October 31: First Baptist Church of Wildwood, NJ celebrated their 125th anniversary this month under the leadership of James D. Elliot.
October 31: Hope Memorial Baptist Church in Camden, NJ, celebrated their 50th anniversary this month under the leadership of Rev. G. Kent Walmsley.
October 31, 1789: John Mason Peck, pioneer missionary to the western frontier (Ohio and Illinois), was born in Litchfield. Having secured funding as “missionaries to the Missouri Territory,” the Peck and his missionary partner Welch and their families traveled westward, arriving in St. Louis in December, 1817. Peck and Welch organized the First Baptist Church of St. Louis, the first Protestant church in the city, and baptized two converts in the Mississippi River in February, 1818. By year’s end, they also soon founded the first missionary society in the West: The United Society for the Spread of the Gospel. Peck became active in establishing Bible societies and Sunday School associations, distributing bibles as well as spreading literacy and Christian principles. Peck moved to Rock Springs, Illinois in 1822 to farm, and arranged a circuit to visit the various societies which he continued to establish, as well as isolated farms. On one trip, Peck visited Daniel Boone, then nearly 80, and later wrote a book about the frontiersman’s life. ABHS holds Peck’s correspondence from 1833-1852 and a journal from 1854.
October 25, 1962: Ralph Elliott was fired by Midwestern Seminary (an SBC affiliated seminary) in the midst of the controversy over his Genesis interpretation. The controversy erupted at Midwestern in 1961 when Ralph Elliott, the chair of the Old Testament department, authored a book published by Broadman Press titled The Message of Genesis. Elliott used a historical-critical method of interpretation to examine the first book of the Bible, arguing that it was not literal history, but that it could be religious truth nonetheless. Elliott assumed multiple authors for Genesis and concluded it was full of “symbolic stories” not to be taken as “literally true,” such as: Adam and Eve were not actual historical figures, the flood was local, and Abraham did not actually hear the voice of God commanding him to sacrifice Isaac. ABHS has several of Elliott’s books and holds his personal papers.
October 24, 1826: Ann Hasseltine Judson, one of the first American overseas missionaries, died of smallpox in Burma at age 37. She was a teacher from graduation until her marriage to Adoniram Judson in 1812. During the first Anglo-Burmese war (1824–26), her husband was imprisoned for 17 months under suspicion of being an English spy, and Ann moved into a shack outside the prison gates so as to support her husband. She lobbied vigorously for months to convince the authorities to release her husband and his fellow prisoners, but her efforts were unsuccessful. She also sent food and sleeping mats to the prisoners to help their time in prison to be more bearable. After her husband’s release they both remained in Burma to continue their work. Ann wrote a catechism in Burmese, and translated the books of Daniel and Jonah into Burmese. She was the first Protestant to translate any of the scriptures into Thai when in 1819 she translated the Gospel of Matthew. ABHS has her letters from Burma and the books she translated in the archives as well as books about her and her work.
October 22. Bethany Free Baptist Church in Pawtucket, RI, celebrates their 125th anniversary under the leadership of Rev. Nikita McCalister.
October 22: Bethany Free Baptist Church in Pawtucket, RI, celebrated their 125th anniversary under the leadership of Rev. Nikita McCalister.
October 22. First Baptist Church of Alpena, MI, celebrates their 150th anniversary under the leadership of Pastor Paul Moceri.
October 21, 1795. David Irish established the first Baptist church in Cayuga County, New York, in the Finger Lakes area. He was sent out by the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society. This was a frontier area at the time, and pastors like Irish helped settle and expand our nation. The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Magazine, published by the society, published a letter from Rev. Irish in the December, 1812, issue. The MBMM became the Baptist Missionary Magazine, which eventually evolved to the American Baptist. ABHS has a complete set of all the issues of these magazines.
“The Legacy of Walter Rauschenbusch” will take place April 9-11, 2018, on Mercer University’s Cecil B. Day Graduate and Professional Campus in Atlanta. Detailed information is available. Download a registration form.
This campus is home to the American Baptist Historical Society, which holds the most extensive collection of Rauschenbusch family papers. ABHS is one of the conference sponsors, and will host a reception and display on the first night of the conference.
Conference speakers include Gary Dorrien, Christo pher Evans, Andrea Strubind, Roger Prentice, Adam Bond, Wendy Deichmann, and Dominik Gautier.
Registration fees increase after “early bird” registration ends on Jan 1, 2018. Registration closes March 25.
October 17: Clifford Baptist Church in Clifford, PA, celebrates their 200th anniversary under the leadership of Pastor Bonnie Resseguie.
October 15: First Baptist Church of Rome, NY, celebrates their 200th anniversary under the leadership of Rev. Cedric A. Broughton.
October 15, 1752. Elizabeth Backus, a fifty-four widow and mother of Reverend Isaac Backus, was arrested and imprisoned for two weeks for failing to pay the church tax that went to the official (Congregational) church. In 1728 an Act was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, exempting Baptists from the tax, but that was the personal tax only, the property tax was still liable. ABHS has many writings of Isaac Backus and microfilms of his personal papers.
October 14, 1774: The Warren Association in Massachusetts petitioned the Continental Congress for religious liberty. The Warren Association was in the vanguard of the battle for religious freedom in early America. Baptists had been persecuted throughout their history; their struggles to attain their “privileges” led to the insertion of the anti-establishment clause in the Bill of Rights. In 1774 the Warren Association sent a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to plead for religious freedom. Two years later, when a Baptist meeting in Pepperell, Massachusetts, was broken up by a mob, the Warren Association published an account of the affair, and engaged the people of Pepperell in a pamphlet war until they “made the town ashamed of what they had done.” ABHS holds the Warren Association Minutes from 1767.
October 9: Affinity Missionary Baptist Church of Cleveland, OH, celebrated their 50th anniversary under the leadership of Rev. Ronald E. Maxwell.
October 8: Mount Olive Church Ministries in Hartford, CT, celebrated their 100th anniversary under the leadership of Rev. Dion J. Watkins.
October 11, 1665: Four Baptists were brought before the Massachusetts court and told to cease ‘schismatical practices.’ Puritans in Massachusetts were not open to any other practice of religion, and Quakers, Baptists and Anglicans were not allowed to preach. When King Charles II (of England) insisted, Massachusetts passed a law deliberately using the king’s language, allowing anyone “orthodox in religion” to practice in the colony; however, they also defined such orthodoxy as consisting of views that were acceptable to local ministers. This effectively negated the law, because there were probably no ministers in the colony who would agree that other protestants satisfied their idea of orthodoxy. ABHS has pamphlets and other histories of the struggle for religious freedom.
October 10, 1779: David Benedict born in New England. Although he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, he went to school, including Brown University. While in seminary Benedict preached for Baptists in Pawtucket, RI, and following his graduation he was ordained and became the pastor of the newly established First Baptist Church in Pawtucket. Benedict traveled (on horseback) collecting materials about Baptists, and sent out questionnaires for his History of the Baptists in the United States which was published in 1813. ABHS has a copy of Benedict’s History, and is it used frequently by researchers.
October 8. First Baptist Church of Parkersburg, WV, celebrates their 200th anniversary under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Richard McClure.
October 8. 1609. John Clarke was born in Suffolk England. He was a physician, Baptist minister, co-founder of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, author of its influential charter, and a leading advocate of religious freedom in the Americas. He arrived in Boston where Baptists were considered heretics and were banned, in 1637 and decided to go to Rhode Island. but Clarke wanted to make inroads there and spent time in the Boston jail after making a mission trip to the town of Lynn. The fledgling Rhode Island colony needed an agent in England, so Clarke handled the colony’s interests. All of the other New England colonies were hostile to Rhode Island. After the restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660, it was imperative that Rhode Island receive a royal charter to protect its territorial integrity. It was Clarke’s role to obtain such a document, and he saw this as an opportunity to include religious freedoms never seen before in any constitutional charter. He negotiated for months with Connecticut over territorial boundaries. Finally, he drafted the Rhode Island Royal Charter and presented it to the king, and it was approved with the king’s seal on 8 July 1663. This charter granted unprecedented freedom and religious liberty to Rhode Islanders and remained in effect for 180 years, making it the longest-lasting constitutional charter in history.
October 5, 1783. William Carey was baptized in Northampton County, England. Carey is known as the “father of modern missions.” He was a Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist who founded the Serampore College and the Serampore University, the first degree awarding University in India. He translated the Hindu classic the Ramayana into English, and the Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Arabic, Marathi, Hindi and Sanskrit.When Adoniram and Ann Judson landed in India, they sought out Carey to talk about Baptist beliefs.
October 4, 1961. Walter Rauschenbusch was born in Rochester, NY. He is considered the father of the Christian social gospel. From 1891-1892, Rauschenbusch studied economics and theology at the University of Berlin and industrial relations in England, Rauschenbusch’s work influenced, among others, Martin Luther King; Desmond Tutu; and his grandson, Richard Rorty. Rauschenbusch’s view of Christianity was that its purpose was to spread the Kingdom of God, not through a “fire and brimstone” style of preaching, but by the Christlike lives led by its members. Rauschenbusch did not understand Jesus’ death as an act of substitutionary atonement; rather, he came to believe that Jesus died “to substitute love for selfishness as the basis of human society.” Rauschenbusch wrote that “Christianity is in its nature revolutionary” and tried to remind society of that. He taught that the Kingdom of God “is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven.” ABHS has a large collection of Rauschenbusch family papers, correspondence, photographs, and lectures.
