it is needed so that we may see justice roll down like waters, and righteousness flow like an ever flowing stream.

Andrew Scott, ABHS Research Assistant

Source of photographs:

Emma Rauschenbusch-Clough, While Sewing Sandals (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1899).

Immediate past Executive Director, Dr. Deborah Van Broekhoven, will give a lecture on New Era Baptist Institutes: A Nineteenth-Century Path Toward Cooperation on Friday, September 30, at 7 p.m in the second floor auditorium of Mercer University’s (Atlanta Campus) Atlanta Administration and Conference Center, 2930 Flowers Road S., Atlanta.

As part of the annual History Event sponsored by ABHS, Van Broekhoven will explore the challenges experienced by black and white Baptists who cooperated to sponsor New Era Baptist Institutes, short term schools for African-American church leaders.  Conceived by Northern and Southern Baptist leaders after their Fortress Monroe meeting in 1894, these schools across the south provide a rare example of black and white leaders working together.

This event is free and open to the public.  See our web page for directions to the AACC.

Dr. Van Broekhoven is the immediate past Executive Director of the American Baptist Historical Society.  She  holds a doctorate in history from Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and served as a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University before joining the staff of ABHS as Executive Director in 1998.  She has had a longstanding interest in the history of race relations, beginning with her book The Devotion of These Women: Rhode Island Women in the Antislavery Network.

4: Franklin College became the first college in Indiana to admit women in 1842.

8: Virginia Baptists met with President Washington to press for guarantees of religious liberty in 1789.

10: Annie J. Ward received the first ‘four-year’ diploma from Chowan College in North Carolina in 1853.

12: James Ware and James Pittman were tried in Caroline County, VA, for having preaching in their homes in 1772.

17: Pensylvania’s Northumberland Baptist Association took a strong stand against slavery in 1855.

22: Nathaniel Saunders was summoned to appear in court in Culpepper county, VA, for preaching in 1772.

24: William Jewell college, the first four-year college west of Mississippi River, was charted in Liberty MO, in 1849.

26: Four Baptist ministers were tried in Middlesex County, VA, for preaching outside the state church in 1771.

Drawing of Franklin College from Cathcart’s Baptist Encyclopedia.

We invite you to explore our new online catalog for archives and manuscripts. (Click on  ‘Continue Reading…’ below for the link) The catalog contains entries for our holdings of personal papers, missionary correspondence, and more.   Several entries contain digital images of items from the collections.  This catalog is a work-in-progress, with new entries being added on a regular basis.  We invite your comments, questions, and suggestions regarding its usability.  Email your remarks to jballard@abhsarchives.org; subject line: “online catalog.”