Democratic Religion (Wills)

Democratic Religion
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Democratic Religion
Freedom, Authority, and

Church Discipline in the
Baptist South, 1785-1900
Gregory A. Wills
OXPORD
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Copyright © 1997 by Gregory A. Wills

First published in 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2003
www.oup.co m
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wills, Gregory A.
Democratic religion : freedom, authority, and church discipline in
the Baptist South, 1785-1900 / Gregory A. Wills.
p. cm. — (Religion in America series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-510412-9; 0-19-516099-1 (pbk.)
1. Baptists—Southern States—History—18th century. 2. Baptists—
Southern States—History—19th century. 3. Southern Baptist
Convention—Doctrines—History. 4. Southern Baptist Convention—
Discipline. 5. Authority—Religious aspects—Baptists.
6. Democracy—Religious aspects—Baptists. 7. Southern States—
Church history—18th century. 8. Southern States—Church
history—19th century. I. Title. II. Series: Religion in America
series (Oxford University Press)
BX6241.W55 1996
286M75—dc20 96-20575
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Cathy
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
I came to this study unexpectedly. In 1992,1 agreed to write a brief article

on an early nineteenth-century Baptist preacher and intended only a
short excursion into Baptist history. But the vistas that opened up while
I studied the preacher's life were so surprising, so compelling, that I could
not resist a closer look at early Southern Baptists.
Nineteenth-century Baptists were not what I anticipated. The brands
of piety that flourished in the new American republic directed their
appeals to the common people. In The Democratization of American Chris-
tianity, Nathan Hatch illustrated how the popular preachers altered their
message to make it more appealing to the masses. They embraced the
democratic ethos of the new nation and recast the gospel in a new,
populist, individualist form—the gospel best suited to republicans was
anticlerical, antiauthoritarian, anticreedal, and anti-Calvinist. In church
as well as state, the ideals of democracy prospered.
In some ways, Baptists were no exception. Their churches were democ-
racies. Their spirituality was egalitarian. But in the hands of nineteenth-
century Southern Baptists, democratic religion meant a startlingly dif-
ferent kind of populism. Their democratic communities rejected much
of the individualism that rose in tandem with the populist republican-
ism that swept the young nation. They honored their clergy, they were
unashamedly authoritarian, they were stubbornly creedal, and they
defended orthodox Calvinism. It was not until the early twentieth
century that the values of political democracy reshaped Baptist piety.
viii preface
From the colonial era until the early twentieth century, Southern
Baptists resisted the Enlightenment's reconstruction of humanity. They
rejected modernity's naturalism and opposed both evolution and bibli-
cal criticism. More important to this story, they rejected modernity's
individualism. Baptist piety had individualist characteristics rooted in
the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers—each per-
son was accountable to God individually and received justification
through the exercise of individual faith—but they repulsed the pri-
vatizing trend of democratic individualism. The church, they believed,
had prerogatives that superseded those of individuals. The redeemed
community determined corporately the meaning of the sacred text, the
shape of Christian spirituality, and the regulation of virtue.
Although Southern Baptists privileged the congregational commu-
nity, they were not advocates of an early form of postmodernism. They
established structures and rituals that ensured that the community
mediated the interpretation of scripture. However, they did not see this
as an argument for the socially constructed nature of truth. To the con-
trary, they were quite certain that on a broad range of Bible topics they
embraced eternal truth. They exercised communal authority not be-
cause modernity had corroded their trust in reason's ability to discover
the unconditioned truths of the Bible. They exercised it because they
had confidence in the interpretive powers of the pure community—not
so much the power of objective reason or even of the chastened ratio-
nalism of the later Enlightenment, but the power of a community illu-
mined through union with the same Christ who inspired the divine
oracles. Southern Baptists established a spirituality that was at once
democratic and authoritarian. Their democratic religion was as much
medieval as it was modern.
I tried to let the Baptists speak for themselves. No historian attains
objectivity, but attempting it improves the results. I tried to define and
question the suppositions and sympathies that I brought to the task, in
an effort to prevent them from distorting the history. Baptist historiog-
raphy has many times suffered because the history is made to serve
either denominational promotion or denominational polemics. Even in
the strife about biblical authority, the arguments advanced were often
historical ones. History is relevant in such debates, but sound historical
judgment is often the victim.
My interests and views gave direction to this study. I state them here
in the hope that they may further elucidate the argument. They may
enable some to see inadvertent distortions that I missed. I have written
as a Southern Baptist whose sentiments are not far from the tradition
depicted here. I identify with the Reformed Protestant stream that
flows from sixteenth-century Switzerland and southern Germany to
seventeenth-century Puritanism to eighteenth-century American
evangelicalism. I also identify with the Baptist version of that stream.
Preface ix
This book argues that one expression of that heritage established a pre-
carious balance between premodern and modern cultural trends.
I relied primarily on sources from the Baptists of Georgia. Limiting the
geographical scope of the study allowed me to attain depth that I would
have sacrificed in a study of the South as a whole. Southern Baptists had
some regional differences; Georgia was as close to the center of these
differences as any state and harbored them all. Except where noted other-
wise, churches and associations cited were located in Georgia.
I have retained the original spelling, punctuation, and capitalization
when quoting material directly. In quotations from period print mate-
rials, I frequently omitted italics and block capitalization to be consis-
tent with current usage. Brackets indicate material I have added for
clarity or explanation.
I am deeply grateful to the many persons whose generosity made pos-

sible the completion of this book: Dave Edmondson, Jay and Barbara
Parish, Johnny and Lynda Gresham, Bart and Vanessa Kaiser, John and
Wilba McCoy, David and Paige Pattillo, Dave and Cindy Rawlins, Buddy
and Kathy Rice, Clayton and Angela Slagle, Bill and Lynn Warren, and
Mike and Nancy Wilkinson. Thanks are due especially for the frequent
encouragement I received by special acts of kindness from Ferrell and
Rhonwyn Ryan and from Jim and Sandy Wellman. The members and
staff of Mount Vernon Baptist Church provided a spiritual home, the
benefits of which are beyond reckoning.
Mary Overby and the staff of Mercer University's special collections
department were most helpful in providing sources and advice.
R. Albert Mohler, editor of the Christian Index, and his staff deserve
praise for kindly making their holdings available to me. This courtesy
saved me considerable time and effort.
Jennifer West gave me the benefit of her research and sound judg-
ment and suggested revisions to parts of this work. Tom Chaffin, Ernie
Freeberg, Steve Goodson, and Mary Margaret Johnston-Miller shared
their knowledge generously in many helpful ways.
Brooks Holifield's contributions were invaluable. His thorough criti-
cism of its form and content made this book immeasurably better.
The support and encouragement of my mother, of Ingrid, and of
George and Myrna cleared and smoothed the way. Without Cathy's love,
patience, and sacrifice, this book could not have been completed.
Louisville, Kentucky G.A.W.

May 1996
Contents
Introduction: Religious Authority and the Democratic Impulse 3

1 Democratic Exclusivism 11
2 Democracies Primitive and Pure 26
3 Democratic Authority 37
4 Democracy, Race, and Gender 50
5 African-American Democracies 67
6 Freedom, Authority, and Doctrine 84
7 Associations, Creeds, and Calvinism 98
8 Democratic Religion Transformed 116
Conclusion 139
Notes 141
Index 185
Democratic Religion
Introduction: Religious
Authority and the
Democratic Impulse
In the late twentieth century, the Southern Baptist Convention, the

largest Protestant denomination in the United States, suffered wrench-
ing controversy. It differed from most earlier controversies in other
denominations in that the moderate party lost control of the national
organization to the fundamentalists. The fundamentalist victory was
largely unexpected. Most Southern Baptists, though no theological lib-
erals, appeared to be classic Protestant moderates—"conservative in
theology, tolerant in spirit, and evangelistic in purpose."1 Fundamen-
talist exclusivism seemed to cut against the grain of Southern Baptist
individualism.
Most Southern Baptists subscribed to conservative theology—a
divinely inspired Bible, the reality of the supernatural, the eternity of
hell, the necessity of a spiritual rebirth for salvation, the obligation to
evangelize the lost. When the fundamentalist party made the inerrancy
of the scriptures their battle cry, they were counting on this commit-
ment to rally the rank and file.
Many Southern Baptists subscribed also to tolerance. Throughout the
twentieth century, they had placed the ideas of soul liberty and the priest-
3
4 Democratic Religion
hood of the believer near the center of Baptist theology. These doctrines,
many Baptists urged, established the inviolable character of the individual
conscience in matters spiritual: No person had a right to sit in judgment
of another's religious convictions. They meant that each person was free
to embrace Christianity according to individual judgment and that
churches and denominational organizations should tolerate those diverse
judgments. When the moderate party made freedom their battle cry, they
were counting on this tradition of individualism.
Both sides raised the banner of evangelism. Southern Baptists were
in the midst of aggressive overseas missions when the controversy
exploded. Since the 1950s, they had expanded outside the Bible Belt,
sending "home missionaries" to every state. Interest in evangelism
appeared to be at an all-time high. The fundamentalists claimed that
the churches committed to inerrancy were the ones that practiced evan-
gelism, as evidenced by their growth and number of baptisms. The mod-
erates claimed that the strife caused by inerrancy crusaders distracted
the churches and placed obstacles in the path of evangelism. Further-
more, moderates argued, the churches leading the inerrancy crusade
contributed paltry sums to the common fund that financed home and
foreign missions.
Although moderates did not repudiate conservative theology and
fundamentalists did not repudiate toleration, the antagonists correctly
portrayed the struggle as a conflict between a particular understanding
of toleration and a particular understanding of Baptist orthodoxy, with
both sides claiming title to the evangelistic imperative.
Both parties saw the conflict as a struggle over the identity of the South-
ern Baptist denomination. Were Southern Baptists at heart moved by
appeals to freedom grounded in the doctrines of soul liberty and the priest-
hood of the believer or by appeals to inerrancy grounded in fundamen-
talist orthodoxy? Many moderates believed that the fundamentalist chal-
lenge stood little chance of success.2 They underestimated the influence
of southern traditions of religious authority. In the final analysis, the
heritage of exclusivism prevailed over modern forms of individualism.
Few could have predicted the fundamentalist victory, partly because Bap-
tist historians had so frequently depicted eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century Baptists as advocates of an intensely individualistic religion that
embraced freedom as a sacred good. The counterpart to their commit-
ment to freedom, historians said, was their rejection of authority. His-
torian Robert G. Torbet summarized the consensus view: Baptists "have
ever sought to be free from ecclesiastical authority."3 The history of
moral discipline in early Baptist churches shows how gravely this con-
clusion misjudged the Baptist past.
This is the story of how one denomination fashioned a form of piety
at once committed to religious freedom and to democratic authority.
Its ideas of freedom and authority grew out of its conception of the
Introduction 5
church. Because Baptists saw the church as a voluntary democracy, they

pursued spiritual egalitarianism. Because they saw it also as a bastion
of purity, they excluded the impure and the false.
Indeed, the brands of American Protestantism that flourished after
the Great Awakening shared an exclusivist temperament that rested on
a vision of the church as separate from the world. These evangelicals
insisted on conversion as prerequisite for church membership, on right
belief, and on church discipline. Dissent from this vision fueled many a
denominational controversy, and, as evangelical churches relinquished
it for an inclusivist one in the twentieth century, the character of evan-
gelical Protestantism changed.
In antebellum evangelical churches, the conversion experience de-
fined church membership. Although Methodists, Presbyterians, and
Congregationalists admitted the children of church members through
infant baptism, and early Methodists admitted unconverted adults if they
avowed a serious purpose to seek salvation, evangelical churches so
accentuated the conversion experience as to make it effectively the only
proper qualification of membership. To remain in an evangelical church
without it was to remain a second-class member, subject to the special
attentions and prayers of the pastor and converted members. The expe-
rience separated those within from those without. It formed the first
support of evangelical exclusivism.
These churches also saw orthodox belief as intrinsic to Christian iden-
tity. Each denomination or church had a confession that defined the
boundaries of belief. Theological commitments stood as fences separat-
ing church members from both unbelievers and believers of other
denominations. Theological exclusivism made evangelical unity a dis-
tant hope. Although church union had long been the dream of both
liberals and evangelicals, it made no headway until churches began to
reject the exclusivist character of their doctrines.
Although not all church members were theological adepts—many
knew little theology—the level of interest shown by the laity was
remarkable. To claim that the laity ignored theology because the clergy
surpassed them in knowledge is like describing patients as unconcerned
about medicine because their physicians specialize in it. Though not
always well informed, the laity often felt a keen interest in theology,
especially in times of controversy. They took sides in public debates,
formed factions in their churches, and expected sound theology from
their ministers. Commitment to doctrine constituted the second sup-
port of evangelical exclusivism.
Evangelicals placed a premium on the purity of the church, which
they endeavored to maintain through church discipline. This practice—
the third support for the exclusivist vision—is central to the story of
democratic religion. Evangelical exclusivism appeared most vividly in
the principles and practices of discipline.
Among all the denominations, Baptists won the reputation of the

strongest commitment to democratic principles and individual freedom.
Yet they also demonstrated the most zeal for strict church discipline.
They were religious populists—their churches democratic, their minis-
ters needing only the call of the Spirit, their religion personal and fer-
vent, their appeals addressed to the common person—but they com-
bined their populism with authoritative Calvinism and unflinching
church discipline. Prizing an independent, democratic government and
employing a rhetoric of freedom, they expected their members to sub-
mit to a demanding corporate authority. These little democracies made
their members conform.
They seemed to consider themselves set apart for perfecting an
exclusivist church. When other evangelicals called them bigots, they
found in the epithet a hidden compliment. They saw theirs as the only
church properly ordered. Only they had a converted church member-
ship; only they refused to baptize unconverted infants. Only they,
moreover, understood baptism to mean immersion and refused mem-
bership to adults whose "baptism" consisted of sprinkling or pouring.
To make things worse, most Baptists would not recognize what they
termed alien immersion—immersion performed by non-Baptists—con-
ceiving that no minister who believed in infant baptism could validly
baptize even by immersion. And then they further provoked other
evangelicals by refusing to take communion with them and withhold-
ing communion from their members. Baptists practiced close commun-
ion because they believed that baptism was prerequisite to participa-
tion in the Lord's Supper and that other evangelicals had never been
baptized. Add to this their strict church discipline, and it is no surprise
that other denominations scorned their exclusivism.
Baptists touted their allegiance to freedom and republicanism, for they
alone, they said, truly advocated civil and religious liberty. They orga-
nized autonomous local churches free from tyrannical hierarchies, and
they practiced a church government by democracy rather than by
priests, bishops, or elders. However, they combined their populist
democracy with ecclesiastical authority, and this was true nowhere more
than in the South. Southern Baptists, like northern Baptists, identified
themselves as champions of freedom, but they exceeded their north-
ern counterparts in the rigor of their church discipline. They disciplined
a far higher percentage of their members. The South proved amenable
both to Baptists and to rigorists.
Southern Baptists descended from English Puritanism. The first
English-speaking Baptist churches grew out of English Separatist
churches in the early seventeenth century. These General Baptists
rejected such Calvinist doctrines as limited atonement (the view that
Christ died only for the elect) and unconditional election. By the 1640s,
Particular Baptists organized churches that rejected any suggestion that
Introduction 7
Christ died for all people; rather, he died for a particular people—the
elect who had been chosen from all eternity. Particular Baptists were
similar to other Puritans except that they baptized only professing
believers and they baptized by immersion.4
Both Particulars and Generals established congregations in the Ameri-
can colonies. In 1639, Roger Williams and a few others formed a Par-
ticular church in Providence, Rhode Island. Other congregations fol-
lowed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Some members were converts
from colonial Puritanism; others migrated from Baptist churches in
England, Wales, and Ireland. Although most of the early churches were
Particular, General churches prospered in some areas.5
Baptist churches multiplied during the Great Awakening, growing
from sixty congregations in 1740 to almost one thousand in 1790. Doz-
ens of Separatist Congregational churches—congregations that sepa-
rated from associations that rejected the methods and theologies of the
revivalists—became Baptist. These revivalists were known as Separate
Baptists, and a number of them became itinerant evangelists whose
preaching created Baptist believers throughout the colonies.6
The first identifiable Baptist church in the South formed in Charles-
ton, South Carolina, when a congregation of Particulars migrated from
Maine in 1696. The awakening brought itinerant preachers like Shubal
Stearns and Daniel Marshall, who separated from Congregational
churches in New England and migrated to North Carolina in 1755 to
establish Separate Baptist churches. The Philadelphia Baptist Associa-
tion also sent to the South such evangelists as Morgan Edwards and John
Gano, who established Regular (formerly known as Particular) Baptist
churches, often by persuading the scattered General Baptist congrega-
tions to adopt Calvinist doctrine. The Regulars adopted the London
Confession and looked askance at the Separates as agents of disorder.
The Separates objected to parts of the London Confession and criticized
the Regulars for tolerating luxury in dress and for retaining members
who had received baptism before they were converted. Most Separates
agreed with the Regulars' Calvinism, and between 1777 and 1801 the
two united, state by state.7
In 1772, Daniel Marshall, who had been a deacon in a Congregational
church in Connecticut for twenty years, planted a Separate Baptist
church in Georgia. In 1773, William Botsford, an English immigrant,
planted a Regular church. By 1784, these churches, along with three
others, reconciled and formed the Georgia Association, with 223 mem-
bers.8 Although they healed the Separate-Regular divide, Baptists in
Georgia and the South suffered other divisions. Early in the nineteenth
century, some Baptists organized to support missions and other benevo-
lent projects. Others saw no scriptural basis for benevolent societies, and
they opposed these missionary Baptists, forming associations of Primi-
tive Baptists in the 1830s. Between 1850 and 1900, a further contro-
versy over Landmarkism disrupted the churches. The Landmarkists

followed the teachings of Tennessee editor J. R. Graves, who contended
that Baptists could not share pulpits with non-Baptists and that Baptist
churches were the only true churches because they alone could trace
an unbroken apostolic succession of true baptisms.9 The issue created
hard feelings, but it did not result in any schism.
In 1790, 67,000 Baptists worshiped in the United States. The South
held 41,000 of them, 61 percent of the total. Half of these southern
Baptists were in Virginia, but Georgia was becoming a Baptist haven as
well; although the entire South is in view in this study, the practices of
Georgia Baptist churches provide the backdrop before which most of
this narrative unfolds. Georgia had only 3,245 Baptists in 1785, but
eventually the Baptists and Methodists swept the field. Presbyterians
could boast members of prominence, but they had only a small minor-
ity of the state's Christians. In 1827, the state harbored some 20,000
Baptists, 17,181 Methodists, and about 2,200 Presbyterians. All the
Christian denominations totaled barely 10 percent of the state's resi-
dents, though many more people attended than joined. By 1850, the
South held 59 percent of the nation's 715,000 Baptists. More than
52,000 of them dwelt in Georgia. By the onset of the Civil War, total
church membership in the state climbed to about 20 percent, with
Baptists accounting for 96,000 church members, Methodists 85,000, and
Presbyterians 6,200.10
After the war Georgia became one of the most Protestant states in
the nation. By 1906, 41 percent of Georgians claimed membership in a
Protestant church, second only to South Carolina's 45 percent. Geor-
gia also became the most Baptist of all the states. In 1906, one in every
four Georgians was a Baptist communicant, a higher percentage than
in any other state. Numbering 596,319, white and black Georgia Bap-
tists outstripped the next largest Baptist state by more than 150,000
members.
The story of religious authority in Georgia Baptist churches provides
the narrative for this book. They placed discipline at the center of church
life, filling their monthly conference meetings with disciplinary mat-
ters and viewing the church as a bench of judges. Not even preaching
the gospel was more important to them than the exercise of discipline.
They were disciplined democracies.
Through discipline, Baptists sought to repristinate the apostolic church
and to stake their claim to primitive Christianity. Through discipline,
they would, moreover, sweep the nation, for they believed that God
rewarded faithful pruning by raining down revival. So they required of
every member submission to church discipline and demanded from
everyone—saint and sinner alike—an acknowledgment of the church's
right to censure and an acceptance of what they considered the ortho-
dox tenets of Calvinist theology. Clergy and laity alike cherished and
Introduction 9
protected the doctrines of Calvinism with an intensity that some twen-

tieth-century historians—accustomed to thinking that only an elite few
cared about theological complexities—have found hard to fathom.
They combined a hierarchical view of society with an egalitarian view
of the church. Their ideology of hierarchy meant that churches in some
ways treated female and black offenders with greater severity than
male and white offenders. Their egalitarianism meant that they treated
male and white offenders in other ways with greater severity than
female and black offenders. But by all appearances, women and blacks
were at least as committed to the church's pruning knife as white men
were. After emancipation, the African-American Baptists established in
their churches similar forms and doctrines to those of the white
churches, including the discipline.
After the Civil War, Baptist observers began to lament that church
discipline was foundering, and it was. It declined partly because it
became more burdensome in larger churches. Young Baptists refused
in increasing numbers to submit to discipline for dancing, and the
churches shrank from excluding them. Urban churches, pressed by the
need for large buildings and the desire for refined music and preach-
ing, subordinated church discipline to the task of keeping the church
solvent. Many Baptists shared a new vision of the church, replacing the
pursuit of purity with the quest for efficiency. They lost the resolve to
purge their churches of straying members.
No one publicly advocated the demise of discipline. No Baptist leader
arose to call for an end to congregational censures. No theologians
argued that discipline was unsound in principle or practice. No "free-
dom" party arose to quash the tyranny of the redeemed. It simply faded
away, as if Baptists had grown weary of holding one another
accountable.
Attention to the meaning of church discipline should temper the
notion that its significance resided simply in its function as a device of
social control. It is true that evangelical churches were "moral courts of
the frontier," enforcing standards of conduct amidst the lawlessness of
frontier society.11 But viewing discipline as social control goes only a
short way in explaining its place in the lives of churchgoers. The faith-
ful did not exercise discipline in order to constrain a wayward society.
That was the task of families, communities, and governments. Churches
disciplined to constrain confessing saints to good order and to preserve
their purity. Church discipline was not about social control but about
ecclesiastical control.
Until about 1830, much of Georgia was a frontier society, with all of
the lawlessness, vice, and social chaos frontier conditions could engen-
der. Even after 1830, Georgians, like other southerners, were prone to
frequent outbursts of drunken brawling, replete with eye gouging and
knife play. People in the churches disliked the disorder as much as other
law-abiding Georgians, but they did not see it as their chief duty to do
the sheriff's job. They had the Lord's work to do.
In fact, the more the churches concerned themselves with social order,
the less they exerted church discipline. From about 1850 to 1920, a
period of expanding evangelical solicitude for the reformation of soci-
ety, church discipline declined steadily. From temperance to Sabbatarian
reform, evangelicals persuaded their communities to adopt the moral
norms of the church for society at large. As Baptists learned to reform
the larger society, they forgot how they had once reformed themselves.
Church discipline presupposed a stark dichotomy between the norms
of society and the kingdom of God. The more evangelicals purified the
society, the less they felt the urgency of a discipline that separated the
church from the world.
1
Democratic Exclusivism
In 1806, William Barnes, estranged from some of the members of the

Savannah First Baptist Church, requested letters of dismission in order
that he and his family might join another church. The church, believ-
ing that Barnes had neglected his religious duties, charged him with
"continued absence from the Church, and from the Table of the Lord,
at our communion." On the advice of pastor Henry Holcombe, they
voted to deal with him gently, pronouncing against him "the lowest
Censure of the Church, to wit, Rebuke," but he ignored them.
One month later, the church again cited him to answer for his
absence. Interpreting his actions as rebellion against their authority, they
expressed their grief at "the apparent contempt with which Brother
William B. Barnes has for a long time treated us, by his perpetual absence
from our days of Discipline, as well as from our Communion seasons,
not partaking with us of the Lords supper."
When Henry Williams delivered the church's message, Barnes
exploded in frustration. His attempts to cast off ecclesiastical control had
failed. According to Williams's account, Barnes "appear'd very angry,
expressed dissatisfaction with some of the Brethren, & at length swore
profanely that he would not appear at any Ecclesiastical court, for that
he hated them, and always had hated them, &c." When Barnes did not
appear as summoned, the church raised the stakes, disbarring him from
the privileges of membership, including the Lord's Supper, and resolved
11
"that Bro. William B. Barnes, not only for his repeated contempt of this
church, but also for the horrid sin of profane swearing, be suspended."
The church's forbearance extended two months more.
Our beloved Pastor [Holcombe] stated to the Church that it was long since
the Church had expected that our Brother William B. Barnes would have
been publickly expelled by excommunication from the special priviledges
of this Church, that he however had thought proper to write to him, &
had usd every argument to induce his return to his duty and to Order,
hoping thereby to gain him by love, that he had also received letters from
him, but that he was sorry to inform the Church that there was no rea-
son, from the spirit in which he wrote, to hope for his wished for resto-
ration. The Church, after expressing much sorrow, for the necessity which
impelled them, unanimously resolved to Excommunicate the offending
Brother from this Church, but in order that the cup of forbearance should,
as it were, be drained towards him, they agreed that his Sentence should
not be made public till next Lords Day a week, that he may have oppor-
tunity to seek restoration on Gospel principles.
When the church informed Barnes, he "said he was willing they pro-
ceed to his excommunication." On Sunday, pastor Henry Holcombe,
"towards the latter part of his forenoon sermon in a very moderate and
delicate manner pronounced the Church's act of excommunication
against Mr. William B. Barnes." In the final action of this four-month
drama, Savannah Church unceremoniously demoted "Brother Barnes"
to "Mr. Barnes."1
If he did not know it before, Barnes discovered the hard way that
Baptists accepted no opposition to the principle of ecclesiastical author-
ity. To an antebellum Baptist, a church without discipline would hardly
have counted as a church. For this reason, Savannah Baptists refused
to permit Barnes to absent himself from the "days of Discipline." For
the same reason, the church refused to allow Barnes's "contempt" to
go unrebuked. Installing discipline at the center of church life, Baptist
churches required their members to submit.
In a sacred drama that alternately wooed and chastised straying
members, the Baptists manifested their core convictions. Because they
believed it a divine drama, carried out under the directions of the heav-
enly Christ and replete with eternal implications, they exercised their
discipline with emotion and ardor. With varying outcomes, the Bap-
tists of the nineteenth-century South repeated the Barnes affair ad
infinitum. By the time of the Civil War, the democratic Baptists had
excommunicated more than forty thousand members in Georgia alone.2
Separation from the World

Antebellum southern Baptists found nothing remarkable in excommu-
nication. They found it in the New Testament, in Jesus' command to
Democratic Exclusivism 13
cast unrepentant sinners out of the church and in Paul's command to

"expel the immoral brother." The early church expelled those who
sinned or denied church teaching. By the fourth century, churches
allowed transgressors only one repentance after baptism; subsequent
lapses could not be forgiven. Transgressors had to endure years of faithful
observance before bishops restored them to membership.3
Medieval churches swept aside the once-only rigor of the early church
and substituted a system of private penance. Local priests directed the
discipline of the faithful in a life-long practice of confession, penance,
and forgiveness. The Fourth Lateran Council endorsed this system in
1215.
Luther and other Protestant reformers objected to the medieval prac-
tice and its implicit denial of justification by faith. Protestants tried to
reform discipline. Although they sometimes insisted that discipline was
a mark of the true church, in most areas civil authorities limited their
power to exercise it. In Geneva, Protestant leader John Calvin eventu-
ally prevailed in the struggle to grant the church some independence
to discipline.4
English and American Puritans, from whom Baptists came, objected
to the Church of England as being defective not "so much in Doctrine as
in Worship and Discipline." They sought to perfect the Reformation by
restoring "Primitive godly discipline." Separatists, Baptists, and New
England Puritans remedied the defect and cast out the wayward in their
churches. The southern Baptists identified themselves with the English
dissenting tradition and proclaimed a gospel that divided the world into
sinners and saints. God required Baptists to establish churches purified
by discipline.5
Southern evangelicals constituted only a small percentage of the
southern population, but they made their presence felt. In 1800, Bap-
tists, along with Methodists and Presbyterians, were outspoken critics
of all forms of worldliness, which, they thought, found its clearest ex-
pression in the pleasures and customs of the wealthy. The southern
gentility, in turn, despised the Baptists especially as poor, uneducated,
and lacking culture. Baptist social criticism and Baptist discipline
exemplified not only opposition to sin but also a separation of social
worlds.6
At midcentury, evangelicals remained a minority, and Baptists
remained suspect in the eyes of the southern social elite. Although the
values of evangelical religion were preparing the way for Victorian
culture in northern cities, southern values still revolved around the
notion of honor. Swearing, gambling, drinking, wenching, and defiance
of Sabbath customs, wrote southerner William Grayson in 1853, were
permissible pursuits for a "man of honor." Baptist discipline continued
to oppose such genteel pastimes even as Baptists aspired to finer edu-
cation and culture.7
After the Civil War, evangelicals were more at home in society. As

their numbers grew, they built exquisite churches and established
schools and colleges for their children. Yet they could not relinquish
their suspicion of the "world." Their minority status and their social
history conspired with their beliefs to confirm their separatist identity.
Requiring believers to subordinate their individual moral autonomy to
the judgment of the whole, Baptist churches strove to be exclusive. Only
in the late nineteenth century did the discipline wane.
Though an otherworldly drama, the discipline of the saints played
before a larger public. Many who did not belong to any church watched
the rituals by which evangelical churches protected their citadels of
purity. To some, it appeared an uncivilized spectacle—a Savannah resi-
dent described a local excommunication process as "a relic of barbar-
ism, of which only puritanism could be guilty." To others, it was an
admirable bulwark of the virtue essential to the American republic. For
church members, the liturgy of church discipline set before the world a
tableau depicting their moral and doctrinal separation. Baptists kept their
discipline meetings public, the Georgia Baptist Association explained,
in order to "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your
good works."8
The effects of church discipline thus reached beyond the membership
of the antebellum churches. Like the Methodists and Presbyterians,
Baptists gained such a reputation for spiritual exclusivism that even
religious southerners hesitated to join. Many attended regularly with-
out seeking membership. In 1791, John Asplund, a Baptist pastor who
traveled up and down the eastern seaboard gathering statistics on Ameri-
can Baptists, estimated that the "congregations," those who attended
church but were not members, totaled several times the number on the
membership rolls. "There is in reality more baptists than on this list, when
we consider those who have not joined any church, excommunicated,
&c. and a large number attend the meetings, at least three times as many
as have joined the church." A generation earlier, the clerk of the Phila-
delphia Baptist Association reported "partly from their [the churches']
letters to the Association, and partly from private information," that the
churches of the association had 4,018 members and 5,970 "Hearers." The
total number of people who participated in Baptist congregations was
thus some ten thousand, two and a half times the number of church
members. Jesse Mercer, longtime president of the Georgia Baptist Con-
vention and editor of the weekly Christian Index, estimated in 1835 that
Baptists in the United States numbered 400,000, with "certainly not less
than twice that number of persons attached to our congregations, who
are not church members," making the total number of adherents 1.2
million, three times the number of church members.9
The congregations were frequently much larger than the member-
ship. In 1830, one church in southeastern Georgia reported that "the
congregation is good and attentive," but they had only eleven mem-
bers. Another church in the same area reported that "our meeting house
is generally crowded with an attentive audience," although their mem-
bership numbered only thirty-five.10
The congregation might include excommunicated members, friends
and family of members, and members of other area churches not meet-
ing that day. When the members of one church desired to improve the
quality of hymn singing in their worship services, they resolved that
"the church & congregation (& the church in Particular) be respectfully
recommended to become members of the singing society." When
another church called William H. Stokes to become their pastor, they
had separate ballots for each group, so that he "received the unanimous
call both of the church and congregation." New members frequently
received baptism in the presence of sizable crowds, "the Church and
congregation having repaired to the Pool." Although congregations
could not participate in the Lord's Supper, they customarily remained
in their seats as spectators in the antebellum period.11
In distinguishing the congregation from the church—a distinction
characteristic of English dissenting Protestantism—Baptists expressed
their adherence to the ideal of a pure church gathered out of the world.
Undergoing baptism was a radical step, for it meant crossing the wide
chasm from a life of moral autonomy to a life of submission to the moral
authority of the church, and Baptists made that passage narrow, admit-
ting only those who fulfilled a list of conditions, which the demogra-
pher Asplund summarized in 1794:
1st. An experience of Gods grace upon their souls, viz. conviction and
conversion, is required, which must be verbally delivered before the
church, together with a testimony from serious persons, that a reforma-
tion in practice has taken place.
2dly. They must have faith in, and submit themselves to the holy ordi-
nance of Baptism.
3dly. The mode must be attended to The person must be dipped or
immersed in water.
4thly. The element must be observed, viz. water. . . .
5thly. The administrator must be a qualified person for that work, viz.
1st. Converted or regenerated. 2ndly. He must have faith in the ordinance
of Baptism or Immersion. 3dly. He must have been baptized by a quali-
fied minister of our denomination, and in good standing. 4thly. He must
be duly ordained by a presbytery by laying on of hands. 5thly. He must
be a member of an orderly Baptist church. 7thly. [sic] In good standing
viz. orthodox in judgment and moral in practice.12
These gathered communities made a great deal of their exclusivism,

making the rite of passage from the world to the church an affair of
unusual interest both within and without the church.
Baptisms were public affairs, transacted outdoors. Bethesda Baptist
Church, for example, received three converts, who "Submitted to the

ordinance of Baptism and was immerced in Little river by Br. Jonathan
Davis in the name of the Holy Trinity in the presence of a vast concourse
of Weeping Spectators." When Baptist pastor Henry Holcombe baptized
ten converts in the Savannah River, "the spectators on this solemn
occasion were more numerous than on any former occasion, a great
number of distinguished personages were present, and joy in many
countenances seemed visible." Athens First Baptist Church baptized
several persons in the Oconee River "in the presence of an audience,
supposed to contain fifteen hundred or two thousand persons."
Augusta's twelve-hundred-member Springfield African Baptist Church
turned out for winter baptisms, the clerk reporting that "while the whole
earth, house tops and trees were draped in raiment of white snow, the
church withe Ten candidates, . . . Wended their way to the river and
were baptised by the Pastor." When some urban southern churches
talked in the 1840s of building indoor baptistries, W. H. Stokes, editor
of the Christian Index, complained that "this is a sort of refinement we
hope never to see carried out."13
The "weeping spectators" attending public baptisms were forceful re-
minders of the radical character of the separation inaugurated in this
ritual. At an 1837 protracted meeting in Eatonton, Georgia, a young
woman named Caroline, having experienced conviction and conversion,
expressed the exclusiveness of baptism and church membership with
unusual force. Seeking admission to the Baptist church, she "related a
most interesting experience," confessing that she had struggled with the
need "to give up worldly amusements of a sinful nature, especially danc-
ing." The struggle having ended, Caroline testified: "I desire to be even
more devoted to my Savior than I have ever been to the world." A long-
time friend later described her baptism in a creek the following night,
an event that gave new impetus to the revival there:
Of course everybody was there. The banks of that little stream were lined
with crowds of interested spectators.. . . Julia, of Monticello, her bosom
friend and companion in her worldly course, seemed loath to leave her
even for a moment, and clung to her till she reached the water's edge. A
hymn was sung, [minister C. D.] Mallary made a few remarks and offered
prayer, when [minister John] Dawson took Caroline by the hand and led
her down the shelving bank into the limpid stream. They had attained
about half the desired depth, when she requested him to stop a moment,
and, turning to those on the bank, waving her hand, she said, "Farewell,
young friends! Farewell, Julia!" The effect was electrical. The whole audi-
ence convulsed, and tears rained from eyes unused to weeping.... Upon
coming up out of the water, Julia rushed forward to meet her friend,
embracing her, and crying out in agonizing tones, "Oh, Carrie, you must
not leave me! Mr. Dawson, pray for me! Mr. Mallary pray for me?"14
Baptized in the Oconee, converts crossed a spiritual Rubicon.
Mere members of the congregation could not vote in the election of

officers or in the trial of members or receive communion. But they were
aware that they retained one advantage over church members—they
were not subject to ecclesiastical discipline. They needed not fear that
they would be judged or censured for their moral offenses. The churches
reserved this privilege to members alone.
Baptist Exclusivism
As Baptists saw it, both the preaching of the gospel and the exercise of
church discipline served the vision of the pure church by separating the
righteous from the unrighteous. An 1837 Baptist ministers' meeting
resolved that the two most important things that preachers could do to
foster the purity of the churches, after setting a godly example them-
selves, were to "preach the word, faithfully," and to "excite and enforce
in the Churches, a godly discipline." Pastor B. H. Whilden, comparing
the two tasks to emetic and stimulant medicines, asserted that discipline
"is as necessary to the spirituality of the church as the pleasant minis-
trations of the Word."15
Espousing a thorough Calvinism, Baptists held that preaching sepa-
rated the elect from the world, the Holy Spirit creating faith in the gos-
pel. The gospel of "distinguishing grace" functioned as a sieve, fanning
away the chaff. Discipline likewise would "purge and scourge the wicked
from among the righteous, so that a clear distinction should be made
between the godly and ungodly, the chaff and the wheat." The highest
honor that Baptists could bestow on a church was that "you have endeav-
ored to keep yourselves unmixed with, and unspotted from the world."16
With other Calvinists, Baptists held not only that God had predes-
tined the elect to salvation but also that he would grant them persever-
ance in the faith until death. When saints strayed from moral duty,
Baptists believed, discipline would restore them. Baptists never had to
fear that discipline might cause one of the elect to reject God and the
church, for the excluded "brother [,] if he is a true child of God[,] will
repent and never rest until he gets back into the fold."17
Even as discipline restored straying saints, it extruded unregenerate,
hypocritical members. Because each church was "designed to be a
Society of true genuine believers," whenever an unconverted person
entered the fold, it was the church's "duty, however painful, to exclude
him from their fellowship as soon as his true character was discovered."
True saints would survive the ordeal of discipline, but false ones would
not. The Spirit gave the elect the humility to submit to the church's
judgment. Hypocrites retained the pride of their fallen state and would
rarely suffer the humiliation of judicial control.18
Henry J. Ripley, a Baptist pastor in southeast Georgia, explained that
the churches did not need to fear using the "knife" of discipline: "Real
Christians, when rebuked for a fault actually committed, will immedi-

ately or when the ebullition of passion has subsided and reason resumed
her throne, make frank and ingenuous acknowledgements, and crave
restoration to the fellowship of the church. But an unconverted man
will view all attempts to deal with him as resulting from a spirit of
resentment and a meddlesome infringing on his liberties. His faults will
be metamorphosed into mere venial peccadillos, while others of his own
stamp will vociferate, 'persecution of an innocent man/" Basil Manly
Jr., while serving both as a pastor and as president of Georgetown Col-
lege in Kentucky, exhibited a similar view in a discussion of a case of
discipline involving a couple who had committed fornication and were
married after the birth of a child. As the disciplinary proceedings of the
church neared their culmination, Manly reflected upon discipline's effect
on the man: "If he is a good man, but has been overtaken in a fault, he
will adhere to her, &• try to maintain a correct course in quiet hereafter.
If he is a bad man, he will probably deny his guilt altogether, perhaps
abandon her, & betake himself to some far country." Discipline improved
the converted and exposed the hypocrite.19
On their "days of Discipline," the saints sat in judgment upon one
another in an exercise fully as important as the preaching of the gos-
pel. Only by purging the wicked could the churches remain pure and
separated from the world. When William Barnes absented himself from
disciplinary meetings, he jeopardized a sacred ritual. Railing against the
church as an "Ecclesiastical court," he recognized how important the
ritual remained in the church's identity. Baptists found unexceptional
Georgia pastor James Ferryman's affirmation that "a Church is a sort
of bench of Judges."20
The Conference Meeting

At the heart of Baptist democratic religion were gatherings called "con-
ference days" or "conference meetings," although the less common
name "days of Discipline" was more descriptive. Church members came
together once a month for their conference meeting. Pastors, having
charge of three or four churches, conducted the conferences on a week-
end, with pruning of the congregation done on Saturday prior to wor-
ship on Sunday.21
Churches required their white male members to attend on pain of
excommunication. So highly did Baptists esteem this day that any sign
of diminishing loyalty to it evoked unease. On one occasion, a church
clerk noted his dejection: "Being the regular day for Conference meet-
ing, I repaired to the Church, at 10 oclock, in the forenoon, and remained
there, till after 11 oclock; when no other person being in attendance—
I left the church with a sad heart."22 Not only white men, but also female
and slave members and friends of the church often attended. The pastor
acted as moderator, unless absent, in which case the church elected a

leading layman or a visiting preacher. After singing and a devotion or
sermon, the business of the day began.
Although churches filled their conferences with disciplinary activity,
they transacted other kinds of business as well. They elected pastors and
deacons, received and dismissed members in good standing, admitted
new converts, and resolved questions about church policy, property,
and finances. The examination of new converts was a common event.
Granting membership only to applicants who gave sufficient evidence
"whether there is a genuine work of the Spirit" in their hearts, the
churches required candidates to relate a narrative of their conversion
experience and to confirm it by a holy life. A genuine conversion expe-
rience, as Baptist editor William H. Stokes summarized, conformed to
Baptist theology:
When I was brought to a knowledge of my condition, I determined to
reform, and go through with the prescribed round of duties. I wept for
my sins, but found no relief in tears—I read my Bible to find consolation
there, but saw condemnation on every page. The more I prayed the worse
I felt, until I was brought to believe that, surely there was no hope for
me. I determined to retire yet once more, and throw myself, unreserv-
edly, on the Lord Jesus Christ; feeling, that if he rejected me, I was utterly
undone. I did so; and while I was on my knees, I felt the blessed light of
God's countenance break into my heart, and heard God's voice speaking
peace to my troubled conscience.
In accordance with Calvinist theology, Baptist conversion narratives
attributed everything to the work of the Holy Spirit, from the convic-
tion of sin to the faith that brought peace. When new converts related
their experiences, members rejoiced at the simple pageant of redemp-
tion, sinners transferred from the iniquitous world into a haven of
purity.23
Admitting only those whom "in the judgment of charity" the mem-
bers esteemed truly converted, churches also rejected applicants. If can-
didates persisted in an immoral practice after professing faith in Christ,
the church deemed them unconverted and rejected their petition for
membership. When a slave named Charles sought admittance to a
church, having "previously related his experience [of conversion! and
some objections having been made to his moral character he was refused
admittance into the church."24
Likewise, when candidates inadequately expressed their feelings of
condemnation before conversion or of joyous acquittal after it, churches
might reject their petition. Yet it was not feeling alone but theological
assent that the churches expected. Powelton Baptist Church rejected
slave applicant Tom Askew, explaining that "they were not satisfied with
his relation." Pastor Jesse Mercer convinced a church to reject an
applicant for failing to connect his feelings to the doctrines of grace. The
candidate having said a great deal "about his tenderness and feeling,"
Mercer delicately rebuked him: "When I was a boy, ... my father sent
me out into the woods to call up the stock. I took my wallet of corn,
and to amuse myself, called up the swine in a very sad and melancholy
tone. As I proceeded in this way, the first I knew I found myself weep-
ing at the mournful sound of my own voice." Baptist churches sat in
judgment to discriminate the true from the false conversions.25
By 1640, New England Puritans had introduced the practice of re-
quiring candidates to give a narrative of their conversion before admis-
sion to membership.26 It aided their effort to admit only converted per-
sons to the churches. The revivals of the two awakenings, with their
emphasis on the new birth, further encouraged the practice. Continuing
this tradition, the Baptists filled their conference meetings primarily with
"matters of fellowship" that established the boundaries between iniq-
uity and purity. Here they decided when to receive members from other
Baptist churches and when to dismiss their own. Here they decided
whether candidates had been converted and made fit for baptism. And
here they decided the gravest of all issues of fellowship: whether to retain
or to expel transgressing members. The conference meeting and the
practice of discipline remained intertwined; later, they would wane in
tandem.
The Ritual of Baptist Discipline

Baptist doctrine gave each church authority to manage its fellowship
and adopt its own constitution, consisting of a covenant, articles of faith,
and a decorum. In their covenants, church members pledged themselves
to submit to the laws of Christ. In their articles of faith, they declared
their commitment to Calvinist theology, antipedobaptism (opposition
to infant baptism), and congregational church order. In their decorums,
they set down rules for conducting business in church conferences.27
English dissenters introduced covenant-based churches during the
reign of Mary Tudor. The English exiles in Frankfurt established their
church upon a covenant in 1554, as did Robert Brown's Separatist
church at Norwich, formed in 1580.28 Church covenants were a natu-
ral development of the Puritan move to the voluntary church. Pure
churches could not admit persons based on parish boundaries, for that
would mean admitting many unconverted persons. They could admit
those only who were converted and who voluntarily pledged to sepa-
rate from the world. This voluntary pledge was also the basis of strict
discipline.
The Scottish Presbyterians and English Independents employed cov-
enants widely. Although some English Baptists did not employ cov-
enants, most Particular Baptists followed earlier Separatists in their use.
Methodists similarly pledged to follow a covenant-like "Rule" and held
"covenant services." American Puritans and Baptists uniformly em-

ployed church covenants and taught their apostolic origin.29
Baptist covenants committed church members to discipline. In the
covenant common to most antebellum Baptist churches in Georgia,
church members renounced considerable independent action and indi-
vidual freedom. Announcing their separation from "the World," they
declared themselves "henceforth to be his [Christ's] and no longer our
own." Members then professed to give themselves to one another,
"meaning hereby to become one body jointly to Exist, and jointly to
act by the Bands and Rules of the gospel, Each Esteeming himself hence-
forth as a member of a Spiritual body, accountable to it and Subject to
its Control, and no otherwise seperable therefrom than by Consent first
had or unreasonably Refused."30
More than anything else, Baptists understood mutual submission to
mean voluntary subjection to church discipline. Church members prom-
ised "to Keep up a Godly Dicipline, and to Deal faithfully and tenderly
with those if any, who shall Depart from the faith which was once
Delivered to the Saints, Either in principle or practice."31 Baptist pledges
to submit to one another therefore achieved fullest expression in con-
ference meetings, where the Baptist churches entertained confessions
of wrongdoing, invited accusations and reports of illicit behavior, re-
ceived avowals of repentance, and voted to forgive, restore, or excom-
municate. Their members submerged their individualism under a sea
of ecclesiastical authority.
Churches initiated disciplinary proceedings in two different ways.
When the time arrived in the course of the conference for new cases of
discipline, transgressors frequently stood up and offered an unsolicited
confession, requesting forgiveness. If members were satisfied, they voted
to forgive, retaining the offender in membership. If the church thought
the confession unsatisfactory, they could vote either to excommunicate
the transgressor or to initiate an investigation.
Church members also accused each other. If the accused confessed,
the church voted whether to forgive the offender and retain fellowship.
If the accused failed to attend or denied the charge, the church initi-
ated disciplinary proceedings, ordinarily by appointing two or three
members as a committee to "labor with" defendants, "citing" them to
appear at the next conference. If defendants denied the charges, the
church charged the committee to investigate. Thus, when a defendant
"denies the charges preferred," the church voted that the investigating
committee "is again ordered to site [cite] her to next conference and to
notify the witnesses in the case to appear also."32
In difficult cases, discipline committees might busy themselves for
months, meeting with witnesses and with the accused, citing interested
parties to attend conference, and preparing a report for the church. To
add formality, Atlanta First Baptist Church ordered that "all Charges
brought before the Church in future shall be presented in writing and

after a Committee is appointed to investigate such Cases it shall be the
duty of the Clerk to furnish the Chairman with a Copy of the Charge
and the names of the Committee. It shall then be the duty of the Chair-
man to Call his Committee together, and after careful investigation of
the matter Submit their written Report."33
Some antebellum churches chose to establish standing rather than
ad hoc discipline committees. Poplar Springs Baptist Church in Stephens
County established an "Annual Standing Committee" of seven men "to
Settle temporal matters," for the church's decorum prohibited mem-
bers from seeking redress of grievances among one another in civil
courts. More often, such committees were "to arrange all matters of
church dealings," investigating the full range of offenses.34
Churches frequently gave their deacons these unenviable duties, as
when Penfield Baptist Church "ordered that the Brethn. Green, Reeves
& McDaniel, deacons of the church be appointed & considered a stand-
ing committee and that it be considered their duty to inquire into any
prejudicial reports against any member or disorderly conduct of any
member and prepare the same for the hearing and action of the church."
Having the full burden of a church's disciplinary activity, standing dis-
cipline committees endured considerable trouble. The Penfield commit-
tee, for example, at one conference received three cases to investigate,
one involving travel to the county seat. The church ordered that "the
Deacons use their endeavors to ascertain as many of the facts in these
cases as they may be able to do before the next conference and submit
them accordingly."35
The church expected the committee's work to culminate in a report
and a recommendation. In the report, the committee paraded the rel-
evant evidence and testimony, including the demeanor of the accused
and a resume of the course of the investigation. When churches con-
cluded that the committee had neglected evidence or exercised insuffi-
cient diligence, they might reject the report and order the committee
to continue its work.
If the church accepted the committee's report, then it considered its
recommendation. The committee might recommend acquittal, forgive-
ness (usually with a public rebuke from the pastor), or excommunica-
tion. Churches generally adopted the recommendation of the commit-
tee but sometimes rejected it in favor of some other course of action.
Some Baptist churches kept a portion of their membership in constant
activity by perennial appointment to discipline committees.
Antebellum southern Baptists excommunicated nearly 2 percent of
their membership every year. Achieving excommunication rates nearly
60 percent higher than their northern colleagues, they fully exempli-
fied their professions of allegiance to discipline. Episcopalians abjured
such rigor and found little occasion for discipline. Presbyterians disci-
plined members far below the Baptist rate and preferred to suspend
offenders rather than excommunicate them. Methodists came closest
to Baptist rigor, expelling members at about one-third the Baptist rate.
In their "days of discipline," Baptists displayed their commitment to
democratic spiritual authority.36
Trials of Church Members

When Baptist churches entered into disciplinary proceedings against
members, they referred to the process as "dealings," "church dealings,"
or "trials."37 The trials of those "under dealings" involved every group
in the church in one way or another. Each group in its own way affected
the texture of discipline.
Whether men or women, blacks or whites, the Baptists conducted
the discipline informally, and it can be misleading to refer to the pro-
ceedings as trials, but the churches did demonstrate a concern for fair-
ness and justice. When churches determined that "the charges was
proven," a clerk might record that the verdict came "after hearring the
evidence" or "after hearing Testamoney."38 The clerks left ample evi-
dence that churches called witnesses and evaluated evidence, as when
the clerk of Poplar Springs Baptist Church recorded that "Bro Jos. Stovall
states that Sister Sarey Denman has had a Base begotten Child and the
same being proven by two witnesses, the Church Excludes her."39
Although they may have sometimes decided cases in summary fash-
ion, they could look as carefully into evidence and testimony as any
secular court.
One church in north Georgia adopted a decorum in which they agreed
that "no Evidence Shall be Received in this Church from the world on
Tryal of aney Member." This meant that they would receive no evidence
from persons outside the church. Fearing contamination and recogniz-
ing their powerlessness over nonmembers, the churches protected
themselves in this way against perjury and slander by unbelievers. The
Tugalo Association reasoned that, "as the church of Christ is separate
and distinct from the world, having no power over non professors, we
therefore consider worldly testimony not admissible, only [except] as
it may cast light in corroberation with gospel [believers'l testimony."40
Most churches and associations, however, accepted testimony from
outsiders. "The object for which testimony is received at all," Jesse
Mercer argued, "is to ascertain the truth; but if a church refuse all tes-
timony from without, she will in many cases refuse valid evidence, and
so obscure the truth, and injure the cause of union and fellowship in
herself."41 When the purity of the church was at risk, the testimony of
the impure was the lesser threat.
The churches did not pattern their proceedings after the forms and
rules of civil courts. State laws in the South, for example, prohibited
slaves from testifying in civil courts against whites. In church courts,

slave members could testify against whites. The Hephzibah Association
refused even to consider whether it was "right according to the Scrip-
tures to hear evidence of a slave, who is a member of the Church, against
a white member," evidently because they could conceive of no basis
for rejecting slave testimony.42
Two slaves testified in Savannah First Baptist Church against a white
who was a slave driver accused of killing a slave under his supervision.
The verdict was guilty. When Atlanta First Baptist Church excommu-
nicated a white woman for telling fortunes, a male slave testified that
she had told him that she used a deck of cards "to tell fortunes with
when her demon came." Churches could ignore the protocol of south-
ern society when it stood in the way of church purity.43
Due process and individual rights took a subordinate position to the
goal of ecclesiastical purity. A church might show due regard to a
procedural request from a troublesome excluded member. When
excommunicant John Cooper asked the church to give him a bill of his
faults and a list of the witnesses, the church granted his request. Even
under aggravating circumstances, churches could strive for what they
considered fairness, as when a slave accused of absconding, disobedi-
ence, and slandering his owner, who happened to be the pastor, con-
vinced the church to give him a delay in the trial. Sometimes churches
ruled that charges did not refer to moral transgressions and therefore
did not fall under their jurisdiction. Churches would not reprosecute a
case except by appeal of the accused. The Bethesda Baptist Church
expressed the consensus when it asserted that "a member can not again
be arrained before the church for the same offense unless subsequently
convinced of illegal proceedings." Yet churches did grant appeals from
offenders for new trials, if necessary calling in "helps," leaders from
nearby churches who could offer advice. When Josiah Carter, excom-
municated from Powelton Baptist Church, requested a new trial, the
church invited helps from three other churches to assist them. His appeal
failed, but when "Gabriel, a man of colour," pleaded for another hear-
ing, he won a reduction of his sentence from excommunication to sus-
pension from the Lord's Supper.44
The most frequent issue of due process, however, had less to do with
fairness than with scripture. In some churches, when members brought
a "private" offense before the conference without first reproving the
offender in private, the charge was ruled out of order. Churches could
refuse to recognize charges if the accusers had neglected the "gospel
steps," the triple warning formula of Matthew 18. When Sister Cheves
accused Mary Wilson of "swindling," Benevolence Baptist Church threw
out the charge "because the Gospel steps were not taken by Sister
Cheves." However, appeals to this duty of due process did not always
succeed. Brother Marshall, accused of allowing card games in his store,
tried to avoid censure by claiming that "the case was not brought
according to Gospel Order." The church disagreed, appealing to "the
Jeneral rule of church Government." Few churches would allow an
accusation to go unnoticed merely for reasons of procedure.45
Along with orthodox preaching and an evangelistic mission, discipline
defined the nature and purpose of Baptist churches. Establishing com-
munities separate from the world, they protected their purity through
the exercise of democratic authority. Driven by the exclusivist agenda,
their monthly "days of discipline" uniquely expressed their democratic
religion.
2
Democracies Primitive
and Pure
In 1817, an eyewitness recalled, "brother Lancaster," a member of

Powelton Baptist Church, "rendered himself obnoxious to discipline"
by allowing the young people at his house to dance at his daughter's
wedding. The dancers conducted themselves with decorum, and
Lancaster saw no harm in celebrating the occasion with fiddling and
dancing. The church saw the matter differently. On conference day,
"after singing and prayer, the ecclesiastical court was opened, the Rev.
Jesse Mercer, the pastor of said church, presiding as moderator." A large
crowd attended, some for and some against Lancaster. Mercer intro-
duced the case to the congregation, explained the rules of "the judica-
tory," and delineated the reasons why fiddling and dancing should be
considered immoral: Modern dancing was sensual and lascivious, and
it would be impossible for Christians embarking upon a dance "to invoke
the blessing of God by prayer." He urged the church to settle the "vexed
question" of dancing once and for all.1
Mercer, president of the Georgia Baptist Convention from 1822 to
1840, gained fame as a pastor, preacher, and denominational leader.
Crowds turned out to hear his sermons, which explained in rustic meta-
phors the theological arguments aimed at the intellect as much as the
heart. W. B. Johnson, founding president of the Southern Baptist Con-
vention, judged that as a preacher Mercer was "the most interesting man
26
Democracies Primitive and Pure 27
that I ever heard without exception." He was a zealous evangelist and

missions advocate, serving as president of the Baptists' foreign mission
board from 1830 to 1841. He promoted ministerial education and led
the effort that established the university that bears his name. As editor
of the Christian Index, the first enduring Baptist paper in the South, he
exercised wide influence. Benevolent agents sold an engraving of his
likeness to raise money. Lay persons sought his counsel: "As your views
on Church discipline are considered good, and generally received, you
will please give your opinion on the following case." Colleagues lion-
ized him: "Jesse Mercer, the able expounder of gospel discipline." His
ability to manage discipline proceedings was reputedly without equal—
he rarely failed to carry his point—and the Lancaster trial was no
exception.2
Lancaster rose from his seat and admitted that the accusation was true,
"but never until now have I been prepared to confess its guilt." Mercer's
"learned and lucid address" convinced him that he was a transgressor.
Normally at this point in the trial, the offender would have requested
forgiveness, and the church would have granted it, but now the accused
turned accuser, and some of the members egged him on: "Let him go
on! Let him go on!" Mercer thought Lancaster out of order but agreed
to allow it: "Let us have a thorough winnowing of the wheat and get
rid of the chaff."
Lancaster charged that the church cried out against dancing and fid-
dling when more serious offenses passed without censure. Turning to
the assembled members, he indicted them for Sabbath breaking, par-
tiality, worldliness, and gossiping. The church stigmatized the tunes of
$5 fiddles in the cabins of the poor as worldly, Lancaster insinuated,
but blessed the notes of $800 pianos in the mansions of the rich as an
"innocent recreation." The women of the church, his chief accusers, had
refined away their piety, lavishing praise on the "frothy" discourses of
important preachers, but showering contempt on the simple sermons
of plain, rustic ministers.
When Lancaster's courage failed, Mercer encouraged him to continue,
saying that it was good "that our faults be exposed, and that we ought
to submit to have them whipped in the proper spirit of charity." The
women likewise shouted "Go on! Go on! We want to know what it is
that sticks in your throat." When Lancaster finished, he asked forgive-
ness for the frolic. Mercer "rose in tears," offering prayer that God would
make the trial an "occasion of a gracious outpouring of his Spirit, of
burying all animosities and ill feelings." The church then "rose up to
greet and shake hands with the offending brother, and to sing and rejoice
together;—and that was the commencement of the most signal revival
ever had in that church."3
Beginning in transgression and ending in revival, the Lancaster trial
illustrates the spiritual power of discipline in Baptist piety. The congre-
gation was paramount; discipline was an affair of the entire church,

which sat as a judicatory of Christ with dreadful authority over the moral
behavior of the flock. It gathered its moral tribunal for the purpose of
purifying the congregation of impiety, and it trusted that the faithful
exercise of discipline would result in spiritual blessings, especially revival.
According to Baptists like Mercer, "a thorough winnowing of the wheat"
resulted in a harvest of souls and renewed devotion to God.
Primitive Democracies
Bent upon reproducing churches on the apostolic pattern, Baptists fre-
quently rehearsed the outlines of their ecclesiology. They sought to
repristinate both the worship and the government of the primitive
church. The apostles, Baptists held, had organized churches according
to the commands of Christ. The form of the primitive church was bind-
ing on all subsequent history. "This apostolic example," wrote Jesse
Mercer, "forms the true pattern for the constitution of all after
churches."4
Not merely the commands of the New Testament, but also "the prac-
tices of the first churches . . . are the rule for us to follow; . . . a com-
plete system, adapted to every age." Recognizing that some preferred
Episcopal or Presbyterian government, Baptists said that to consider
church government "a matter of taste, or of expediency," was a "radi-
cal, mischievous error." Everything about a church was determined by
"pure revelation." Baptists strove for "conformity to the primitive church
of Christ," and they boasted of their success, convinced that "in our
denomination there are no splendid innovations."5
The primitivist impulse has always been near the heart of Protestant-
ism. The Reformers proclaimed a scripture-only religion in opposition
to ten centuries of human innovations. Passing over the Dark Ages,
Protestants sought to restore the practices and beliefs of the apostolic
church. They valued the noncanonical writings of the early church for
what they revealed of the practices of the first churches. They sought
to reestablish the simplicity of the apostolic era by freeing their churches
of unwarranted accretions to the divine pattern. The primitive was
normative. Puritans developed primitivist theology further in their long
struggle against the "innovations" of Anglican ecclesiology. New
England Congregationalism arose on this model, as did American Bap-
tist and Presbyterian churches.
New primitivist impulses arose in the context of American religious
freedom and denominationalism. The most successful was the Restora-
tion movement of Alexander Campbell and J. Barton Stone. They
eschewed denominational labels as unscriptural and refused any name
but "Christian" or "disciple of Christ." Because the New Testament church
had no creeds or systems of church government, neither did they.6
Southern Baptist churches also followed the divine law embodied in

the practices of the primitive churches. Because the first churches
admitted only those who experienced conversion, professed faith in
Christ, and underwent baptism by immersion, they insisted that they
were bound to do the same. Churches that baptized infants might be
true churches, most Baptists judged, but they were "in disorder," irregu-
larly constituted of both qualified and unqualified persons.7
The primitive charter also defined church authority. True churches
had no right to make new laws. Because Christ was "the only lawgiver
in Zion," the functions of a church were merely executive and judicial.
In discipline as well as doctrine, the Bible was the only legal rule. Church
power, moreover, inhered in all the members of a church, and it could
be delegated to no other individual or group. Baptists eschewed monar-
chical and aristocratic models for local church government because Jesus
commanded the entire church to expel the sinner (Matt. 18:17) and
the church at Corinth expelled an immoral man by vote of the major-
ity (2 Cor. 2:6). They established pure democracies because "the first
converts were democrats, in regard to their ecclesiastical polity."8
The apostolic charter decreed that ecclesiastical authority resided in
the local church alone. Church government was congregational, Bap-
tists taught; each church was autonomous, possessing full power to
exercise its rights and duties, whether exercising discipline, admitting
members, appointing officers, or observing ordinances. "Every Baptist
Church is a republic in miniature," wrote Baptist preacher and educa-
tor Adiel Sherwood, who argued that church authority was "not com-
mitted to church wardens, the preacher in charge, the Bishop, ruling
elders, Presbyteries, Conferences, Associations, Conventions, or any-
thing of the kind." Jesse Mercer summarized the doctrine:
Our Lord has laid down a few plain rules of government, and established
a tribunal in his Church, at which all offences are to be tried and decided;
and from which there is no appeal. I believe it is adopted by all regular
Baptists as the doctrine of Christ, that his Church is his kingdom on earth;
that he sits in judgment there; and that when a Gospel Church is sitting,
in Gospel order, for the transaction of disciplinary business, there is not a
higher court on earth; and that such church is arraignable at no other, or
foreign bar; because her judge is in her midst, and has commanded her
implicit obedience. Now any departure from these rules, and any appeal
from this authority and tribunal, will, can do no other than produce
amongst Baptists, strifes and divisions.
Mercer's colleagues honored his defense of primitive ecclesiology by
giving him a silver medal inscribed, "Government is in the Church."9
The charter mandated for each church three essential functions. Its
members had to assemble for the divinely sanctioned worship of God;
they had to uphold orthodox teaching, "to keep the faith which was
once delivered to the saints"; and they had to maintain the moral over-
sight of the membership, "to keep up a Godly discipline." In practice,

however, the exercise of discipline defined scriptural churches. One
gathering in 1785 "concluded that it would be best for us to be consti-
tuted in order to Keep up a Godly Gospel Disipline for Gods Glory and
our happiness." The Georgia Baptist Association, organized in 1784,
adopted a confession later accepted by other associations. It defined the
church in terms of its disciplinary function: "We believe that the visible
Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful persons, who have gained
Christian fellowship with each other, and have given themselves up to
the Lord, and to one another, and have agreed to keep up a Godly dis-
cipline, agreeably to the rules of the Gospel."10
Scripture's "perfect code of discipline" provided the rules for censure.
Baptists understood the New Testament code to distinguish two classes
of offenses. Public offenses were of a "general character, and of a hei-
nous nature," bringing scandal on the reputation of Christ and the
church. Churches responded severely to such offenses as sexual immo-
rality, murder, theft, idolatry, or heresy. They found precedent in the
case of incest in the Corinthian church: Paul commanded the church
to expel the offender peremptorily (1 Cor. 5:1-5). Private offenses were
of lesser gravity. They frequently involved disputes among members or
neglect of some duty, especially church attendance. Private offenses
called for the gospel steps outlined in Matthew 18:15-17, three stages
of increasingly grave admonitions, delivered first privately, then by two
or three members, and finally by the church. If offenders did not repent
at some point along the way, the church excommunicated them.11
The apostolic code also distinguished two kinds of censure. The first
was admonition or rebuke, which the moderator delivered to a repen-
tant offender whose offense did not lead to expulsion. The second was
excommunication, the loss of all rights and privileges of membership.
Despite frequent recourse to it, antebellum Baptists considered excom-
munication a drastic action. They expected members to limit social inter-
action with the offender to what was absolutely necessary. By excom-
munication, the church remanded offenders to the care of the world.
Only by repentance and continued piety could they reclaim a place
among the redeemed. Indeed, the guilty frequently came before the
church requesting restoration, and the churches usually restored the
penitent to full membership.12
Most churches required unanimous votes to admit members and for-
give offenders, but they deemed a simple majority sufficient to exclude
an offender. They believed that the ideal of unity required all members
to be "in fellowship." Offenders broke fellowship by transgressing and
were obligated to restore a perfect fellowship. If even one member
objected to forgiveness, the church would not grant it, for the objec-
tion meant that the united fellowship was not yet recovered.13
The primitive charter, finally, revealed the purposes for which God
designed discipline. Its exercise rendered glory to God. Discipline, pas-
tor Benjamin Roberts asserted, "must be faithfully kept up for God's

glory." Sometimes, in difficult cases, a decision about excommunica-
tion turned upon this consideration: "Do you think it would be more
for the benefit of the glory of God to retain him in fellowship? or cut
him off from us?" It was not unusual for a church to resolve that "for
the glory of god & good of the cause of religion," one or another erring
soul had to be extruded from the fellowship. Discipline redounded to
the honor of God.14
God also designed discipline for the good of the offender. It was the
medicine prescribed by the divine physician. Private reproof, public
admonition, and even excommunication brought spiritual benefits to
the elect. God used these moral censures to produce humility before
the moral law, repentance, and a desire for holiness. "The first thing to
be attempted, in all cases," wrote Jesse Mercer, "is the restoration of
the affected member."15
But the chief purpose of discipline, Baptists constantly proclaimed,
was the purity of the church. "The design in Discipline," urged preacher
Sylvanus Landrum, "is to keep the church pure, and if practicable restore
the offender." Reclaiming the straying was a noble purpose, but first
"churches are bound to maintain a godly discipline, for the purity of
the body." The great object of Baptist church discipline was holiness and
the preservation of purity.16
Purity, Unity, and Freedom

The commitment to purity as the primary goal of discipline derived from
the Baptist vision of a church separate from the world. Jesse Mercer
excoriated Georgia Baptists in 1801 for conceiving "an eager lust for the
flesh-pots in Egypt." They had lost so much of their purity. Mercer
judged, that "it has become extremely difficult to distinguish you, as a
body or as individuals, from a surrounding wicked world." An apostolic
church would exemplify "the duty of being separate, and abstracted from
the world in all its ramifications." At this time, southern Baptists stood
at the bottom of the social order. Although congregations in plantation
districts often had one or two planters of some wealth, most Baptists
were poor and illiterate. The planter aristocracy pursued dancing, gam-
bling, and luxury and made them marks of respectability or refinement.
But worldliness did not have to be expensive. Rich or poor, Baptists who
lusted after Egyptian fleshpots often found their way to the church's
defendant chair. The Baptists responded to calls for purity and separa-
tion from the world.17
In the wake of the 1827-1829 revival, in which thousands of con-
verts joined Baptist churches in Georgia, Baptists expected a revival of
discipline. Savannah pastor H. O. Wyer expressed grief at the "disor-
der" in many churches but found consolation in the knowledge that
"the great ingatherings, by which they have been blessed, will, no doubt,
be followed by winnowings and sittings. I hope there will be found after

all much good wheat which the great & good Husbandman will put away
in the garner." Even revivals could not diminish the thirst for the purity
won by tireless pruning.18
The fruit of purity was the unity of the church, which had to rest on
a foundation of purity because impure members would cause divisions
and strife. Churches that harbored an immoral member were "not in
union" but divided. Without discipline, they might outwardly profess
unity but inwardly they were torn asunder. Such "outward pretention,"
Jesse Mercer wrote, "is special hypocrisy."19
Discipline was also the practice that made freedom necessary. Such
Revolutionary War-era leaders as Isaac Backus in Massachusetts and
Silas Mercer in Georgia interpreted religious liberty as the freedom to
exercise discipline. Backus objected to governmental establishment of
the churches in large part because it obstructed "discipline in the
church." Mercer scorned state churches as the beast of the Antichrist
because they "destroyed the liberty of the laity, and reduced them to a
state of vassalage, so that they had no power to choose their own pas-
tors, nor carry on any discipline." A large part of religious liberty, early
Baptists contended, was the freedom to establish pure churches by
means of discipline.20
In early colonial Georgia, as in the other four southern colonies, the
Anglican Church enjoyed exclusive state establishment, but Georgia's
1777 constitution permitted an establishment of multiple denomina-
tions, granting the legislature power to levy taxes to support ministers
of the taxpayer's choice. By 1798, the state constitution prohibited taxa-
tion for the support of religion, but Baptists continued their rhetoric
against state churches. The memory of having once been dissenters in
a state establishment still colored the Baptist temperament.21
Many Baptists were suspicious of any supralocal agency. This was the
great era of American voluntary societies. Many societies, like the Baptist
Board of Foreign Missions, were national in scope. To all such societies,
Primitive Baptists were especially resistant. They rejected benevolent
societies, they said, because they embodied a hidden justification-by-
works scheme and because New Testament churches did not have them.
They also resented the college-educated northerners who raised money
for distant causes. Poorly educated and poorly paid Baptist ministers felt
themselves fleeced by the more polished agents of missionary societies.22
The disagreement over benevolent societies produced schism in the
1830s, when Primitive Baptists declared nonfellowship with churches
and associations that supported "the Systems of the day, benevolent so
called, such as Bible, Missionary, Temperance and Tract Societies." In
some instances, the Primitive churches insisted that associations had
authority in matters of discipline. Missionary Baptists objected that such
a position entailed "improper interference with the rights of the
churches." They thought that each local church must be free to exer-
cise discipline unhindered by any other agency. Jesse Mercer reserved
his strongest condemnation for infringements on the freedom of con-
gregational discipline: "If then any [other] body attempts to use this
right, to exercise this power, he so far makes himself an Anti-Christ."
The actions of Primitive Baptist associations threatened the freedom of
congregational discipline, Mercer judged, jeopardizing "the pure democ-
racy of the New Testament" by means of "imposing appearances of
splendid national forms of church government."23
Just as church purity stood on the foundation of religious liberty, so
also it established the limits of individual liberty. Baptists were religious
populists, but they were suspicious of individualism. The American
Revolution gave impetus to individualism—"the principle that all val-
ues, rights, and duties originate in the individual." Populist religious
leaders touted private judgment, personal autonomy, and individual
conscience over creedal systems. But when John Leland, the most
famous Baptist exponent of individual autonomy, exercised his right
of private judgment in scripture interpretation, his association
disfellowshiped him. Baptists opposed this kind of individualism. Con-
science was not supreme.24
When one John Cooper wrote Jesse Mercer that churches were too
strict, Mercer placed firm limits on individual freedom. Cooper argued
on republican grounds: "My sense of republicanism is equal rights to
all My principle is equal rights to all, and a republican form of church
government." Mercer chided him:
We hope our brother does not intend to push his republicanism into licen-
tiousness, or to insinuate [that] the churches have no disciplinary con-
trol over their members, so that after all proper efforts have been made
to persuade them to desist from the offensive pursuit, they have the right
still to persist in their own chosen course, and defend themselves on the
ground of equal rights. No, we will not believe it; for equal rights must
cease when iniquity begins.... That it is the duty of the churches to dis-
cipline their members in case of immorality none will deny. And that the
members are bound to submit themselves to this authority in the Lord,
will as readily be acknowledged.
The only Christian freedom worth contending for was one built on the
purity secured by discipline.25
Discipline and Revival

Baptists saw discipline as a source of spiritual revival. A church with no
discipline was no church. "When discipline leaves a church," Baptist
theologian John L. Dagg contended, "Christ goes with it."26
The revivals of the 1740s and 1750s produced Baptists by the thou-
sands, and the experience indelibly shaped Baptist piety. Since the days
when the preaching of such itinerants as Shubal Stearns and Daniel

Marshall spread revival from Virginia to Georgia, Baptists looked expec-
tantly for heaven-sent awakenings. In these revivals, they experienced
renewed zeal for personal devotion and self-denial. They received new
assurance of their own salvation and rejoiced at the testimonies of sin-
ners finding grace.
Early Baptist revivals were not much planned. Although regular
ministers often itinerated on three-month "missionary" tours and gave
impetus to revival, most pre-1820 revivals grew out of the regular
meetings of the church or association. In churches, the monthly two-
day conference meetings, the quarterly communion meetings, and the
"annual meeting" were particularly suited to outbreaks of revival. When
these meetings "became interesting" because of God's "pouring out his
Spirit," they were protracted for days. Other revivals occurred when
preachers meeting at the annual association or convention preached
salvation to the crowds of people that gathered.27
By the late 1820s, Georgia Baptists frequently employed the "new
measures" popularized by the northern Presbyterian evangelist Charles
G. Finney. Preachers planned "protracted meetings," invited convicted
sinners to the "anxious" or "mourners'" bench, and prayed individu-
ally over "mourners." In less settled areas, Baptists sought revival
through camp meetings, a method made popular at the 1801 Cane Ridge
revival in Kentucky, where people camped at the meeting site for sev-
eral days. Several thousand people could gather at camp revivals, with
hundreds of mourners rushing to the altar at the invitation. By 1833,
one Baptist felt that camp meetings were "becoming a permanent and
integral link in the chain of means amongst the Baptists." Provided that
preachers employed the new measures as God's appointed "means" and
not as human causes of salvation, Calvinist Baptists praised them.
Revivals had a populist character—the Spirit might fall on anyone and
produce the required individual conversion—and were central to south-
ern Baptist identity. Lax discipline threatened it.28
Mississippi Baptist Elias Hibbard, who worried about excessive disci-
pline, conceded its benefits: "I am aware that discipline when exercised
in a proper manner is the life of our churches, and often precedes the
blessings of the Almighty." Mercer went so far as to proclaim that dis-
cipline vivified a church: "A well executed discipline is the ecclesiasti-
cal life of a Gospel Church." He exhorted the churches "to be promptly
active in the execution of discipline ... —discipline, which, in its right
use, is the church's ecclesiastical life—bond of union and peace—spring
of order and fellowship—and great source of harmony and love."29
When churches gathered for days of discipline, their spiritual vitality
hung in the balance. Editor Joseph S. Baker expressed the common
conviction that "without a correct understanding of church discipline,
and proper exercise of it, no church or association can expect to be

blessed or prospered." Even with "the elegant preaching and the elo-
quent prayers and the splendid appearances," Baptists reasoned, "no
church can prosper spiritually if there is no discipline." In varying forms,
the adage resounded in Baptist gatherings that "nothing is more essen-
tial to church prosperity than the maintenance of faithful discipline."30
This belief in the vivifying power of discipline long survived in Bap-
tist churches, due in part to Jesse Mercer. Pastors for decades would
repeat the refrain identifying discipline as the source of church life.
Sylvanus Landrum, who served large congregations in Macon, Savan-
nah, Memphis, and New Orleans, wrote in 1858 that "it was, we think,
Jesse Mercer, who said in a Circular upon this subject:—'Discipline is
the life-blood of the church.'" A generation after Mercer's death, one
of the churches that Mercer planted continued to intone that "correct
discipline is the life of the Church, without it the Church is despised by
the world, shorn of its power & will soon fall to pieces."31
When discipline waned in the late nineteenth century, stagnant
churches received the same program of church growth: "The condition
of all the churches would be greatly improved by the faithful and fear-
less administration of discipline." Churches prospered not by hiring a
noted evangelist, Georgia pastor J. H. Kilpatrick argued in the 1885
commencement sermon of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,
but by means of the old plan that "enforces a thorough and godly dis-
cipline" motivated by zeal "for the maintenance of the purity of the
church." In 1874, the Stone Mountain Association, exulting in a record
number of baptisms, sought to explain why "the exclusions of this year
also exceed those of the last 17." It concluded that renewed disciplin-
ary zeal was "a strong indication of increase rather than decrease of
spirituality of the churches." Purity produced spiritual vigor.32
When churches encountered troubles, ecclesiastical detectives could
be counted on to round up the usual suspects—first among them being
neglect of church discipline. Mercer believed that "most of our church
difficulties grow out of neglected church discipline" or discipline improp-
erly administered. As the debate over benevolent societies wrenched
the churches in the 1830s, Mercer assigned the blame to the neglect of
discipline. "I consider the causes of these divisions, which have rent our
Churches and spoiled our beauty, as a denomination, are to be found
in the neglect of a Godly discipline, and the consequent results." With-
out discipline, there could be no order, peace, or vital fellowship in the
church.33
Baptists believed that churches with impure members suffered in
reputation, which undermined their evangelistic mission. But the
neglectful church could encounter even harsher realities: God "invari-
ably chastised" them with "declension and destruction." A church neg-
ligent in discipline "tolerates or connives at the sinful conduct of her

members" and brought a curse not only upon itself but also upon the
community.34
Proper tribunals, however, brought showers of blessing. "The sacred
rules laid down by Christ, followed out in the proper time and spirit,"
Mercer wrote, "we think would preserve peace and further godliness
in all the churches of the saints. Nothing is necessary, but due atten-
tion to scriptural discipline." When churches attended to moral correc-
tion, God granted them prosperity. Disciplined churches were shining
cities on a hill whose light drew unbelievers to God.35
Pastor T. H. Stout took the occasion of a revival to inculcate the doc-
trine. The members of Bethel Baptist Church became zealous for disci-
pline and excluded two offenders. Stout recounted the result:
Very soon, a perceptible improvement was seen in the church. Brethren
began to take up their crosses. They met and conversed on the condition
of Zion, confessing and bewailing their coldness. Brethren, discipline is
the life of our churches. We have no right to look for the blessing of our
precious Savior unless we "come out from the world." Be "ye separate,"
says God.... May not many of our churches be incurring the displeasure
of the "Great Head of the Church" by laxity of discipline? During July ...
the church was greatly revived. . . . Quite a number of brethren prayed
[publicly] who had never done so before.... Twenty-four were added to
the church; 12 by experience and baptism, and 12 by letter.
Discipline brought revival.36
Baptists had good reason to believe this. They maintained high rates
of discipline at the same time they experienced rapid growth. Nation-
ally, Baptists grew 1.9 times faster than the population, from 67,000 in
1790 to 1 million in 1860. In Georgia, they grew 2.3 times faster than
the population, from 3,340 in 1790 to 99,149 in 1860. In southern demo-
cratic religion, discipline and revival appeared to go together.37
3
Democratic Authority
The Southern Baptist maxim "Correct discipline is the life of the church"
conveyed primarily the idea that discipline was the source of vitality
and progress. Yet discipline constituted the life of the churches in
another sense, for to a great extent it shaped their month-to-month
activity. In most churches, virtually every conference meeting brought
accusation, confession, repentance, forgiveness, excommunication, and
restoration. At the heart of this drama was the notion that piety required
submission to ecclesiastical authority.
Accusation and Confession

The genteel arbiters of southern society valued honor, not accusation
and confession. The southern ideal of honor exalted violence and re-
venge, the sanctity of one's reputation, an indomitable will, and exag-
gerated masculinity. Baptist churches turned the system of honor on
its head.1
Public discipline began with accusation or confession. In most in-
stances, one member accused another in public conference. The church
clerk usually noted only that the member stood accused, omitting the
name of the accuser: "Brother Daniel Servant of Brother V. R. Thornton
is charged with the sin of Adultery" or "Brethren Jeptha Davis Wm.
Greene J. Holtsclaw L. B. Tuggle M. W. May were charged with watch-
ing in the night time Brother Bowles house & premises."2
37
Common fame frequently served as the accuser: "It being reported

to the church that Br. L. B. Freeman of late has been guilty of drunk-
enness," "Unfavorable reports being in circulation relative to the pious
walk of our brother Lester," or "It being notorious to many of our church
that Br. Robt. Porter has of late been guilty of repeated drunkenness."
Churches considered these "unfavorable reports" perfectly admissible
in their disciplinary hearings, taking the opportunity to question the
alleged offender and to initiate an investigation.3
When church clerks troubled themselves to identify the accusers,
white men appeared most frequently, even though they constituted a
minority of most churches: "Br. Newsom reported that Br. Jack belong-
ing to Br. W. Tuggle has been guilty of Drunkness," "Brother Thornton
prefered some charge against Brother Vason," or "A charge was brought
by Brother John Mercer against Sister Rachel servant of Esqr. Hatchett
for absconding." Most Baptists considered this appropriate enough, for
they expected men to take leadership in the churches and in some
instances expected women to keep silent.4
Women nevertheless sometimes presented accusations in conference,
without hint of resistance. Even churches that restricted suffrage to men
granted standing to women in disciplinary procedures: "Female mem-
bers may, when called upon, act as witnesses in a church and, when
aggrieved, are to make known their case, either in person or by a
brother, and must have a proper regard paid them." Clerks only occa-
sionally noted that a woman introduced an accusation.5
Most black members were slaves who could rarely attend regular
Saturday conferences. Some did, however, and even more attended the
occasional or standing Sunday conferences. Whites were liable to con-
strue any black leadership or initiative as an overstepping of proper social
boundaries, but as members they had standing before the ecclesiastical
bar. Hence, clerks recorded that slaves ventured to accuse, as when "a
complaint was laid in by Br. Abram the Property of John Ramsey against
Br. Peter the Property of Isaac Ramsey Esqr. for Leaving his wife and
taking up with another woman." Their status was precarious, and with
rare exceptions they accused only other slaves.6
In civil courts in the South, slaves could not be party to any legal
proceeding involving whites except as defendants. In the churches, a
slave member might occasionally accuse a white member, and allegiance
to democratic purity could overpower scruples about social impropri-
eties. Without discomposure, one church excluded a white woman upon
accusation by a slave, the clerk noting that "Mr. Wilkinsons Frank makes
report that Sister Charity Finch has been drinking too much Spirits."7
Another common form of accusation was self-accusation: 28 percent
of all cases between 1785 and 1900 arose this way. Although offenders
occasionally accused themselves by letter or by proxy, they generally
did it in open conference. Sometimes they confessed grave offenses after
Democratic Authority 39
the church charged them with minor ones. Sometimes they accused
themselves because others already knew about the offense and might
reveal it. By preempting the church's action, offenders could certify their
repentance: "Brother Council Phillingame made known to this confer-
ence that report had charged him with being drunk at Mr. Callaways,
he confesses that he drank too much, & he shews considerable Penitince
for the same."8
In other cases, members accused themselves out of a guilty conscience
or from a sense of duty to submit to moral oversight. Self-accusation
did not render offenders immune from punishment. "Brother Joseph
Taylor before the conference charged himself with becomeing Irritated
with his Wife & that he gave her some slight abuse [,] that he and wife
were perfectly reconciled at the present & that he was sorry that he had
acted so ungarded & hoped forgiveness by his Brethren." Taylor suf-
fered rebuke but received forgiveness. His fellow member, Archibald
Watts, had less success. Watts "in open conference acknowledged him-
self guilty of acting in a very unchristian like manner in the town of
Greensboro on the first monday night of this month by drinking spirits
too free, and having been guilty of gambling, &c., for which he pro-
fessed to be truly sorry." The church excluded him.9
The large number of self-accusations suggests that members accepted
the authority of the church to judge their behavior, as does the fact that
most who faced accusation confessed their crime, regardless of whether
they desired forgiveness from the church. In cases in which the plea of
the defendant was recorded, fully 92 percent of defendants between
1785 and 1860 acknowledged their guilt. The pattern was not one of
antiauthoritarian populism but of submission to a populist religious
authority.10
Forgiving the Penitent

When Henry Smith, for twenty years the clerk of Mount Olive Baptist
Church in southwest Georgia, died in 1877, the church praised his ex-
emplary piety, eulogizing that "he was kind and forgiving towards those
that er[r]ed yet he loved strict deciplin." Mildness tempered the sever-
ity in Baptist discipline—a mildness that appeared in the willingness of
churches to forgive and retain some transgressors, and to restore others
to full membership. Even in extending the mercy of forgiveness, how-
ever, they upheld the ideal of democratic religion.11
Members accused of moral offenses could plead that they were inno-
cent, but this was neither a popular nor an effective defense. Of 6,300
discipline cases between 1788 and 1900, only 410 resulted in acquit-
tals. In a mere 262 cases did clerks record that a defendant pleaded inno-
cent. In cases in which defendants denied their guilt, they secured
acquittals 48 percent of the time. Churches evidently attempted to con-
sider pleas of innocence fairly, but members accused of offenses rarely

denied their guilt.12
When members committed a moral offense, churches imposed con-
ditions for forgiveness. They believed that they had no authority to
annul the sinner's debt to divine wrath—only God could do this—but
only to declare that the offender's transgression no longer barred fel-
lowship. They could judge only that the offender's submission "appeared
to be satisfactory to the church, and the difficulty was gotten over."13
The first condition for offenders was to confess. The second was to
acknowledge the church's right to discipline them. The third was to
demonstrate sorrow and repentance, pledging to refrain from the objec-
tionable behavior and expressing a wish to remain in the fellowship of
the saints. Two of these conditions consisted of right thinking. They were
a way of "making acknowledgments," recognizing the transgression and
the church's rectitude. The third prerequisite consisted of right feeling.
If offenders did not exhibit sincerity, the churches refused to accept their
repentance. Churches often distinguished this as "penitence," or some
similar term, such as "sorrow" or "sincerity." Without a proper feeling,
offenders revealed immoral hearts.14
In 1859 Mr. and Mrs. Tarwater of Penfield, Georgia, stood accused of
having danced; they offered their church an exemplary repentance. Mr.
Tarwater "confessed that himself and Sister Tarwater had been engaged
in dancing, acknowledged the impropriety of their conduct, and begged
the forgiveness of the Church, pledging themselves not again to engage
in such amusement." They first made acknowledgments, admitting that
they were guilty and that the church was right in judging their con-
duct improper. Then they demonstrated their penitence, "begging" for-
giveness and promising to refrain from the offense.15
Churches always assayed the quality of repentance. When one
brother Holladay repented for fighting, he did not entirely persuade the
church of his true sorrow, for "the Church thoug[h]t proper to lay
him Under Suspension a while to try his Sincearity." Although a few
churches employed suspension to test sincerity, most southern churches
either proceeded to excommunication or continued the trial until they
discerned the character of the repentance. This pattern appeared repeat-
edly. Hopeful Baptist Church agreed to forgive a thief because he ex-
pressed penitence and made acknowledgments, "in as much as Bro
Rhodes had expressed his sorrow and guilt." In the same way, Ben
Battle, a slave member charged with preaching without the permission
of the church, "appeared before the church apparently very penitent[,]
acknowledged he had done wrong in attempting to preach contrary
to the will of the church [,] begged forgiveness and promised to try to
obey the church in future." Humble submission to the church was part
of the meaning of moral purity.16
Church clerks generally did not record details of inadequate repen-

tance, considering it sufficient to record that the offender "made acknowl-
edgements which not being satisfactory" prohibited the church from
granting forgiveness. They did record instances in which churches dis-
approved of a repentance in which an offender did not admit full guilt
and responsibility. Offenders who sought to extenuate their guilt suf-
fered the church's displeasure. Churches delighted to forgive transgres-
sors like E. M. Burgess, charged with fighting, who confessed his guilt
and "did not justifie himself in the practice." But they could not so easily
forgive defendants like Brother Burrows, a student charged with resist-
ing civil and college authority and with "carrying deadly weapons upon
his person," because while he "expressed some regrets for the offences,"
he "made explanations by way of Justifying himself." The churches
required offenders to humble themselves, submitting to Christ's court.
Repentance without submission the churches found wanting. It mani-
fested a proud refusal to accept the authority of the saints.17
When offenders "gave satisfaction," the churches forgave and retained
them, unless their sins were too grave. This did not mean that peni-
tents escaped without censure. Not only did churches require the mor-
tification of public repentance and submission, but also they sentenced
the penitent to suffer a public rebuke. Like other premodern societies,
the South had its shaming rituals. Those who threatened communal
values risked public humiliation. In 1730, a group of North Carolina
women humiliated a philandering Anglican minister by horsewhipping
him. He fled naked and never returned. Men who impeached female
purity, traded with slaves, created drunken disturbances, or spoke
openly in favor of black freedom faced tar and feathers and a ride on a
rail. The church's ritual was less violent but no less effective.18
The moderator of the conference, usually the pastor, rendered the
rebuke, which was the usual response to lesser transgressions. Ben
Battle, who preached without permission, "was forgiven after being
reproved." Other offenders were "admonished" by the pastor, "sharply
rebuked by his Pastor," or forgiven "with an elaborate admonition from
the Pastor." Having only two censures, rebuke and excommunication,
churches required the guilty to receive the one or the other.19
Excommunication
In treating what they considered grave offenses, churches felt no lib-
erty to forgive and retain transgressors, even when their repentance had
all the marks of authenticity. Churches forgave private offenses, but
public offenders faced the pruning knife, which the churches called
excommunication, exclusion, or expulsion. In the late nineteenth century,
excommunication lost favor, and exclusion achieved almost exclusive usage.
Distaste for the word excommunication was probably a harbinger of de-

clining commitment to the authority of the congregation.20
Since the days of the apostles, churches had practiced excommuni-
cation. In the more inclusive church of the Middle Ages, moral trans-
gressors could often avoid excommunication, although heretics and
political foes still faced it and its civil penalties. Protestant churches re-
newed its use in Geneva, Scotland, and among Anabaptists. English
Separatists and Baptists pioneered its use, but it flourished most where
churches could exercise it free from government interference, in the
American republic.21
It was a powerful weapon in the antebellum churches, and its power
resided in part in the damage it did to the moral reputation of the
excommunicant. It meant mortification and embarrassment. Robert
Paine, a presiding elder in the Methodist Church, supervised a case that
demanded excommunication, but because the "expulsion and degra-
dation likely involved ruin," he shrank back. The offender, guilty of
drunkenness, quailed before the prospect of exclusion, sobbing that he
"never was drunk before. Can't help it now; it's over, and I am ruined."
Baptist transgressors also feared the shame.22
When opposition to discipline emerged, it commonly stemmed from
the public mortification. "Mrs. J. H. English, immediately after the
exclusion of her son Robert from this church, said in the hearing of sev-
eral members of this church that the war had commenced." She was
incensed that the church had degraded her son, charging that they
sought "to drag down her son by excluding him from the church."23
Churches sometimes intensified the shame by a practice called "pub-
lishing." Presbyterians conducted judicial proceedings in private but
announced before the church and world all excommunications and
some suspensions. Presbyterian courts believed that this shame fostered
repentance, but the censured did not always see it in the same light. So
great was the dread of publishing that when Benjamin Morgan Palmer,
pastor of New Orleans First Presbyterian Church, intended to publish a
member suspended for drunkenness, the offender warned Palmer to
desist: "I will arm myself and take a seat in the gallery over the pulpit,
and if you attempt to read that paper I shall fire upon you." Palmer,
unruffled, read the suspension without incident.24
Baptists, with conference meetings open to the public, normally did
not publish excommunications before the Sunday church and congre-
gation. When a member once suggested that it would be "proper to have
such Excommunications published on the Sabbath day in full congre-
gation, rather than in conference," the church answered that "they deem
it improper and unnecessary." In most churches, the pronouncement
in church conference satisfactorily publicized an excommunication.25
For Baptists, publishing usually meant announcing in print the crime
and excommunication, either in secular and religious newspapers or
in the printed minutes of association meetings. Churches published

excommunicants, especially excommunicated clergy, when they refused
to submit to discipline, lest they attempt to escape the stigma that their
crimes deserved and to palm themselves off as blameless. In order to
"guard the friends of Zion against imposition" and to "bring to condign
punishment an offender" for eloping with his wife's sister, the Rehoboth
Baptist Church published John Hopkins in the local paper and requested
other papers to run the item also.26
Members who feared an imminent trial sometimes requested and
received a letter of dismission in an attempt to elude discipline. If the
church then discovered a transgression, they pronounced excommu-
nication and demanded a return of the letter. In the case of excommu-
nicated preachers, they also demanded the return of their license or
ordination papers. In either case, churches generally published refus-
als. One church sent someone to see Josiah Bulloch to "give him an
oportunity [sic] of delivering his license to the church, and thus saving
himself the mortification of being published." Another excommunicated
a member holding a letter of dismission and ordered "the same to be
published in the Christian Index." Associations assisted in publishing
the excommunicants.27
The power of excommunication resided also in its spiritual charac-
ter, which found expression in ritual formulas. Churches sometimes
omitted such formalities, but often they adopted carefully worded reso-
lutions. Penfield Baptist Church excommunicated Benjamin Brandy for
slander, contempt of the church, and absence from conferences:
"Resolved that in view of the charge established against Bro. Brantly,
of suspecting Bro. Northen guilty of the crime of perjury, without suf-
ficient grounds, together with his continued refusal to give Bro. Northen
and the church a satisfactory explanation and acknowledgement, and
in view of the further fact that Bro. Brantly has absented himself from
the church conference without permission and failed to answer the
charges brought against him by Bro. Sanders, he be excommunicated."
By adopting the resolution, the church pronounced upon Brantly the
dreadful decree.28
In many churches, pastors pronounced the sentence. When Newnan
Baptist Church excluded Jeremiah Mulloy, the clerk's etceteras indicated
the use of a formula: "The sentence was immediately pronounced by
the Moderator that Jere Mulloy was no more known as brother &c. &c."
In a detailed description, William B. Johnson, pastor of Savannah Bap-
tist Church, addressed Elizabeth Jones:
Our Pastor proceeded to the painful solemn act of declaring to her in the
presence of the Church her expulsion from its fellowship & privileges. In
doing this he opened to her view the dreadful nature & tendency of the
crime she had so habitually committed for a long time. He explained to
her the nature of the obligations she had been brought under to abstain
from all sin. He stated to her the guilt she had contracted in violation of
these obligations by the commission of the crime for which she was
excommunicated. The nature & design of the awful censure which she
had incurred was explained also, and the whole enforced upon her heart
& conscience with encouraging words to induce her to turn from the error
of her ways to the Lord for mercy & pardon.
Such declarations asserted ecclesiastical authority in churches confident
that they possessed the keys of heaven—or, at least, of the church.29
The term restored usually designated members who regained admis-
sion to the church. Because moral offenses broke fellowship, churches
at times spoke of forgiveness as a restoration. Part of the gravity of the
sentence of excommunication resided in its recognition of the fractur-
ing of fellowship and the remanding of transgressors to the care of the
world. Clerks often noted that in voting to exclude a member the church
agreed "to excommunicate him from all the privileges of the church."
The privileges consisted of the ordinances (baptism and communion),
government (election of church officers), and discipline (voting upon
admission and expulsion of members). Churches believed that "the
government is with the body and is the privilege of each individual
member" and that "making profession of their faith, teaching and
admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
admitting and expelling members, and sitting at the Lord's table" were
general "duties and privileges." The privileges consisted also in the right
of "the poor of the flock" to receive assistance from the church. Church
members in "needy circumstances" received aid from collections and
committees.30
Excommunicated members lost one other privilege: the right to be
called "brother" or "sister." It was a badge of membership. One wealthy
planter in southeast Georgia refused his wife permission to join because
he despised the familiarity this practice engendered in Baptist churches:
"You know how it is with these Baptists, it's all sister and brother with
them, and as soon as you are one of them, all these poor people who
are Baptists will be calling you 'Sister Mary/ and that impertinence I
won't stand!" Though patricians found it distasteful, this poignant
expression of the boundary between the church and the world was a
privilege that ordinary Baptists held dear.31
To be excommunicated was to move from being sisters and brothers
to being "friend" or even "Mr." or "Ms." Church books distinguished
the spiritual kinship of members from the alienation of outsiders:
"Brother Buck a servant of friend Wm Daniels had run away"; there
was a "difficulty between Bro. Hobbs and Mr. Williams." An excom-
municant was "our friend and once a brother" or "our once brother."
A young man who confessed drunkenness recommended that the
church expel him: "I feel just like I was not worthy to be countenanced
by you let alone being called a brother, and I do not wish you to retain
me as a brother any longer." He would have to lose his kinship with

the saints.32
One church in the Washington Association had members who refused
to abide by this rule. In an attempt to dissuade the refractory faction
from referring to the excluded as brothers and sisters, the church wrote
the association for advice: "Does it accord with the directions of our
Savior, given in the 18th of Matthew, for us, as his followers, to use the
endearing appellation of brother or sister, when we speak to or of those
who have been regularly excluded from the fellowship of the church?"
The association's response was unequivocal: "No."33
Excommunication brought the full force of ecclesiastical authority to
bear on offenders. Its significance was not lost on either the sinners or
the saints. They had bound themselves to mutual accountability for
moral behavior. Though honored as a privilege, the oversight often
proved nettlesome, and the churches recognized its gravity. It cast of-
fenders not only outside the pale of society and fellowship but also
beyond the pale of discipline.
Restoration
The sinners did not always forsake the company of the saints. They could
not participate as members, but they could attend the public ceremonies.
One J. Early, excluded from Greensboro Baptist Church, contributed
to foreign missions and to the pastor's salary even after his expulsion.
By attending faithfully and contributing their money, the chastened
gave presumptive evidence of a sincere wish to be restored.34
Not all of them sought restoration. Early did not, nor did some 67
percent of excommunicated members. Though the churches expected
repentance, they did not always get it. But many of the sinners valued
their membership, one out of three seeking restoration, even though it
meant submitting again to church authority. Benjamin Brandy enlisted
patrons within and without the church in order that his repentance
might be accepted. On his third request, the church restored him. Some
waited more than three decades to confess and seek restoration. One
desired restoration so ardently that when the church requested testi-
monials of moral rectitude he forged documents purporting to certify
his pious deportment. Restored offenders returned from the realm of
"friend" to that of "sister" and "brother" by receiving "the right hand of
fellowship." Restoration meant peace to a conscience troubled by sepa-
ration from the fellowship of the saints.35
As with forgiving penitents, churches restored excluded members only
by unanimous consent, requiring them to convince every member of
their true repentance. When the sinners made their request by letter—
as often happened with those who had moved away—churches
demanded a testimonial from a nearby Baptist church. Generally, how-
ever, churches required a personal appearance. They could better test

sincerity when the sinner stood before the church's bar.36
Satisfying the church meant "making satisfactory acknowledgements
and exhibiting . . . signs of a sincere repentance." It meant submission
to the judgment of its tribunal, as when "James Mckintire gave in a
repentance and Justifies the church in his exclusion," and it required
of excommunicants an extraordinary measure of humility. John Jesse
sought restoration, "acknowledged that the Church did right in exclud-
ing him," and expressed his sorrow and his love for the saints. Then
"the record of his exclusion was read," and two members recounted their
discussions with him. Jesse promised to submit himself to discipline
again, and the church restored him. He had undergone the ordeal of
mortification.37
Resistance
Attempts to avoid the tribunal, whether by appeal to individual liberty
or by rejection of the church's moral jurisdiction, occurred only rarely.
When it did occur, it steeled Baptist resolve. Members who fulminated
against church courts elicited little sympathy. Their resistance aggra-
vated their crime. It was rebellion against Christ, the church's lawgiver.
The recalcitrant might try to remove themselves from the church's
jurisdiction. In 1795, James Hutchinson drew the Powelton Baptist
Church's correction when he joined the Masons. The church judged that
membership in the secret society was incompatible with church mem-
bership. Hutchinson devised a plan by which he might remain a Bap-
tist and a Mason. He "declared himself a member of Bull Run church in
Virginia and not accountable to us as a member." The church threw
him out. His attempt to elude jurisdiction worsened his crime.38
When Sheldon Dunning's church in Savannah charged him with slan-
der and fraud, he denied the charge and rebuked the church: It was
"disorderly" because it neglected weekly communion, prohibited
voluntary withdrawal, and scheduled its disciplinary conferences on Sat-
urday rather than Sunday. He "excommunicated us from his fellow-
ship," wrote the clerk. In turn, the church excommunicated him.39
Two years later, his sister Mary Dunning denied the church any juris-
diction over her. Charged with taking communion with her brother,
she also "denied the Church's right and authority to excommunicate
her Brother." For herself, she claimed the right of liberty: "She had a
right to withdraw from us ... [and] we had no right to exercise disci-
pline towards her." After drawing out the affair for a year, the church
dropped her from the roll (a rare, nondisciplinary act), "no longer to be
considered a member with us." Pastor William Johnson and preacher
Thomas Williams had persuaded the church that she could go:
Sister Dunning had said that she had withdrawn from us on Conscien-
tious principles, & that from her known piety & conduct, he was bound
to believe her, that the great Doctor Holcombe at Philadelphia, in which
City she now was, had borne written Testimony of her Exemplary piety
& conduct there, & advised to suffer her to depart in peace, &c, from every
consideration he thought it more to the glory of God to suffer her to go
from us in peace.... To which the Pastor replied, that he thought her in
an error in this respect [regarding the injustice of excommunicating her
brother], &• had told her so, but she nevertheless persisted to declare her
belief of her Brother's innocency, & thought him hardly dealt with. But
upon the whole he verily believed that this error had originated in her
head, rather than in her heart, that he did not believe that she had erred
intentionally, and seeing that the Church would sufficiently manifest their
displeasure against her by declaring that she was no longer in our Com-
munion, & that her membership shall cease in this Church from this day,
so far & no farther he felt willing to say or to do.
Johnson appealed to conscience. Since Mary Dunning erred in good
conscience, the church had no right to discipline her.40
Within six months, the church changed its mind. Every member but
one had voted initially to exclude her. Seeking unanimity, the church
now requested the association to advise them whether a member could
withdraw "for a difference of sentiment." The association came out for
"liberty of conscience." It agreed with Johnson that sometimes liberty
preempted disciplinary authority. In 1814, the association reversed itself.
It decided that no member had a right to leave a church "without gen-
eral consent; otherwise, he despises the church, breaks fellowship, and
should be dealt with as the gospel directs, in the case of disorderly
members." Because a member joined by assuming the covenant of
obedience to Christ and his discipline, the attempt to withdraw was an
immoral act, a breach of the vow of submission.41
The lay leaders of Savannah Baptist Church then tried to persuade
the pastor to change his mind, but he refused. Having opened the door
to voluntary withdrawal, Johnson walked through it himself. In con-
ference, he rose, declared himself no longer the pastor, and withdrew
his membership. Twelve others followed him out of the church, which
passed a rule to ensure that this never happened again. Six years later,
Johnson recanted, and in 1823 he confessed his errors and obtained
reconciliation.42
Ironically, Thomas Williams, the preacher who had supported
Johnson, tried to withdraw in 1816 on the grounds that the church was
not severe enough in its discipline. Williams's slave driver, Aaron Shave,
struck and killed one of Williams's slaves, pleading self-defense. The
church merely suspended him from communion. Williams viewed the
light punishment as "dishonorable." In withdrawing, Williams sought
the door through which Mary Dunning and William B. Johnson had
passed, lamenting that "he had labored much to bring the Church to a
liberal plan, that he was sorry to find her so soon Changing a good &
wholesome rule, he conceived that when members were offended at
the Church's act they had a right to withdraw their membership."
Brooking no further curtailments of primitive ecclesiastical authority,
the church concurred with Johnson's successor, Benjamin Screven: "The
Church had been too long oppressed under such supposed liberality of
Conduct, & that it was high time for them to close their doors against
such innovations, where no scripture could justify the practice, but to
the contrary directly to the reverse. That members who rent themselves
from the Church for a supposed grievance were truce breakers & merited
the Censure of the Church." The church revoked Williams's license to
preach and suspended him. It eventually expelled him. He had wanted
severity toward Shave; he wanted liberality for himself.43
For a few, then, the rights of conscience could preempt church
authority, but most who resisted the church had no such concern for
principle. Some merely walked out of conference when accused. Others
ducked the investigating committee. Some would obey the pastor but
not the congregation. Others refused to appear when "cited" to do so
or sought greener pastures in other folds. Charles Ash told a discipline
committee that "he was glad that there were other churches in the city
beside the Baptist Church." He was not the only rebel who left the
church because of its discipline.44
Other members, accepting the church's authority to discipline, com-
plained of its application. They said that it was applied with unequal
severity, or that it was too harsh even when impartially imposed. Hus-
bands protested on behalf of wives, and wives on behalf of husbands. A
few responded with disdain. W. R. Page of Atlanta told his church that
it could "turn him out and be damned." Only a tiny number, it appears,
sought remedy in the civil courts. The church responded to threats of
civil suits with pronouncements of excommunication.45
On occasion, discipline could draw violent responses. Southern men
often turned to violence to maintain honor, preserve white rule, and
protect community values. From the gentlemen's duels to the yeomen's
fistfights, they used force to "patrol their own social and ethical space."
Southern courts dealt with crimes of violence at two or three times the
rate of northern courts and were more reluctant to punish violent
offenders. When Baptist churches shamed their members with convic-
tions, rebukes, and excommunications, censured offenders occasion-
ally resorted to violence to defend their honor.46
When Richland Baptist Church excluded William Cooper on charges
of stealing a cow, breaking out of jail, and resisting the civil law, Cooper
torched the meeting house and threatened "powder and lead" if it should
be rebuilt. He also stole the church book and formed a rump congrega-
tion, which he declared to be the true Richland Baptist Church. No other
threats of violence appeared in more than nine thousand disciplinary

cases, however. Southern honor retreated before southern discipline;
the demand for self-vindication before the demand for submission.47
Submission to the authority of the church was at the heart of the
disciplinary apparatus. A particular transgression was secondary. The
issue was submission to divine authority mediated by the community
of believers. To oppose the church's discipline was to oppose the
authority of God. When Fereby West refused to explain her conduct,
her church expelled her because she "designed not to be submissive to
God and the church." She had flouted the authority of Jesus Christ.
Southern Baptist piety required submission to the democratic author-
ity of the saints.48
4
Democracy, Race,
and Gender
Apologists for the Old South boasted that it was an organic society—
every part of the social body in its proper place, contributing to the
whole. Like a living organism, it functioned correctly because the
highborn and the lowborn fulfilled providential roles determined by
race, wealth, and gender. The social distinctions found their way into
the churches. No matter how pious, women did not cast off their gen-
der with their cloaks when they entered the church. Masters were
masters, and slaves were slaves, whether in the meeting house or out.
The churches contained all the strata of southern society, and the
exercise of its authority reflected these distinctions.1
Yet the Baptists embodied the ideal of an egalitarian church to a degree
that could shock other southerners. Despising the leveling tone of Baptist
piety, wealthy southerners could appreciate the feelings of the Virginia
gentleman who confessed that "if any other people but the baptists
professed their religion I would make it my religion before tomorrow."
The democratic ecclesiology of the Baptist churches made the Baptists
experts in the practice of egalitarian authority.2
Baptists had few educated preachers or wealthy members—most
members were humble folk. The gentry quickly stereotyped them as
ignorant and contemptible. Baptist preachers were objects of ridicule
and abuse. In time, Baptist aspirations for social respect resulted in the
50
Democracy, Race, and Gender 51
proliferation of Baptist academies and colleges, from which flowed edu-

cated preachers and professionals. As Baptists crossed the threshold
"from alienation to influence" after the Civil War, they began to reshape
their commitment to democratic authority. In the meantime, they
allowed no obstacles of race, class, or gender to hinder their moral
discipline.3
Democratic Discipline
Believing that ecclesiastical power resided in every member equally,
antebellum Baptist churches usually granted female members—and
often granted slaves—voting privileges. They distinguished in this con-
text matters of "government" from matters of "discipline." Government
related to the election of church officers—deacons, elders, and pastors.
Discipline related to matters of fellowship—admitting and dismissing
members, forgiving penitent offenders, expelling transgressors, and
restoring excluded members. Although some churches restricted women
from voting about government, few prohibited their voting about
fellowship.4
Policies about participation were not uniform. The Dover Baptist
Association in Virginia, when asked about qualifications for voting in
matters of "government and discipline," apparently advised the churches
that neither women nor slaves could vote in either case, rendering their
"opinion that none but free male members, can properly exercise au-
thority in the church." Landmark Baptist A. S. Worrell, president of col-
leges in Louisiana and Missouri, argued likewise against women and
slaves voting in the churches. Sylvanus Landrum, who served large
churches in Macon, Savannah, and Memphis, argued that scripture
prohibited women from voting in church, as did the consideration that
women in city churches were vulnerable to manipulation by partisan
interests.5
In some churches, then, female members lacked the privilege of vot-
ing, whether on matters of government or discipline. Jesse Mercer held
that discipline constituted a matter of government and that therefore
women should not be allowed any vote in disciplinary matters: "Now,
then, if women are not permitted to teach and exercise authority in the
churches [1 Tim. 2:11-12], how can they vote in matters of discipline
which is government?" Mercer expected women to decline the privi-
lege of voting whenever "men should attempt [to offer] it, in view of
honoring them." He admitted, however, that he was pleading the minor-
ity position. "We suspect," Mercer wrote, "it is the general practice of
the churches of our order, to allow women this use [voting on matters
of discipline]."6
Mercer's suspicions were well founded. Commenting on "the duties
and privileges of Female members in a Gospel Church," Henry Hoi-
cornbe, pastor of Savannah First Baptist Church, wrote that "the sexes,
as believers, are one in Christ, and in all that regards Christian fellow-
ship, . . . admitting and expelling members.... On all these duties and
privileges, the Apostolic addresses to a church appear to us to be indis-
criminate." Several readers of the Christian Index wrote defending the
right of women to vote on discipline, suggesting that no scriptural doc-
trine stood in the way. The Atlanta Baptist Ministers' Conference, dis-
cussing Marietta pastor J. A. Wynne's talk on women in the church,
concluded that women could not hold "official authority" as a deacon
or elder, but "could teach in Sunday-school or pray and vote in the
church."7
Though differing on whether women should vote in church govern-
ment, Baptist associations advised the churches that women should vote
on discipline. When asked whether "it is consistent with gospel disci-
pline, for a female member to speak in conference or not," the Heph-
zibah Association counseled that "we conceive a woman's privilege in
conference, to be the same with the man's, in all points except matters
of the ministry and government." The Sarepta Association, responding
to a query asking whether women were "equally privileged with the
Males, to vote in all matters in the church, relating to government &
discipline," answered that "we think they are equally priviledged with
the male members." The Western Association took it for granted that
females should vote on fellowship and at the same time admitted that
churches differed about their right to vote on government. The asso-
ciation advised that "the right of sisters to vote in the government of
the Churches is a question which each Church should decide for itself,
and a disagreement, on this subject, should not affect the fellowship of
the Churches."8
Baptist churches generally followed this advice. The Powelton Bap-
tist Church gave women the right to vote only on "cases respecting
fellowship." Another church made drinking distilled liquor a transgres-
sion "by a unanimous vote, both of males and females." Although
church clerks rarely recorded details of church balloting, occasional
glimpses confirm that women frequently voted. One clerk wrote that
the church determined a discipline case "by a vote of seventeen (17)
members male and female." Another recorded the names of fourteen
members—ten of them women—who voted against excommunicating
an offender. The clerk of Savannah Baptist Church recorded that one
"Sister Hill, the only dissentient," had succeeded, by her vote, in im-
peding the will of the majority.9
The divergent opinions collided in an 1855 effort to unite the First
and Second Baptist Churches of Savannah. Whether or not the women
of Savannah First Baptist Church voted on government, they clearly
voted on fellowship. Since Savannah Second Baptist Church prohib-
ited women from voting at all, it insisted on terms of union that gave
the vote to the men only. First Baptist Church balked, but finally made
the sacrifice: Ninety-seven women of the church wrote a document
agreeing to "transfer to our Brethren all the Spiritual & Temporal busi-
ness of the church to their charge, having perfect confidence in their
ability and judgement to manage the business of the church, and fur-
thermore we strongly recommend a union of the two Baptist churches
of this city, believing it will result in much good."10
Many churches allowed slaves to vote on discipline. A member
charged with drunkenness and trading on the Sabbath at a camp meet-
ing failed to obtain forgiveness because two black members were not
satisfied with his repentance. One church refused a slave applicant
because they feared that some of the slave members "might not be
willing to her reception." Greensboro Baptist Church appointed an
investigating committee after "Charles Servant of Mr. Terrell... made
repeated applications for admission into the church, [and] Phillis a
Coloured Sister . . . as repeatedly made objections." Although Phillis
evidently stood alone, the church decided to sustain her objection. The
church books provide only glimpses, but they reveal at least a measure
of black participation in the disposition of "matters of fellowship."11
Although in theory slave votes could have opposed white votes, there
is no evidence that they could do so decisively. Black delegates to the
Sunbury Association, wrote one black Georgia preacher, thought it
imprudent to oppose the will of the "white brethren of power in the
land," even when they knew they were in the right. Although they had
a vote, it was "at most times timidly used." In the churches, slaves cast
votes that dissented from whites only when it involved a black.12
White Baptists assumed that black members would administer disci-
pline in familiar ways. After all, they had accepted the same gospel,
embraced the same doctrines, and avowed the same principles of church
government. Any worries about black suffrage in the church came from
concern that blacks lacked the education and experience to administer
church government wisely.13
The constraints of slavery reassured whites. Because churches con-
ducted business and discipline on a Saturday, when slaves could rarely
attend, black attendance probably remained low. Some churches estab-
lished a church within the church by organizing a monthly Sunday
conference for blacks. In any case, black members demonstrated no
disposition to oppose white members. Although they embraced similar
theological and ecclesiological principles to the whites, their social sub-
ordination precluded any determined opposition to white wishes. Even
when blacks outnumbered them, whites did not fear that blacks would
hinder their government of the church, much less overthrow it. White
confidence overcame the occasional white anxiety that cropped up
under the strain of sectional tensions over slavery. In 1860, a church in
Georgia's black belt discussed a motion "to debar the blacks from Vot-
ing in cases touching fellowship." The clerk recorded no details of the

debate—if there was one—but scribbled the conclusion that it "was
decided that they should continue to Vote."14
Both women and blacks supported the discipline in other ways. White
men usually manned investigating committees, but women sometimes
served when the defendant was a woman. Little Ogeechee Baptist
Church in eastern Georgia accused Martha Hodges with disorderly con-
duct and "agreed that there be a committy appointed to visit her and
advise with her & report to the next conference, agreed that Sisters
Jane[,] Hodges[,] Conner[,] & Lundy be that Committy." The clerk of
Bethesda Baptist Church recorded that "sister mays has used spiritous
Liquors to intemperance; Ordered that Sister Nancy Bethoon & Sister
Phebe Greene Visit on that occasion & Report at the next conference."
Occasionally, churches appointed men and women to the same com-
mittee, as when LaGrange First Baptist Church added four women to a
committee of four men who had been dragging their feet in investigat-
ing some women accused of dancing.15
In the same way, churches sometimes appointed blacks to investi-
gate other blacks or asked black and white members to serve together.
Black members often constituted the entire committee. They also were
appointed to permanent discipline committees charged with handling
the discipline of the black portion of the church. Kiokee Baptist Church
appointed "the Black Breatfhren] Billy[,] torn and Abram a committy
to watch over the black breathren." Little Ogeechee Baptist Church
"appointed Brother Tom of couler belonging to Mrs Lipsey and Jeffery
of couler belong [ing] to Mrs. Hage, as watches of the Coloured mem-
bers of this Church and notice the disorderly conduct that may take place
among them and report accordingly." Churches adopted this expedi-
ent whether or not they held a regular Sunday conference for black
members. Across the South, Baptist democracies were remarkably
egalitarian.16
Women and Democratic Religion

Southern churches were female preserves, and throughout the nine-
teenth century women made up between 60 and 65 percent of the
membership of Georgia Baptist churches. Yet it was the waywardness
of the male minority that kept Baptist church discipline in business.
Churches hauled their male members before the bar on a scale out of
all proportion to their numbers. Every year 8 percent of white male
Baptists passed under the church's rod of discipline. But white men also
enjoyed the most leniency. Churches were reluctant to excommuni-
cate them. In the antebellum period, they excommunicated male
defendants in 47 percent of the cases and female defendants in 66 per-
cent. Despite the leniency, they excommunicated far more men than
women, ejecting twice as many between 1785 and I860.17
It is tempting to see them as unjust, but they would have been puzzled
by such a judgment. The egalitarian values unleashed in the Revolu-
tionary War period were still battling more ancient traditions. Southern
Baptists, egalitarians in the church, resisted social egalitarianism; they
honored the social hierarchy, and they read scripture in accord with it.
They divided society into its constituent institutions—family, volun-
tary societies (such as churches, fraternal organizations, schools), and
civil government. Understanding one's location in the order was essen-
tial to virtue, for it revealed one's duties. Georgia Baptist preacher A. T.
Holmes saw in the creation of Adam and Eve the foundation of this
"social principle," which also governed the duties of masters and slaves:
"Founded upon the union thus originally instituted, certain relations
are discovered to exist, in which are involved certain duties, each rela-
tion urging its claim respectively. Thus, the husband sustains a relation
to his wife, the parent to his child, the citizen to his country, in each of
which distinctive duties are to be discharged, growing out of the par-
ticular relation sustained." Methodist apologist H. N. McTyeire, editor
of the Nashville Christian Advocate, agreed that "different relations . . .
imply distinct obligations."18
For Baptist Professor S. G. Hillyer, the duties of "domestic govern-
ment" derived from the nature of the family. The fifth commandment,
he argued, "places the parent virtually upon a throne, with a sceptre in
the right hand and a crown upon the head. . . . Parents are sovereigns,
of whom it can be truly said, that they reign as kings and queens 'by
the grace of God'; for their rank and authority rest upon the constitu-
tion of the family, of which God is the original and efficient founder."
Because God created the institutions of society, the duties derived from
social position constituted divine commands. Human happiness resided
largely, according to this theory, "in fulfilling the duties of the station
in which Providence has placed us."19
The moral obligations of husbands and wives, parents and children,
and masters and slaves affected the way churches viewed offenses, and
members who transgressed could expect the church to treat them dif-
ferently according to their position. Some misdeeds—drunkenness or
adultery, for example—brought swift censure regardless of social posi-
tion, but social position usually made a difference.
Women encountered greater severity than men. They were almost
one and a half times more likely to suffer excommunication than males.
Even for similar offenses, the churches treated them more severely.
Georgia Baptists between 1785 and 1860 excommunicated, for offenses
against the church, 69 percent of male defendants and 84 percent of
female; for alcohol-related offenses, 48 percent of male defendants and
65 percent of female; for sexual offenses, 81 percent of male defendants

and 88 percent of female; and for violence, 41 percent of male defen-
dants and 52 percent of female. Only for offenses involving property
did the churches exclude male and female defendants at approximately
the same rate, 65 and 67 percent, respectively. Churches judged men
more harshly for worldly amusements, dancing being the chief offense,
expelling 58 percent of male dancers and only 39 percent of female.
With minor exceptions, discipline varied consistently by gender.
Woman, after all, was the protector of morality. She was "the top-
piece of Creation—the beauty of the whole earth—and the glory of the
man!" By virtue of the divine creation, woman had the duty of pre-
serving the home and its school of virtue. "By inflexible necessity," wrote
editor Henry Holcombe Tucker, "womanhood and manhood involve
different duties." Women exercised their moral influence as mothers
and wives. The Macedonia Temperance Society in Meriwether County
encouraged women to join because "the influence which they very
justly possess over the morals and taste of the community is very
great. . . . They are most commonly the warmest advocates of benevo-
lent and good works." Jesse Mercer, pleading for female education,
concurred: "In the formation of the social frame, what constituent so
important as the influence,—the mind of woman! She gives to the life
of man its moral tone.... Her education, therefore, should look to the
great duties to which she is destined,—to the all-important situations
which she is to occupy in society. She is to be educated as one, who is
hereafter to sustain the relation of a mother;—one who is to educate
future sons of the republic." Baptists designed women's education to
nurture piety.20
Southern evangelicals established an array of female seminaries to
give impulse to the divine social order. By 1852, Southern Baptists
operated at least forty-three female academies and colleges. Georgia
topped the list with two female colleges and eight female seminaries.
Before the war, southern Presbyterians established dozens of parish-
based coeducational primary schools and at least eleven female acad-
emies. Southern Methodists may have had as many as thirty or forty
female academies. Evangelicals actively promoted female education, as
long as it schooled women to be women. The prosperity of church and
society depended on its success.21
The task for women was always to refine purity and piety. The de-
mands of purity required them to avoid everything from familiarity with
men to novel reading and tobacco. It meant embracing "true delicacy"—
"a refined and practical modesty, which shrinks from everything which
is offensive to decency or injurious to morality." The demands of piety
were many, but they especially included worship, prayer, and the devo-
tional reading of scripture. Religious reading stood at the center of the
family circle and family prayer at the center of devotion. Robert Fleming,
principal of the Female Seminary in Newnan, upbraided frivolous

women: "For the toilet-table of her apartment, or the centre-table of
her parlor, to be loaded with the books of fiction, or the pamphlets of
fashion, and be destitute of the Bible and religious periodicals, is a
reproach to her head and her heart." It would be far better, he said, for
women to persuade their husbands to establish the "family altar."22
Evangelicals looked to women to sustain the church. Though God
prohibited them from assuming official authority, he bestowed on them
"the high privilege of moulding and shaping the character of those who
are to fill the places of responsibility in the church." Ministers looked
to women as their supporters, sometimes confiding that their female
parishioners understood them best. J. B. Hawthorne of Atlanta First
Baptist Church, postwar crusader against social vice, felt that women
alone valued his opposition to "error and ungodliness." When the whis-
key rings tried to destroy him, he said, Christian women stood by him
with "dauntless devotion."23
Women were active in southern "benevolent societies." Missionary
societies and charitable organizations proliferated widely. As early as
1829, the Georgia Baptist Association—one of seventeen associations
in the state—reported "28 Sabbath Schools, containing more than 1,000
Pupils; 10 Tract Societies; 9 Temperance Societies; besides Bible, Sing-
ing, Ladies Working, and other benevolent institutions." The support
of women was essential to their success.24
Women also organized independent societies. In Georgia, Baptist
women acted jointly in at least twenty-three women's groups before
1860. Rural women joined them, but they prospered most in towns. In
1856, the Macon Ladies' Charitable Association disbursed $544 toward
the relief of fifty-three families. The Macon Female Tract Society dis-
tributed the same year eleven Bibles and 3,398 tracts. Female sewing
societies raised money for church lamps, organs, and debt payments.
The first benevolent societies in America arose in the eighteenth cen-
tury to support missionary activity to Native American, frontier, and
overseas heathen. In the 1790s, mission societies began to multiply at
a rapid rate, spurred by interest in William Carey's mission to India in
1792. Throughout the nineteenth century, societies proliferated across
the country to raise funds for every kind of benevolent work.25
Missionary activity shaped Baptist identity. When Congregationalist
missionaries Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice became Baptists in 1812,
Rice returned to organize Baptist support of Judson's Burma mission.
In 1814, delegates from Baptist mission societies gathered to form the
Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions, known as the Trien-
nial Convention. Baptists in the South organized in support of the con-
vention's efforts. Georgia's Jesse Mercer was president of the Board of
Foreign Missions from 1830 to 1841. Southerners William T. Brantly,
John L. Dagg, Basil Manly Sr., William C. Crane, and Thomas Stocks
served as officers of the convention's boards, and other southerners

served as board members. When southerners withdrew from the
northern-controlled boards in 1845, they formed their own convention
as an outlet for missionary zeal.26
No activity drew the talents of women more than missions. In 1800,
fourteen Congregational and Baptist women organized the first female
society, the Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes. By 1818,
ninety-seven female societies corresponded with the Boston society.
Female cent societies spread by the hundreds. By 1839, Congregational
missions had the support of 923 men's associations and 680 ladies'
associations. The 1817 Baptist Triennial Convention reported that 110
of its 187 member societies were "Female Societies." The Monroe Mis-
sionary Society, comprising women of Walton County, Georgia, felt the
power of the call to missions:
A portion of the Females of Monroe, Walton county, feeling it to be their
duty to engage in works of Benevolence, . . . and having heard the pa-
thetic appeals from Burmah's heathen shores, to send them the word of
God translated into their own native tongue, and being touched with
sympathy in view of the deplorable condition of their own sex in that
benighted land, have united themselves into a Society, the principal ob-
ject of which is to raise a fund to aid in publishing the Bible in the Bur-
man language. They have employed a small portion of their time in manu-
facturing such articles as they supposed might be sold to an advantage. . . .
Some of them are Baptists, some are Methodists, and other are not mem-
bers of any church.
Women contributed large sums toward missionary endeavors, often
outdoing the male part of the church. By 1889, Baptist women had
organized 216 women's missionary societies in Georgia.27
Women sustained southern piety also at conference meetings, which
they were expected to attend. A model decorum that stated in typical
fashion the duty of men to attend church conference added that "female
members are expected to attend promptly when possible to do so." Some
churches required it. Required or not, however, women showed up in
force and frequently voted, even on matters of government, such as
the election of deacons and pastors. They probably outnumbered the
men. At one conference of the Savannah Baptist Church, called to elect
a new pastor, women outnumbered men twenty-one to five; at a regu-
lar conference they prevailed twenty-seven to four. Jesse Mercer cited
such attendance figures as an argument against women's right to vote
on discipline, since to give them this privilege would make them the
moral governors of the church; Women, in fact, had the larger part in
discipline.28
Because the scriptures assigned different duties to women and men,
Baptists treated their offenses differently, and women did not chafe at
the double standard. They often felt that the men, left to themselves,
would have allowed moral standards to fall. A female reader of the
Christian Index, conceding that "woman is put in subjection to man,"

objected to Mercer's views by insisting that men could not be trusted
to protect either doctrinal or moral purity: "Because the male members
of the church wink at drunkenness in the preacher, or prefer an
Arminian, must I, knowing the sin to be indulged, and a Calvinist too,
be silent, with all subjection? My Dear Sir, I feel that such is not the
tyranny of the gospel dispensation."29
As evangelicals saw it, God had sentenced man to a more vicious
corruption than woman. Both sexes were wicked, but pastors like
Atlanta's Hawthorne could chastise women for "natural infirmities"
while describing "the infirmities of your brothers" as "much more seri-
ous." He could even describe women as "naturally so much better than
men, so much gentler and sweeter." Women were innately "more pious
and warm-hearted in the service of God than men."30
The encomiums to female virtue had a price, exacted in the ecclesi-
astical courtroom. In this scheme, drunkenness was wicked in a man,
but an outrage in a woman. A female drunk assaulted every sensibility
of goodness and virtue; her sin threatened the divine order. For men,
tobacco was a pernicious habit; in women, it was a depraved appetite.
Infidelity by men was abhorrent; by women, worse than abhorrent.31
Men seemed determined to prove that they were by nature morally
inferior. Throughout the century, they outpaced their sisters in rates of
offenses. In the antebellum period, churches prosecuted white men for
drunkenness at a rate forty-five times higher than the rate for white
women, seven times higher for worldly amusements, five times higher
for offenses against the church, and ten times higher for offenses
involving property, violence, or speech. Only with sexual offenses did
the sexes achieve parity, churches prosecuting both at virtually the same
rate.32
But churches found male wickedness less shocking, less dangerous.
Male transgressors suffered excommunication at a rate one-third lower
than the rate for women. Churches could sentence them more leniently
because they deemed their offenses less subversive of good order. In
accord with the prevailing philosophical ethics, evangelicals evaluated
morality not only by the nature of the act but also by its consequences.
Mercer quoted philosopher William Paley to prove that any act result-
ing in evil was itself evil. Women's sins were worse than men's, by this
logic, because they had more evil consequences; they damaged the
home-centered piety of the divinely mandated social order.33
Blacks and Democratic Religion

In the antebellum South, Baptist churches became spiritual havens for
an increasing number of African Americans. Baptists boasted about the
converted slaves, whose religion refuted abolitionist beliefs that south-
erners neglected the souls of slaves. Like women, however, blacks had
to bear the double standard. Churches disciplined blacks less frequently

than whites, but when they cited them they more frequently excom-
municated them. The similarities with women were striking. Black
defendants were expelled at the same rate as women defendants: 66
percent. Churches excluded white defendants in only 46 percent
of the cases, a rate merely one point below that of cases with male
defendants.
Blacks had a unique place in the social order. Their status as servants
determined their moral duties, but the link between servility and race
meant that emancipated blacks found themselves after the war still
assigned to the inferior position they had as slaves. The moral obliga-
tions of slaves remained binding on them. As slaves, their divine duties
consisted mainly of obedience and veracity, virtues of loyalty to earthly
masters. Protestant ministers from New England to Georgia had been
interested in the conversion of slaves since the seventeenth century and
evangelized and baptized them, though they had little success until late
in the eighteenth century. Organized efforts to convert the slaves esca-
lated in the 1830s and 1840s as denominations formed societies and sent
missionaries to the plantations. Evangelical clergy gained the trust of
masters by teaching converts that Christ commanded slaves to be faith-
ful, obedient, and honest.34
Such virtues appeared in memorials for pious slaves: "This day about
one O'c[loc]k departed this life Major a coloured man about fifty years
of age belonging at the time of his death to P. H. Greene who owned
him about forty years, never having an occasion of laying the weight
of his hand on said man in anger, he was always submissive, gentle,
honest to his master in all things, and truthful. The last word he spoke
just before he died when he was asked by his master Do you think you
will soon see your Savior he said I hope So." Major's piety was exem-
plary because he remained submissive and honest to his master.35
White Baptist writers assumed that God gave blacks a nature suited
to the duty of submission—a nature formed by both biology and cul-
ture. They described black character as combining features of women
and children. Slaves were like women in their natural bent toward
piety, like children in lacking the moral and intellectual training for a
self-discipline in which reason ruled the passions. Nothing was more
self-evident to whites than that African Americans were "eminently
a religious people." C. F. Sturgis, who succeeded Mercer as pastor of
Washington Baptist Church, scorned debate on this point: "The next
great characteristic of this people, and that which, more than any other,
lays the foundation for their moral elevation, is the religious element
that so strongly distinguishes them. There is no need of reasoning to
prove the existence of this sentiment. The man who doubts or denies
on this point, avows his entire unacquaintance with the psychological
character of this people." African Americans would "receive the gospel
with more readiness than the whites."36
Apologists for slave religion distinguished the religious bent of Afri-

can Americans from the female bent toward virtue. In women, piety
unfolded into virtuous character. In slaves, some whites seemed to think,
piety flourished irrespective of virtue. Blacks were like children. They
lacked the self-restraint formed by the love of virtue, Josiah Law
explained, because "all are strangers to intellectual, and a large portion
of them to moral culture." Blacks were more wicked than whites, in
this view, because passion ruled them.37
Because slaves achieved virtue in this scheme as children, without
cultivation of their rational and moral faculties, whites pointed to slave
virtue to shame lesser moral attainments among whites. If slaves
eschewed liquor, it was so much the worse for the reputation of liquor-
consuming whites. In 1830, the Sunbury Baptist Church, near the Geor-
gia coast, reported that "we have a Temperance Society, of colored
people, many of whom are non-professors [non-Christians]; this is a
severe reflection on rum drinking Christians."38
But in the three decades before the Civil War, some white Baptists
tried to provide slaves with the moral and intellectual instruction req-
uisite for virtue. Washington Baptist Church appointed preacher W. H.
Pope as a missionary to the slaves in 1856 and paid him a $500 salary.
Baptists and Congregationalists in coastal Georgia formed a slave-
mission society in 1831 and hired Presbyterian minister Charles Colcock
Jones as their missionary. The Sunbury Association resolved to employ
two missionaries to "our colored population" in 1841. The Southern
Baptist Convention's Board of Domestic Missions appointed mission-
aries to the slaves and entered joint efforts with local and state agen-
cies. They paid missionaries to do this; they urged their pastors to attend
to it, but they cast the burden mainly on the masters. Josiah Law
explained their duty: "We should regard them as children, for they are
children in intellect, and we should endeavor to make our government
of them as much parental as the circumstances of the case will admit.
Their moral characters should engage our constant and particular
attention. To elevate the standard of morals among them, we must
acquaint them more fully with the principles of right and wrong, we
must give them more light." The Greensboro Baptist Church made the
duty to convert slaves a part of its constitution: It was the duty of "the
heads of Families to pray in their families and give their children and
servants religious instruction." But crusades for African-American vir-
tue foundered on the contradictions of southern slaveholding ideology.39
According to the laws of southern states, slaves were alternately
human beings with inalienable rights and human property with rights
alienated to their owners. Southern churches entertained similar con-
tradictions. They welcomed slaves who professed faith; they accepted
the social inferiority of the slaves—an inequality so radical that it over-
whelmed the ideal of spiritual equality. White church members could
not deny that slaves were as much "moral and accountable beings" as
they. Apologists for slave religion therefore appealed to masters to rec-

ognize their slaves as members of the household, entitled to the same
spiritual nurture as biological children. Attention to spiritual needs
would link the affections of "the entire family, black and white." Slaves
should "have their share in the Home-Altar,... not by invitation only,
but as a fixed rule, a duty."40
Having fixed the moral duties of the slave's social position, Baptist
churches could allow a measure of spiritual equality. Black members
frequently voted in cases of fellowship. The rituals of admission to the
church suggested spiritual equality. A slave convert no less than a white
"related his experience" in church conference. Black and white con-
verts marched together to the creek or spring for baptism. S. G. Hillyer
recounted how his mother embraced Christ after witnessing a white
church receive a slave applicant:
When the door of the Church was opened only one came forward, and
he was a middle-aged negro. The young lady [Hillyer's mother] said to
herself: 'Surely the Church is not going to receive such a creature as that,
he can not tell an experience/ Perhaps she scarcely deigned to listen to
the poor darkey's words, preferring probably to indulge in her own
thoughts. But presently, very much to her surprise, the members rose to
their feet and, with a sweet song of welcome, began to give the humble
candidate the right hand of fellowship. He had told an experience that
was responded to by every pious heart in that house.
Converts, whatever their color, shared a religious experience—a con-
viction of sin and a movement from the despair of condemnation to the
joy of divine deliverance.41
White Baptists recognized that their rituals implied spiritual equal-
ity. They believed that social distinctions toppled under the leveling
power of the gospel. Adiel Sherwood, a Baptist preacher who at twenty-
seven left the Northeast to settle in Georgia, marveled at the egalitari-
anism of faith. He once recalled the constitution of a new Baptist church:
Two aged black slaves, who belonged to the church with their master and
mistress, on account of their age and infirmities, had been overlooked
when the constitution of the church was read, and the right hand of fel-
lowship was given to all the others. The mistress mentioned the circum-
stance with much feeling, and then sprang forward and gave them her
right hand, followed by her husband and all the other church members.
In the evening of that same day, a meeting was held in the house of the
master, and, when they entered, the mistress called them, resigned her
seat to them, and sat herself upon the stairsteps during the meeting. . . .
And thus it is seen that the gospel levels all distinctions.
Predominantly white churches could sustain the innocence of black

members even when the accuser was a leading white member. Aged,
indigent blacks could receive the same financial assistance as poor
whites. In this gospel egalitarianism, white Baptists saw not only evi-
dence of the power of the gospel but also a refutation of abolitionist
accusations that southerners neglected the spiritual needs of the blacks.42
Yet white Baptists found it impossible to overcome the ideology and
the reality of social inequality. The churches expressed the social infe-
riority of African Americans most visibly in the seating of their meet-
ing houses. Church seating had traditionally reflected social divisions.
New England Puritans seated Africans and Indians in galleries or rear
seats. Whether Congregationalist or Anglican, churches seated persons
of highest social status in the best seats. Advocating a common wor-
ship for both races, Baptists assigned the blacks to the worst seats.43
There were limits to this partiality. A white member once complained
that "his feelings were hurt in that of Turning the black Brethren and
Sisters out from amonts [amongst] us in that Shelters [were] built at
the end of the meeting house." One church attempted to split the hair
by requesting the deacons to see that "the negroes be not deprived of
the seats assigned them; unless there be not otherwise room for the
Whites." Yet the seating of the saints revealed the force of inegalitarian
social ideology.44
White Baptists felt similar ambivalence about independent black
churches. When black Baptists formed First African Church in Savan-
nah in 1777, three other such churches had already formed in the South.
From Maryland to Mississippi, slaves formed independent congregations.
By 1864, two of three independent black Baptist churches were in the
South, and Georgia had 24 percent of them. Savannah First African was
formed by freed slave Georgia Liele, who transplanted a part of the
congregation to Jamaica in 1782. In 1788, Andrew Bryan became pas-
tor and expanded the church from 80 members to 1,400 by the time of
his death in 1812, making it the largest church in the state. His nephew
Andrew Marshall succeeded him and saw the church grow to 2,800 in
1832. Augusta's Springfield African Church underwent similar growth.
Begun in 1791, by 1832 it had 1,300 members. Georgia's coastal region
had a long tradition of independent black congregations.45
Blacks often requested permission to have their own worship meet-
ings. Whites generally consented, though not without misgivings. The
question of control was a minor issue, for when whites decided that
blacks had disorderly meetings, they abolished them. Whites even
showed some irritation at state laws requiring their presence at black
religious meetings, and they frequently neglected them. Some whites
favored white oversight simply to preclude the criticism that all-black
meetings encouraged rebellion.46
White Baptists had misgivings about independent black services
mainly because they doubted that blacks could conduct them profit-
ably. They wondered where blacks would find patriarchs to shepherd
their flocks. Since the slaves were their spiritual children, moreover,
they were accountable to God for black spiritual welfare. It was "un-
questionably better for them to stand connected with white congrega-
tions, where they can be under the supervision and tuition of those
better informed than themselves." In the end, whites relented. They
justified their course by appealing again to spiritual welfare: Blacks could
not attain maturity without independent services. They could not profit
from reasoned discourses designed for the more literate whites. They
needed simple messages.47
To a certain extent, the unequal condition of slaves forced the
churches to establish separate services. Slaves could not often attend
conferences on Saturday, so whites established a Sunday semiautono-
mous church conference for blacks, preparing the way for independent
worship services. As early as 1804, one Georgia church "agreed to hold
conferance at this place on the last Sunday in this month for the
accomodation of the Black Brethren." By 1808, the same church was
taking measures to regulate apparently informal services led by black
church members, probably on the plantations. In 1821, the church
"granted the black brethren the use of the meeting house one sabbath
in the month for divine services." Another church established black
conferences in 1791, reinstituted them in 1800, and permitted black
worship services in the meeting house in 1823.48
Black Baptists required opportunities to relate their conversion
experiences and to accuse, confess, forgive, and excommunicate. Whites
described Sunday conferences variously as "for the benefit of the black
Brethren," for "transacting business for the Black Brethren," "for the
Convenincey of the black people, to hear Experiences from them," and
"to Keep order among the black Brethren." The conferences usually had
a white moderator and clerk, but they appointed their own discipline
committees, elected their own deacons, and managed their own eccle-
siastical affairs, with the white congregation giving advice and consent.49
Yet white Baptists were content to leave their black fellow members
in spiritual childhood. White leaders acquiesced in state laws against
teaching slaves to read. Fearful of claims that religion undermined sla-
very, they assured suspicious southerners that black Baptists "are not
taught to read.... We know of no one in our State who advocates teach-
ing them to read, under existing circumstances." During the Civil War,
as white Baptists began to suspect that God was punishing the South,
not for slavery but for abuses of it—"God, our Heavenly Father, often
chastises most promptly those whom he most loves"—Baptist leaders
joined others in an assault on state laws that abridged the rights of slaves
to read, to marry, and to preach and teach the gospel. But only after
emancipation did white Baptists show any determination to train black
leaders for pastoral ministry.50
Whites also struggled to maintain the balance between spiritual equal-
ity and social inequality in the association meetings. In 1849, the
Franklin Covenant Baptist Church, composed of black members, sought

admission to the Hephzibah Baptist Association. Delegates voted twice
but finally agreed by a small majority to accept the church and its rep-
resentatives. The Sunbury Baptist Association, whose churches on
Georgia's coastal plain had mainly African-American members, accepted
black delegates and accorded them voting privileges, and black delegates
voted on occasion against resolutions supported by white delegates. In
1849, the association met with fifteen white and eleven black delegates;
in 1856 with fourteen white and fourteen black. The Georgia Baptist
Association also received black delegates.51
This practice was not popular with many white Baptists. Some asso-
ciations refused to recognize black delegates and required black churches
to elect white delegates. One advocate of black representation excori-
ated associations that refused to seat black messengers:
It is known . . . that in some of these bodies, colored delegates are re-
ceived and allowed to exercise all the rights granted to the white repre-
sentatives. From the fact, however, that they are generally ignorant of
the Bible, of church government, and of the state of religion in their
immediate bounds, doubts have been entertained and expressed as to the
expediency and divine right of their granted prerogatives. . . . Some of
our Associations not only deny them this privilege, but maintain that it
should in no case be granted, and, if I am not mistaken, this sentiment
prevails more generally than most persons imagine. . . . It seems to me
that if the Bible has anything to do with it, and I presume that it has, that
they ought to be represented. . . . Revelation teaches that God is no
respecter of persons, . . . that there is neither . . . bond nor free, but that
we are all one in Christ. . . . It is not a question of ignorance or knowl-
edge . . . nor of piety and impiety. The most ignorant white representa-
tives may be received, whether they are very pious or not, but a colored
delegate must not be received, however intelligent or pious he may be.
John F. Dagg, editor of the Christian Index, approved of receiving black
representatives but considered it a question of policy, to be determined
by each association. Even the Sunbury Association had a change of heart
and in 1857 voted first to reduce the representation of black churches
and then to deny black delegates the right of suffrage. 52
Churches exercised moral discipline over blacks in a manner consis-
tent with their status as children. Because they surrendered their rea-
son to their passions, they required more severe punishment to arouse
feelings of shame and fear. But for like reasons, churches were quicker
to restore blacks to membership. Blacks applied for restoration at a rate
50 percent higher than whites. The churches denied only 6 percent of
their requests, compared to 10 percent of requests from whites. They
also granted blacks acquittals at a slightly higher rate than whites.53
Churches accused blacks of offenses less frequently than whites, both
absolutely and relatively. Although gender rather than race was the best
predictor of liability to prosecution—men being five times as likely as

women to be accused of crimes, and three times as likely to be excom-
municated—race rendered significant predictability. Churches were
almost twice as likely to accuse whites as blacks.54
In many cases, churches excommunicated white and black defendants
with approximate parity. For offenses involving alcohol, speech, or
amusements, black defendants suffered excommunication only slightly
more often than whites. For sexual offenses and offenses against the
church, they received excommunication less frequently than whites.
But for two offenses, churches were more severe to black defendants:
For violent offenses and offenses against property, black defendants
suffered exclusion one and a half times more often. Churches may have
viewed theft by slaves as intractable; perhaps they viewed it as a be-
trayal of the master's trust and paternal care. Slave violence probably
brought more frequent excommunication because whites could not
avoid seeing in it the specter of slave rebellion and the loss of their
divinely ordained social order.55
Baptist churches gave themselves little room to maneuver. Adultery
was a grave sin regardless of who committed it, and adulterers rarely
escaped excommunication. To the extent that churches could take
into account mitigating and aggravating circumstances, however, they
treated blacks and whites differently, as they did women and men. They
saw in each group different natures and different duties—differences
that affected the moral texture of unrighteous acts. Caught between
their hope for ecclesiastical equality and southern society's commitment
to an unequal social order, Baptists felt the pull of both ideals, but they
did not permit their ambivalence to impede the exercise of democratic
authority.
3
African-American
Democracies
Although most Georgia church members in 1860 were white, black

Georgians had entered the churches in large numbers in the preceding
three decades, by that time constituting between 35 and 40 percent of
Baptist church members and 32 percent of Methodist church members.
They flowed into the churches at even higher rates in the postwar era.
By 1890, Georgia claimed 341,000 black communicants in all its denomi-
nations, more than any other state.1
In 1870, Georgia Baptists numbered 115,000 in a state population of
1.2 million, with blacks having a 44 percent share among Baptists. In the
following decades, Baptist churches proliferated, especially African-
American churches. By 1883, black Baptists outnumbered whites 131,216
to 123,851. In 1906, Georgia had 334,000 black Baptists, far more than
any other state. By this date, they constituted 59 percent of Georgia's
Baptists, and almost one in three African Americans in the state belonged
to a Baptist church. Throughout the South, African Americans pitched
the largest tent in the Baptist camp.2
The popular success did not alter the ideal of democratic religion. The
African-American churches claimed a prerogative of command over a
wide expanse of individual freedom, and members pledged submission
as a condition of membership. They endeavored to prove themselves
good Baptists, and this meant attending democratic discipline.
67
African-American Baptists and Religious Authority

Black Baptist church records are difficult to find. This portrait of African-
American religion derives in part from the records of dozens of black
Baptist associations throughout the South and from the church books
of four African-American churches: Springfield African Baptist Church
in Augusta, Georgia; Gillfield African Church in Petersburg, Virginia;
and Green Street Baptist Church and Fifth Street Baptist Church, both
in Louisville, Kentucky. All four churches were large urban congrega-
tions and practiced discipline in similar ways. They were less strict than
rural black congregations but stricter than white congregations.3
The picture that emerged is clear: African-American Baptists filled the
dockets of their ecclesiastical tribunals well into the twentieth century.
In the antebellum period, the sample churches prosecuted 4 percent of
their members annually, a rate 39 percent higher than the white-
controlled churches attained. They excommunicated members at a rate
65 percent higher than the whites, nearly 2.5 percent of members each
year. Between 1861 and 1900, when the white churches were relax-
ing their discipline, the African-American churches maintained most
of their rigor. They still prosecuted 3.5 percent and excluded 2.3 per-
cent of their membership annually. Defendants in the black churches
received excommunication more frequently than in the white churches.
Both before and after the Civil War, black churches excluded more than
60 percent of those accused.
But the independent churches in the sample lagged behind other black
Baptist churches in disciplinary zeal. Black Baptists in the South reported
to their associations that they excommunicated 3 percent of their mem-
bers each year between 1861 and 1900, a rate 32 percent higher than
the sample churches. Many churches must have prosecuted more than
5 percent of their members annually.4
These rates are higher than the rate for black Baptists in the antebel-
lum white churches. The antebellum churches prosecuted just under
2 percent of their black members annually and excluded a little over
1 percent. They were slightly more likely to exclude black defendants
than were the African-American churches. Before and after emanci-
pation, black Baptists exercised a discipline fully as rigorous as the dis-
cipline of antebellum white Baptists.5
Black Baptists, like prewar white Baptists, rejected much of the emerg-
ing American individualism. The two groups cherished both the democ-
racy and the disciplinary authority of the community of saints. Both
agreed that society should leave individuals free to unite with the church
of their choice, but both also agreed that churches had to be free to
enforce moral discipline. For both groups, individual freedom encoun-
tered harsh limits when it collided with the divinely revealed moral
restrictions. They likewise rejected subjectivism in the interpretation of
African-American Democracies 69
the Bible in that the congregation, not the individual, was the inter-
pretive authority. When individualism and ecclesiastical authority came
into conflict, the African-American Baptists, like the white, subordinated
individual rights to church authority.
Social Equality and Baptist Segregation

African-American religion took many forms. Historians have sometimes
paid insufficient attention to the differences. Black Baptists felt keenly
the differences that separated them from black Methodists and Presby-
terians. They felt that their spirituality had more in common with the
white Baptists than with the black pedobaptist denominations. They
shared the white Baptists' vision of democratic religion. But they shared
with other black evangelicals the conviction that Christianity entailed
the social equality of the races, a conviction that most white evangelicals
rejected.
African-American Baptists differed about the relative merits of coop-
eration or separation from white Baptists, but the contention centered
on such joint benevolent endeavors as education, denominational pub-
lishing, and missions. Some argued that only independent effort and
self-reliance would bring moral advance. Others answered that with-
out white benevolence the efforts would come to nothing. They agreed
widely that they must have separate churches.
When white Baptists repudiated the social equality of blacks, they
ensured that black Baptists could not share in the governance of their
churches. Whites claimed to rejoice in the civil equality granted to
former slaves—"we are all free alike, and are all fellow-citizens of the
great American Republic, whose constitution guarantees to us all, with-
out distinction, equal rights and equal privileges forever." But the mix-
ing of blacks with whites as social peers, long rejected as poor policy,
now became a moral evil.6
When southern whites elected Democrats and installed Redeemer
governments in place of their Reconstruction oppressors in the 1870s,
it was still some time before they enforced segregation of the races.
Although informal separation was already in place in churches, hotels,
and schools, other areas of life were more integrated. Segregation laws
in the South gained impulse from the segregation of public transporta-
tion: Nine southern states passed railroad segregation laws between 1887
and 1891. At the same time, southern states began to pass laws designed
to prevent blacks from voting. During these years, the specter of inter-
racial violence haunted the South. Southern prisons were filled with
black men convicted of property crimes. Newspapers sensationalized
black crime and warned blacks to keep their place. Homicide rates
among both races were the highest in the world. Violence was part of
southern culture, and interracial tension precipitated racial violence.
Lynching symbolized powerfully southern culture's commitment to

violence, white supremacy, and racial segregation.7
In 1889, E. K. Love, pastor of Savannah First African Baptist Church
and president of the national Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, set
out with other black Baptists for the convention in Indianapolis as first-
class guests of the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad. Love
and his party made it only to Baxley, Georgia, where fifty whites armed
with clubs and pistols boarded the train and beat the "well-dressed"
delegates and drove them from the train. Black Baptists felt it keenly
when white Baptists also kept them at arm's length.8
H. H. Tucker, editor of the Christian Index, explained the white Bap-
tists' justification for insisting on the social inequality of the races: "It is
true that the creation of God made us one, but it is also true that the
providence of God has made us two; and what God has put asunder let
not man join together. As God has made two races of us, there ought to
be two; he would not have made two if one had sufficed. If infinite
wisdom has thus decided on plurality, it is our highest wisdom to
acquiesce in it. If God himself has drawn the color line, it is vain as well
as wicked for us to try to efface it." Whites like Baptist pastor E. B. Teague
believed that the tenet of perpetual social inferiority should form no
obstacle to good relations between black and white Baptists. The black
portion of Teague's Selma, Alabama, church had constituted their own
congregation, which met in the church basement. Speaking by invita-
tion to the black church, Teague told them that he had not changed his
opinions that they would be "servants in fact to the end of time." Teague
boasted that they had later invited him to teach ministerial candidates
and assist them in other ways.9
White Baptists praised African-American preachers who refused to
agitate the question of social equality. They did not trust the piety of
preachers who would not accept the "proper place" of blacks. Whites
appreciated it when blacks sought out their aid and counsel, in part
because they saw the requests as admissions of white superiority. On
rare occasions, white churches invited trusted blacks to preach.10
Political polarization strengthened the barrier to fellowship. Although
the Republican party in the South had some success among upcountry
whites, its main strength was among the newly enfranchised blacks. In
the 1867 elections, 70 to 90 percent of eligible black voters turned out,
and the Republican agenda triumphed in every southern state. Most
white southerners found Republican rule galling, for it meant rule by
Yankees and blacks. Baptist professor Basil Manly Jr. grieved at leaving
his beloved South Carolina for Kentucky, but he said that he longed to
exchange "the degradation of this negro government" for white rule.11
Postwar blacks became ardent students of civil democracy by form-
ing political organizations and becoming party workers and candidates.
Along with free blacks, artisans, and soldiers, ministers assumed a lead-
ing role. In 1867, a black Baptist minister named J. W. Toer toured

Georgia with his magic lantern slide show depicting the benefits of
Republican rule. Baptist preacher Thomas Allen won election to the
Georgia legislature, as did numbers of black clergy across the South.
When Redeemer Democrats gained control of southern states, the black
clergy turned their influence against emerging Jim Crow laws and in
support of local prohibition ordinances. With the exception of their
agreement about prohibition, black and white Baptists were at odds in
the impassioned political struggles of the period.12
When the Democratic party triumphed in the 1874 elections, David
Butler, editor of the Christian Index, clothed the event in religious garb:
"The social elevation of the negro by legal enactments could find no
argument in his natural inferiority to the white race, but its positive
condemnation. It is unnatural, and, therefore, morally wrong.... The
political victory of this month is a Christian triumph." Such social views
made separate church organizations inevitable. The black Baptist min-
ister Garrison Frazier conceded this in 1865 in an interview with Sec-
retary of War Edwin M. Stanton and General William T. Sherman. When
asked whether they would prefer to live "scattered among the whites,
or in colonies by yourselves," Frazier, with the assent of others, answered
that white social opinion necessitated separation: "I would prefer to live
by ourselves, for there is a prejudice against us in the South that will
take years to get over."13
Nor could African-American Baptists accept white pastors. They reck-
oned that white Christians, especially white preachers, had practiced
their religion in hypocrisy. Though they preached against stealing, they
upheld a system founded on the theft of human beings. Preachers and
church leaders had brutalized slaves often enough to attract notice. Black
Baptists preferred to entrust the intimacy of church fellowship, the free-
dom of worship, the integrity of discipline, and the orthodoxy of preach-
ing to their own race. A. T. Holmes complained that black Baptists "are
not willing, as a general thing, that white men shall labor among them
as preachers.... Even while they were slaves, a negro preacher would
gather crowds to hear him, when such men as Drs. Fuller, Poindexter
and Winkler, would command, comparatively, small congregations."14
Great preachers emerged to lead Georgia's black Baptists. William J.
White was pastor of Augusta's Harmony Baptist Church. He was an
agent for the Freedman's Bureau and a delegate to the Republican
National Convention. He edited the Georgia Baptist, which became the
state convention's official paper, from 1880 to 1913 and was vice presi-
dent of Spelman Seminary. E. R. Carter served Atlanta's large Friend-
ship Baptist Church. He stumped for prohibition around the South and
helped get Atlanta's 1885 antiliquor law passed. E. K. Love served the
"largest church in the United States," Savannah's five-thousand-
member First African Baptist Church. He also served as assistant pro-
fessor, associate editor, and missionary for the American Baptist Home
Mission Board and for the American Baptist Publication Society.15
Black preachers had staked a claim to authority in black churches that
no living white preacher could match: Many had endured suffering at
the hands of whites for preaching the gospel. In colonial Savannah, black
Baptist Andrew Bryan refused to stop preaching and suffered a public
flogging; he said that he rejoiced to be whipped and was willing to die
for the cause of Christ. When Bryan's successor, Andrew Marshall, lost
favor with white Baptists around 1820 because they suspected him of
following Alexander Campbell's teachings, he was publicly whipped
under selectively enforced laws. This title to moral authority impressed
some white preachers: One white minister praised Willis Warren, a black
pastor in the vicinity of Albany, Georgia, saying that "he would go far-
ther to see Willis Warren and hear him preach, than he would to see
Spurgeon or any other distinguished preacher . . . because he can say
what no Baptist preacher now living can say, that he has been repeat-
edly whipped for preaching the Gospel and yet held out."16
Robert Ryland, white pastor of Richmond's First African Baptist
Church for twenty-five years, recognized that although his learning and
piety evoked esteem from white Baptists, his two thousand black
parishioners preferred a preacher of their own race. Ryland recorded
that black preacher Joseph Abrams "was heard with far more interest
than I was, and on this account, I should have often requested him to
speak, but for fear of involving him and the church in legal trouble. On
one occasion he was describing the trials to which early Christians were
subject, when he said, These troubles were not confined to the apos-
tolic age. Even I can say with Paul, "I bear in my body the marks of the
Lord Jesus/ "—alluding to a whipping that some wicked men had given
him in his early days for preaching the gospel. The effect was thrilling."
Under such circumstances, black Baptists rarely sought out white pas-
tors or their preaching.17
Whites nevertheless expressed surprise and dismay that blacks so
quickly sought independence from the white churches. They still
believed that God had given them responsibility for the moral and
intellectual development of southern blacks. Emancipation merely
imposed new duties: "Has the time come for us to approve and advo-
cate the education of the colored people in our midst?" Several asso-
ciations answered: "It has." Whites had the "solemn duty" to educate
the former slaves "up to a point of intelligence where they can stand
alone, and take care of themselves."18
After the war, northern denominations spent millions of dollars to
provide schools and teachers for southern blacks. Southern denomina-
tions later joined this effort but directed most of their educational efforts
at restoring the lost endowments of their academies, colleges, and theo-
logical schools. The northern Home Mission Board established Atlanta
Baptist Seminary (now Morehouse College) as the Augusta Theologi-

cal Institute in 1867. The school closed in 1870 because the northern
teacher faced local resistance to his egalitarian agenda. White Georgia
Baptists revived the school by persuading the northern board to appoint
Georgia native Joseph T. Robert as its head. As a southerner, Robert
could safely promote black education because he did not advocate black
social equality. Individual Georgia Baptists and the Southern Baptist
Convention supplied scholarships for students.19
The Southern Baptist Convention heard annual reports on the con-
dition of the black population, sought help from northern Baptists, and
appointed a number of missionaries, some of them black, to preach
among them, build churches, provide basic education, and establish
Sunday schools. The Home Mission Board resolved to establish a theo-
logical school for black ministers. White and black Georgia Baptists
cooperated with the northern board to support four freedmen as mis-
sionaries to Georgia blacks.20
Georgia Baptists conducted their own institutes for training black
ministers. E. W. Warren of Macon First Baptist Church enlisted the aid
of other white Baptist leaders in 1869 to conduct a month-long course
for black clergy, whose travel expenses and board were paid. The insti-
tute continued annually for many years, and the state convention
appointed a missionary to conduct similar institutes throughout the
state.21
Unable to dispel the sense that God had made southern whites the
guardians and pedagogues of black southerners, the whites expressed
pain and confusion as their spiritual children struck out on their own.
One church could not elude feelings of responsibility even after the
African-American members had formed a new church. Although the
former slaves "are almost entirely unacquainted with the management
of Church affairs, they have evinced no disposition to receive enlight-
ened instruction; but on the contrary have seemed disposed to keep
themselves in the dark, by shutting off from them those who might lead
them aright Our church hereby advise most affectionately the breth-
ren of our sister Church to whom we feel that we should speak rather
as a parent to a child, that if they wish to prosper as a church of Christ,
they should seek every means of obtaining light as possible." The
churches were unwilling to perform this God-given duty before the war
and unable after it.22
Some whites made the attempt. They insisted that their African-
American spiritual progeny loved them and appreciated their assistance.
White pastor J. J. D. Renfroe boasted that the black members of his
Alabama church had declined to form their own church and "always
crowd the house to hear me preach. . . . Our church, in this place, has
attempted to get along with them just as we did before the war, and we
have succeeded." P. F. Burgess, for four years the white pastor of Goshen
Colored Baptist Church, praised the good sense of this church to "have
always chosen their own preacher, and have never had anyone but a
white minister to preach to them." Black Baptists sometimes requested
white preachers. White Baptists took such exceptions as vindication.23
Former slaves who remained in white churches were proof to whites
of the superiority of their religion. When Anderson Battle, an African-
American member of a white Baptist church, died in 1897, the church
inscribed a memorial in the church book: "Soon after his conversion . . .
it appeared to him that there was a difference in the religion of the races
and after much prayer and inquiry, being Satisfied his White brethren
[had] both the piety and intelligence, he applied to the Bethesda Church
for membership and was baptized into her fellowship by Bro J. S.
Callaway Oct the 6th 1877. . . . He loved to talk about God and the
bible.... Brethren let us imitate his example and live for the glory of
God. . . . He was often importuned to take his letter and Join the Col-
ored people's Church of his own race, and upbraided much for leaving
them, yet he remained faithful to his White brethren." Battle's choice
showed that whites were the true friends of black Baptists.24
Faced with evidence that African Americans were less than grateful
to their former caretakers, southern whites blamed it on northern phi-
lanthropists, educators, and missionaries who had filled the minds of
former slaves with notions of social equality. The Freedmen's Bureau
and northern benevolent societies sent hundreds of agents and mission-
aries to the South. Many missionaries agreed with the bureau's inten-
tion to give the freedmen land in addition to protection and schools.
The bureau confiscated 850,000 acres and set out to provide black house-
holds with forty-acre tracts. Although President Johnson ended the
bureau's land redistribution program—most of the bureau's land went
back to its former owners—northern-sponsored social reform made
southern whites nervous.25
The meddling northerners had made it impossible for blacks to receive
assistance from southern whites, who understood them better. Whites
were being frustrated in fulfilling their divine duty to enlighten black
Christians because
there has been a labored effort, since the war, to alienate the negro from
his former owner. An influence has been at work to array them in oppo-
sition to each other, and strong inducements have been presented, urg-
ing the negro to persist in his opposition, in the form of mules and forty
acre farms. Songs and sermons, lectures and lessons have all been used
to convince the negro that the Southern white man is his enemy. . . .
Wherever this influence has been exerted most successfully, there have
been manifested, most signally, the jealousy, suspicion and hostility of
the negro, and there have we witnessed his boldest attempts to assume
the position of equality with the white man.
The southern whites believed that "providence has schooled us for two
centuries that we may be the better qualified to teach and elevate" the
black race. White preachers filled news items with accounts of how they
were welcomed into the meetings of black associations and black
churches and how the African-American preachers "constantly asked
advice and expressed gratitude for assistance rendered."26
When requested, white Baptist churches dismissed their black mem-
bers without objection and assisted them in setting up new churches,
but they did not welcome the independent churches. When black mem-
bers of Athens First Baptist wanted to separate, white pastor F. H. Ivey
and a white deacon unsuccessfully tried to persuade them to remain.
"The question was discussed in the kindest manner on both sides." The
black members voted in favor of separation anyway.27
White associations likewise counseled against separation. When
churches asked the associations whether it was "advisable for the col-
ored members of our Churches to take letters of dismission and form
Churches of their own," the associations answered that "it is lawful, but
we do not think it expedient at present in the country." It was not
expedient, white Baptists felt, because they had not yet given their black
members sufficient training to govern churches according to gospel
order. Therefore, Baptist preachers urged that "it would not be best to
separate from them in our church relations. At present they are not
prepared to set up churches for themselves, and to direct the affairs of
the Kingdom."28
By 1880, the exodus of African Americans from white churches was
largely complete. Black churches formed their own associations and state
conventions. Black Baptists in Georgia joined the formation of the
National Baptist Convention in Atlanta in 1895. Savannah's E. K. Love
was elected president of the national Foreign Mission Baptist Conven-
tion, one of the precursors of the National Baptist Convention. But blacks
did not seek to alienate themselves from white Baptists. On the con-
trary, they considered themselves members of the same denominational
family as the white Baptists, despite their separate organizations. The
question of social equality and the depth of emotion that attended it
kept them separate, but separation did not diminish their commitment
to the Baptist tradition of democratic religion.29
Black Baptists and the Baptist Heritage

African-American Baptists embraced democratic authority in part
because they claimed Baptist identity. "Our church has come through
trials and persecution in all ages, from the days of Christ till now. For
there never was a time since our blessed Lord . . . but that there were
men and women practicing and believing just what Baptists are prac-
ticing and believing to-day." They hoped to give impulse to "the Bap-
tist chariot, conquering and to conquer, until we shall plant the Baptist
church upon every mountain, hill-top and valley, from shore to shore,
from pole to pole."30
The traditional doctrine of Baptist succession found clear expression

in statements of black Baptist leaders. W. H. Tilman, who in 1874 be-
came a missionary of the black Missionary Baptist Convention of Geor-
gia, traced African-American Baptist history through the trail of blood
back to John the Baptist: "The Baptist church history, we claim, is writ-
ten in blood. During all the world's dark ages they were preserved among
all the nations and called by all manner of names—heretics in the first
two centuries. They mingled with the Messalians, Euchites, Montanists;
in the third, fourth and fifth centuries with the Novatians, and Donatists;
in the seventh with the Paulicians; in the tenth, the Paterines; in the
eleventh century, the Waldenses, Albigensis [sic], Henicians [sic], and
Christians." African Americans now stood in this bloodline, proving that
they were worthy of the Baptist name by recounting their own suffer-
ing. "All through the winding ages the Baptists have been called to
endure keen sacrifice and terrible suffering." Andrew Bryan and Andrew
Marshall both suffered for establishing the first African-American Bap-
tist church in Georgia, the first being "whipped until he bled profusely."
William J. White, longtime editor of an African-American Baptist
weekly, connected black Baptists to this tradition while advising them
not to celebrate Easter. "The Baptists are a peculiar and distinct band of
God's believing children. They have fought for nearly two thousand
years in defense of the teachings of the new testament The Baptists
did not spring from the Catholic [church], and consequently have no
part nor lot with Catholic feasts and festivals."31
While they identified themselves as heirs to the same Baptist heri-
tage that white Baptists claimed, they put a polite construction on their
separation. "Our white brethren do not deny our relation through the
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, but popular sentiment is so much against
social equality that our brethren are afraid to allow us religious affilia-
tion for fear that it might be termed social equality." Black Baptists were
wounded by the aloof posture of most white clergy. One black pastor
gently rebuked his white comrades and insisted upon their unity: "We
are sorry to say that while we have been brethren for the last century,
the world hasn't been able to discern that brotherly affection which
characterizes brethren. . . . Oh, brethren, for 100 years we have been
trying to catch you. We really thought sometimes that you were run-
ning from us instead of running toward us.... You were our brethren
in ante bellum times, you are our brethren now, and you will be our
brethren to-morrow." Many black Baptists sought the advice, assistance,
and endorsement of whites because they saw themselves as heirs to the
same tradition.32
Before emancipation, they embraced the Baptist heritage of Calvin-
ism. Although some historians have posited that black Christians dis-
carded original sin, predestination, and orthodox Calvinism, many black
Baptist preachers taught it in their churches. Harry Toulmin, an English
Unitarian minister, praised in 1793 the sermon of a Virginia slave, even

"though he introduced the Calvinistical doctrine." George Liele, an
African-American Baptist preacher first in Savannah and then in
Jamaica, told the English Baptist John Rippon in 1791 that he believed
in "election, redemption, the fall of Adam, regeneration, and persever-
ance." Andrew Marshall, from 1812 to 1856 pastor of the oldest inde-
pendent black Baptist church, Savannah First African, deemed that his
favorite books were the strictly Calvinist commentaries of the English
Baptist preacher John Gill. Marshall's preaching pushed Calvinism to
the edge of antinomianism. His doctrinal preaching made him all the
more popular with his burgeoning Savannah congregation. His preach-
ing impressed geologist Charles Lyell, as it did Presbyterian leader J. L.
Kirkpatrick, who was delighted to hear Marshall present "so clear and
decided a testimony to the precious though unpopular [Calvinistic]
doctrines of Grace."33
John E. Dawson, white pastor of the Baptist church in LaGrange,
Georgia, attracted the criticism of a slave preacher during the 1840s for
not preaching predestination more often. Dawson's sister, bemused that
an uneducated slave would criticize her brother's theology, described
the encounter between the two men: "He was accosted on the street
by a colored brother, who enjoyed some popularity as a preacher.
Though altogether illiterate, he thought well of himself. . . . Said he,
'Bro. Dawson, why don't you preach more about Election?' 'Because,
Bro. Giles,' replied my brother, 'I know so little about it.' 'O, Brother
Dawson, I'm astonished to hear a smart man like you talk so; why I
understands it just as well, and I have great freedom in preaching it to
my people.' Introducing a companion who had accompanied him, he
said: 'Why, I have brought this Methodist brother along to get you to
convince him.'" Rebutting the charge of Arminianism, Dawson pro-
fessed firm belief in the "sovereign, electing, love of God," claiming, "I
have never discussed these high themes much, because I have not
understood them, and I do not like to meddle with questions too high
for me."34
After emancipation, the African-American churches retained much
of the heritage. Charles O. Boothe, pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church in Montgomery, Alabama, promoted Calvinism in the only black
Baptist theology text published during this period. His 1890 Plain The-
ology for Plain People asserted that "before the foundation of this world"
God unalterably "chose certain persons." He counseled reverence be-
fore the mystery of predestination and reprobation: "If we ask why they
were chosen and others left, we find that no answer has been given by
him who alone can explain his reasons."35
The African-American associations enshrined Baptist Calvinism in
their creeds. In Georgia alone, at least fourteen hyper-Calvinist Primi-
tive Baptist associations arose. However, the black missionary associa-
tions were just as committed to the doctrines of limited atonement and

unconditional election as the black Primitives. When black Baptists in
Mississippi met at their Baptist Missionary Convention in 1870, they
adopted a confession asserting that "all who share in the saving ben-
efits of his atonement were chosen in Christ before the foundation of
the world."36
In many instances, the black churches and associations adopted the
same Calvinist "Articles of Faith" that the white churches had adopted.
Black Baptists demonstrated their sense of identity as Baptists when they
invited white ministers to help them form new churches or associations.
Whites joined them in examining letters of dismission, articles of faith,
and views on church government, and blacks and whites together
extended "the right hand of fellowship" to the new churches. Black
Baptist associations received the new churches only after they were
"examined by us and found orthodox."37
Confessions of faith in black associations were Calvinist. Among the
African-American Baptist associations in Georgia, the confession adopted
most commonly gave full expression to the doctrines of grace.
ART. Ill We believe in the fall of Adam and the imputation of his sin to
posterity, in the corruption of human nature, and in the impotency of
man to recover himself from his lost estate. . . .
ART. IV We believe in the everlasting love of God to his people in
eternal and particular election of a definite number of the human race to
grace and glory and that before the world began there was a covenant
made between the Father and the Son in which the salvation of the re-
deemed is made secure.
The second most common pattern of confession was more concise but
just as Calvinist, asserting original sin, "the impotency of man to re-
cover himself of his own free will and ability," and election, that "those
who were chosen in Christ will be effectually called, regenerated, . . .
so that not one of them will be finally lost." Even the most elliptical
confessions, such as that of the Zion Baptist Association, confessed "the
doctrine of human depravity" and "election to eternal life."38
Black Baptist preachers had to show their orthodoxy to be ordained.
White ministers, whom black churches frequently invited to ordain
black ministers, rejected candidates who rejected Calvinism. They never
hesitated to reject unworthy candidates, white or black, and Arminian-
ism was grounds not only for rejection but also for disfellowshiping.
Baptist associations refused to ordain any candidates who did not "be-
lieve it to be expedient to preach and contend for the doctrine of pre-
destination and election."39
Prerequisite to ordination was a public two-hour examination on
candidates' conversion, call to the ministry, theology, and views on
church government. As late as 1892, a white presbytery (as they called
such a group of Baptist ministers) might require an ordination candi-
date to elucidate "his doctrinal views on Inspiration, the Trinity, Total

Depravity, Divinity and humanity of Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit
in Regeneration, the Atonement, Salvation by Grace, Justification
through Faith, Foreknowledge and purpose of God, Predestination, Final
Perseverance of the Saints, Baptism, . . . the Lord's Supper, . . . the
Church, . . . and Associations, Conventions, Societies, etc."40
They did not relax their standards for black candidates. Both before
and after the war, black candidates underwent careful scrutiny. A white
presbytery omitted nothing when examining "Bro Milton the Colored
Preacher" in 1855: "The Presbytery being perfectly Satisfied as to his
call and to his knowledge of all the doctrinal points believed and prac-
tised by the Baptist denomination it was unanimously agreed that
Milton should be Ordained." When a white presbytery ordained a former
slave in 1868, one member commented that "Brother Bell stood his
examination well, and was considered unusually sound in the faith."41
African-American Baptists demonstrated a similar rigor in their ordi-
nation examinations. They showed no hesitation to reject candidates,
and their councils required evidence of sound doctrine and morals. One
ordination council reported that they had "Examined Bro. A. Cooper
and have not found him the proper Subject for ordination." The church
requested an explanation. The council replied that "they found Bro.
Cooper Deficiant interlectualy and moraly."42
To secure ordination, candidates appearing before African-American
presbyteries had to give "perfect satisfaction to both council and church
as regards his Christian experience, call to the ministry and soundness
in doctrine." A presbytery of four black ministers examined one candi-
date on his conversion, his call to the ministry, and his doctrine:
The Rev. E. P. Johnson and the pastor, D. C. Bracy, were called on to
examine the applicant on Christian doctrine. As everybody knows that
the Rev. E. P. Johnson is one of the deep thinking men of the race, when
he and his partner Bracy got through with the applicant, he (F. B. Jor-
dan) was found with a straw in his mouth chewing on it as if he was mad
with it; the Chairman told him to take the straw out of his mouth, so he
did but it was not long before the Chairman had to give him another straw
for the straw was helping him, so he said. This Bro. Jordan was glad when
Rev. Johnson turned him back over to the Chairman. Then Rev. D. S.
Klugh of your city [Augusta] examined him on church government. All
who know Rev. Klugh know that he is quite a deep thinker and when he
got through with him the straw was lost and the applicant almost speech-
less with eyes leaking tears and deep sorrow on his face.
Jordan managed to satisfy the council, which recommended his ordi-
nation. Such councils—often consisting of black and white ministers—
maintained both Baptist identity and Calvinist orthodoxy.43
The African-American churches did not nurture the Calvinist heri-
tage; it weakened from the neglect. Black Baptists did not reject the
concepts of total depravity and election to grace but occupied themselves
with a more pressing concern: the race issue. Baptist piety entailed
ameliorating the social distress. Their sermons, newspapers, and asso-
ciation meetings addressed the question of how to accomplish both
Baptist advance and racial uplift. Associations purposed "the better
advancement of the cause of Christ, and unwavering fidelity to the
colored race." They sought to educate their children for "the advance-
ment of the Baptist cause and the betterment of our people generally."44
Looking to the past, T. J. Hornsby averred that white Baptists before
the war "believed and preached the same doctrine that they embrace,
believe and preach to-day" and that "the colored Baptists embraced,
believed and preached the same, yea, the very same." Blacks sometimes
claimed to be even more orthodox than whites: "There is one thing
you'll not find among the negro Baptists that is found among the white
Baptists. Among the negroes there are very few Free Will Baptists and
open communionists." African Americans were true Baptists who main-
tained the exclusivist vision of the church. The question was whether
white Baptists would own the fact. Black Baptists were grieved that,
although the whites recognized them "as brethren, for we are one in
doctrine and church ordinances," they did not treat them as brethren.
When they visited white associations, they received "back seats as
usual." They could conclude only that what separated them was the
insistence of whites on social inequality, for they had not wavered from
orthodoxy.45
Democratic Authority and Voluntary Submission

They remained firm also in their exercise of discipline. Black Baptists
continued to support a democratic church in which the members sub-
ordinated their individual rights to the moral authority of the saints.
They constituted themselves churches in traditional fashion with church
covenants and articles of faith. Augusta's Springfield Baptist Church
periodically read publicly its church covenant, which so clearly expressed
the duty of members to submit that clerks sometimes called it "the dis-
cipline." The pastor at Springfield made known to new members "the
Rules of the church." When converts joined, they entered a covenant
of authority.46
Black associations adopted statements of "Gospel Order" that de-
scribed the desired submission: The church was "a congregation of faith-
ful persons who gained Christian fellowship with each other and have
agreed to keep up a godly discipline agreeable to the rules of the gos-
pel." The discipline was necessary for "the purity of the church and for
the reclaiming of those members who may be disorderly, either in prin-
ciple or practice, and should be kept up for the glory of God."47
Before the Civil War, black churches and the semiautonomous black
congregations within white churches appointed a few men, often the
deacons, to oversee the flock. Their function was moral oversight. They
had responsibility for all phases of discipline: making accusations, inves-
tigating charges, and laboring with offenders. After the war, they con-
tinued the same practice.48
The churches continued to require straying members to confess sin
and express submission. Even when the church forgave, it asserted its
authority by condemning the sin and rebuking the offender. When
Springfield Baptist Church charged sister A. L. Butts with dancing, "she
came forward and acknoledge her Guilt and ask the forgiveness of the
church. She was Received With a charge from the chair to go and Do
So no Moore." When Randall Culbreth confessed to fighting and sought
pardon of the church, "his act was condemned and he was Rebuked by
the Pastor and told to go and do so no Moore." Expelled members seek-
ing readmission had to vindicate the church, as when William Jones,
excluded for blasphemy, "came forward [and} acknoledge that the
church did him Right by Excluding him."49
Members who refused to accept this authority had to leave. William
Anderson confessed to drunkenness, but before his case could be decided
he "vacated his Sect" and left the church conference. The conference
charged him "with contempt to the church" and excluded him. Later
restored to membership, he almost repeated his mistake when he voted
against excluding a member charged with blasphemy. "Bro. William
Anderson refusing to vote with the church was called forward to know
his objections for so doing. After hearing from and Showing him his
rongness for So doing, he ask the pardon of the church."50
In the winter of 1898, one deacon at Springfield Baptist Church tired
of the distasteful diaconal duty of managing discipline. "Dea. John Hughs
was reported to the church for refusing to report or look after the case
of Bro. S. Harris who was reported to him." When Hughs appeared
before the church the next month, he defended his course, saying that
"he was not going to hunt up Sin." The church argued at some length
to show Hughs the error of his position. Failing to persuade him, they
removed him from the office of deacon. In the end, however, he begged
the church to forgive him for not discharging his duty, and the church
restored him.51
Black discipline did not vary much from white discipline. Blacks
adopted the same standard of sexual morality: fornication was as bad
as adultery. The antebellum white-controlled churches tried black
members for sexual offenses at an annual rate of sixty trials per ten
thousand black members. The antebellum independent black churches
prosecuted sexual offenses at the higher rate of eighty trials per ten
thousand members. They also excommunicated 95 percent of their
members accused of sexual offenses, compared with the 83 percent rate
at which antebellum white-controlled churches excluded blacks accused
of the same offenses. As a result, they excluded their members for sexual
immorality at an annual rate of seventy-six per ten thousand members

and surpassed the rate at which the antebellum white-controlled
churches excluded black members for the same sins by 50 percent. The
black churches maintained virtually identical rates from 1861 to 1900.52
African-American Baptist churches also did not tolerate such offenses
against the church as absence, contempt, heresy, or joining other
denominations. Members who took letters of dismission but did not join
another Baptist church risked excommunication if they did not repent,
for joining other denominations was a betrayal of sound doctrine.
Springfield Baptist Church disapproved, for example, of the holiness
doctrine that believers could attain perfection, or entire sanctification,
in this world. Deacon Scott raised the question "if it was Right for our
members to unite with a party of people who clame to be Sanctyfide,
and it was decided it was not Right.... Any of our members who unite
with them or any other church without the knoledge of this church be
Reported for Such and be Dealt with by the church." Springfield sur-
passed antebellum white-controlled churches in the trial rate of mem-
bers for offenses against the church.53
Although the African-American churches were milder than the
antebellum white-controlled churches in cases of crimes against prop-
erty, they refused to countenance such offenses. The white churches
often charged slave members with stealing the produce of the field or
barn. The antebellum independent black churches accused members
of crimes against property at less than half the rate of the white churches.
After emancipation, the rate fell even more. In the antebellum period,
the independent black churches expelled the accused as often as the
white-controlled churches; after emancipation, they treated the guilty
with more sympathy, excommunicating accused thieves half the time,
whereas the prewar white-controlled churches excluded blacks accused
of theft three-fourths of the time.54
African-American Baptists did not make peace with "worldly amuse-
ments.'' They accounted as offenders members who danced, fiddled,
played cards, cast dice, or played billiards, as well as those who attended
the circus, theater, or opera. It was as true after the Civil War as it had
been before: "When I jined de church, I quit dancin'." In cases involv-
ing amusements, the antebellum independent black churches pros-
ecuted their members at a rate two and a half times greater than the
rate at which the antebellum white-controlled churches prosecuted
black members. After emancipation, the white churches grew more
tolerant of dancers, but the black churches tightened the reins. They
tripled the rate at which they brought dancers to trial and excluded the
accused twice as often. In 1887, the Springfield church passed a resolu-
tion to treat dancing and attendance at balls as grave or "speedy offenses,"
which, like adultery, required excommunication. Some members felt
that amusements did not merit the same penalty as adultery, and they
presented in 1901 a resolution to remove from the list of speedy offenses

such amusements as attending the circus and the opera. Although the
resolution eventually passed—after prolonged debate—the church con-
tinued to exclude circusgoers and opera patrons in the same speedy
fashion as adulterers.55
After emancipation, black Baptists expressed ideas and practices strik-
ingly similar to those of antebellum white Baptists. Slave religion was
far more than a form of social resistance. Black Baptists rejected sla-
very and the doctrine of racial inferiority, but in ecclesiology and the-
ology they shared a broad consensus with white Baptists. They ordered
their churches according to the Baptist ideal of democratic religion.
6
Freedom, Authority,
and Doctrine
Baptist discipline manifested fidelity to the evangelical exclusivist tem-

perament, especially to its insistence on a church separate from the
world and established in purity. Manifesting the same commitment to
exclusivism in their approach to theological truth, Baptists turned to
ecclesiastical authority to ensure pure belief as well as pure deportment.
They strove to repel the onslaught of modern ideas by means of church
discipline. Erroneous beliefs merited exclusion from the church, and
Baptist covenants linked church discipline to sound belief. They pledged
to exert "a Godly Discipline" against any departure from "the Faith, once
delivered to the Saints."1
Popular Theology
God required churches to maintain orthodox dogma, southern Baptists
believed. The church's duty was to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ
in the expectation of the supernatural regeneration and salvation of lost
souls, and this evangelistic purpose required doctrinal purity. Without
orthodoxy, churches could neither sustain their evangelistic mission nor
properly retain the name "church of Christ." Baptists saw orthodoxy as
the foundation of morality in that right belief results in right behavior.
They were to be patient with people, but not with error, which led to
84
Freedom, Authority, and Doctrine 85
immorality and damnation: "No error is small; all error is great. No truth
is insignificant; all truth is important. The antagonism between truth
and error is eternal; to take sides is both a duty and a necessity. To side
with right is peace, joy, and triumph; while the opposite is wretched-
ness, disgrace and everlasting defeat."2
Error had such dire consequences, said Alabama Baptist editor Samuel
Henderson, because "character is the outgrowth of principle." Compar-
ing them to New York's liberal Henry Ward Beecher, Henderson casti-
gated preachers who sought "to Beecherize the pulpit" and who deni-
grated "those old doctrines of grace" because people might be repelled
by Calvinism's harshness. Such an approach, Henderson concluded,
might attract crowds but could not produce moral lives. "What good
will numbers do us without piety? Is that progress that multiplies
our membership and dwarfs our godliness?" At bottom, argued one
preacher, it was sound doctrine that preserved virtue. "Loose doctrine
leads to loose discipline, and loose discipline invariably results in loose
practice." A variety of false doctrines, wrote Samuel S. Law, "would
overturn the very foundations of our hope, or destroy all practical god-
liness." Jesse Mercer viewed "a right apprehension" of fundamental
doctrines as "essential to Christian character." Orthodoxy, southern
Baptists widely believed, was the foundation of morality.3
Baptist leaders claimed that salvation itself depended upon correct
theology. When he read the claim that "the best preaching has nothing
to do with doctrines, for doctrines, after all, are of no importance," David
E. Butler, editor of the Christian Index, replied that "doctrinal sermons
are usually good. The best preaching has most to do with doctrines, for
doctrines, after all, are the grand essentials to the soul's salvation." There
is "nothing," wrote J. H. Harris, "better than orthodoxy."4
Jesse Mercer once sought to persuade subscribers that his Christian
Index was worth the subscription price by reassuring them that its edi-
tor "is rather of the Old, than of the new school; and inclines to the old
fashioned doctrine of free grace, as preached among the Baptists, near
half a century ago." He endorsed the "calvinistic writers" of the former
generation, "Gill, Owen, Brown, Toplady, and Hervy," who taught that
"the Atonement is special, both in its provisions and applications."
Mercer's list conveyed immovable orthodoxy. Puritan Congregational-
ist John Owen (1616-1683) wrote extensively on the main themes of
high Calvinism. Separatist Congregationalist Robert Browne (d. 1633)
taught the duty of establishing true Reformed churches apart from the
Church of England. Episcopal priest and hymn writer Augustus Toplady
(1740-1778) was a great admirer of John Gill's exposition of Calvin-
ism. Gill, pastor of Horsley Down Baptist Church in London from 1720
until his death in 1771, elaborated a stiff version of Calvinism in his
commentaries and Body of Divinity. Gill's works had wide influence
among Baptists, though his reputation suffered when antimissionary
Baptists claimed him as their inspiration. Georgia Baptists studied his

writings, and Mercer sold sets of Gill's commentaries to all who could
afford the $35 price. Although Mercer pledged to avoid quibbling con-
troversies, he also pledged to uphold doctrine.5
Not only ministerial candidates but also deacons submitted to a test
of orthodoxy. After Bethesda Baptist Church members elected their
choice for deacon, minister Enoch Callaway "examined brother Watts
on the principles of his faith." Countless other ministers examined count-
less other deacons. Well into the nineteenth century, candidates for the
office of deacon "were brought before the presbytery,... gave satisfac-
tory answers to all questions asked, . . . being found orthodox in all
points." Only then were they installed.6
Baptists tended to equate preaching with proclaiming orthodox
dogma. When anyone sought permission from the church to exercise
spiritual gifts in public ministry, churches "liberated" or "licensed" all
who satisfied the church that their gifts were genuine. But they distin-
guished preaching from other offices: Some could lead prayer and sing-
ing, others exhort, but only a few could preach. When someone in the
church charged slave member Ben Bugg with "preaching contrary to
the Laws of the State & without permission from the church," the church
accepted his plea that he had "never exercised further than prayer
meeting & exhortation." Preaching was something else. It was not
merely "exhortation"; it was "exercise in ... Doctrine."7
Preaching was subject to the theological judgment of the church. Two
slave members asked Phillips Mill Baptist Church for permission to
"exercise their gift in Doctrin," but when the church heard them teach,
"it was thought best only to liberate them to Sing and pray in public."
The laity had a high interest in doctrinal questions. Most churches read
their church covenants, including their confessions of faith, four times
a year. The ceremonies familiarized members with the doctrines and
occasionally created debate. After the covenant was read in Powelton
Baptist Church, "an objection was started [stated?] by some of the Breth-
ren, to that part that denies the ability of natural men to perform actions
that are morally Good." The church discussed the matter at two con-
ferences before dismissing the objection as "groundless." On similar
occasions, the men and women of Powelton Baptist Church "spent
sometime in discussing a portion of the covenant" or "freely discussed"
their church covenant.8
Differences over doctrine led to schisms. Powelton Baptist Church
divided when four members walked out and formed their own church
in 1791. They were disgruntled that the church had not charged other
members with heresy for believing Andrew Fuller's general provision
approach to the doctrine of the atonement. An English Baptist, Fuller
(1754-1815) admired the evangelical Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards
and deeply influenced Baptist missionary William Carey. His Gospel
Worthy of All Acceptation urged the obligation to evangelize the lost.

Hyper-Calvinists thought him an Arminian because he argued that
Christ's death was for all in its provision, but for the elect only in its
intention and application. He was popular among southern Baptists
because, in addition to upholding the doctrine of particular election, he
insisted on church discipline and evangelistic preaching.
The four Calvinist stalwarts at Powelton were angry that the church
tolerated this modification of Calvinist particular redemption. The
church saw the matter differently. Pastor Silas Mercer asked whether
the church should "excommunicate a member, for holding what is called
a general provision?" The majority thought not. The church expelled
the four separated members for creating a schism.9
The disagreement revealed the extent to which ordinary church
members were interested in intricate points of doctrine. It also revealed
the extent to which Baptist laypeople were willing to break fellowship
over doctrine. They were willing to divide not merely over doctrine but
also over a disagreement about whether certain doctrines were hereti-
cal. Most members of Powelton probably were not general provisionists;
they did not embrace Fuller's view of the atonement but merely declined
to call it heresy. This was no policy of tolerance; Powelton Baptist Church
excluded members who embraced Universalism, Deism, and General
Baptist or Arminian principles. Like other Baptists, they excluded any-
one whose beliefs departed significantly from the Baptist system of
Calvinist doctrine.10
Southern Baptists learned from Fuller's biographers that the mem-
bers of his church argued for many months over "the abstract question
of the power of sinful men to do the will of God, and to keep them-
selves from sin." And they exhibited the same interest in theological
precision. Long Run Church in Kentucky divided in 1804 when they
disagreed about theology: "Suppose a man has five children. The Indians
come and kill four of them, the fifth one being hidden near by. The
savages then ask the father if he has another child. Would he be justi-
fiable in telling them that he had not?" After impassioned debate, the
"lying party" withdrew and formed their own church. The Arminian
delegates to a joint meeting of Virginia Separate Baptists in 1775 walked
out because the association concluded with a Calvinist response an all-
day debate over the question of whether Christ made salvation possible
for every individual. Virginia's Broad Run Baptist Church excommuni-
cated Nathan Matthew for, among other things, rejecting Calvinism—
"cavilling at the doctrines of grace."11
Baptists championed the rights of conscience and private judgment
in the interpretation of scripture, but people had these rights, they
believed, as citizens of the state, not as members of the churches. The
state had no right to inflict civil or criminal penalties for religious opin-
ions, but churches had every right to inflict spiritual penalties for erro-
neous beliefs. The authority to censure members for wrong doctrine was
a matter of both freedom and unity. Churches could not fulfill their
evangelistic commission unless united in doctrine and morals, but they
could establish this unity only if they could exclude anyone who dis-
rupted it by teaching error. Samuel Law explained it in a circular letter:
"To deny the right of a Church to take cognizance of the religious Sen-
timents of its Members, would be to sacrifice the liberty of the Society
to the licentiousness of the Individual; and [it would be] to say, no Body
of Christians have any right to determine, that they will unite with those
only, who are nearly agreed in their religious sentiments. . . . For two
cannot walk comfortably together except they be agreed; nor can a
Christian Society flourish, where important truth is sacrificed to worldly
policy, under the specious name of candor and liberality." Baptists sub-
mitted both their behavior and their beliefs to the authority of the
congregation.12
Democratic Exclusiveness
Baptists saw their unity as evidence that they followed the apostolic
pattern. They were a mob, a rope of sand consisting of autonomous local
churches, but they agreed on most theological and practical issues. They
accorded their common beliefs and practices a presumption of ortho-
doxy and settled disputed points by appeal to "the common usage of
the churches." The unity did not come easily. For their unity to serve
as a badge of the apostolic tradition, the churches had to restrain inno-
vations through oversight of their members. They responded quickly
to any rumor of departures from Baptist doctrine and usage. The quest
for unity required discipline.13
Jesse Mercer argued that Christian unity consisted of conformity in
theology and ethics. It required "a oneness of sentiment in relation to
things spiritual and divine." It did not require perfect unanimity, but
Mercer insisted on agreement about "the character and law of God; the
nature of sin and the corruption of the heart; salvation by grace, justi-
fication, and cleansing by the righteousness and blood of Christ." Unity
entailed a union of affections among Christians who loved the truth and
loathed error. It also required "agreement in purpose and aim," a desire
for God's glory, for holiness, for future reward, and for the salvation of
sinners. But it was agreement on doctrine that concerned Baptists most,
for they considered theological unity their foundation.14
They deplored the strife that plagued southern churches, but they
deplored aberrant theology more than strife. "Peace is valuable for its
own sake," they held, but "a Christian should ever prefer truth to it."
Not every union was Christian union: "Union at the expense of truth
and principle, we regard as unchristian, and a greater calamity than even
disunion."15
Viewing church government as a department of revealed theology,

they regarded some differences of church polity as worse than division.
The practice of infant baptism, for example, they saw as the root of
fundamental errors, for it contradicted the doctrine of the regenerate
church. Because sprinkling (unlike immersion) was no baptism at all,
moreover, Baptists looked at pedobaptist churches as filled with unbap-
tized people.
For this reason, Baptists held two doctrines that made them odious
to other evangelical Protestants: close communion and the invalidity
of alien immersion. Close communion meant that Baptists could not join
in communion with pedobaptist churches or allow other churches'
members to take communion in Baptist churches. Because baptism was
prerequisite to communion and pedobaptist churches had no baptism,
their members could not properly receive communion. Alien immersion
meant that even the immersion of believers by pedobaptist ministers
was no baptism because pedobaptists erred about baptism. As late as
the 1890s, Southern Baptist leaders viewed rejection of these doctrines
as grounds for nonfellowship. I. R. Branham, editor of the Christian Index,
argued against admitting open communionists into the church.16
Other denominations scorned them for their exclusivist teachings:
"Perhaps nine-tenths of our Pedo-baptist friends," said editor J. C.
McMichael, "think and speak of our so-called 'close communion' as an
unquestionable evidence of Baptist prejudice and bigotry." A Method-
ist lay member claimed that in practice Baptist churches had a simple
constitution: "Art. I.—Baptism by immersion. Art. II.—Close commun-
ion. By Laws—1. Be very bigoted. 2. Be very exclusive." David Butler
spoke for many Baptists when he reflected on the fact that many per-
sons considered Baptists to be uncharitable and illiberal: "Is it bigotry
to maintain the truth?"17
Exclusiveness in doctrine was unpopular, Baptists said, but "in the
hands of the apostles, Christianity was intensely exclusive." As church
union and dogma-free cooperation became the Protestant mottos of the
Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, Baptists were inclined more and
more "to call attention to the exclusiveness of Christianity." While they
did not insist on unanimity as a condition of fellowship, they staked out
a large territory of required agreement. Without "making every differ-
ence of sentiment a ground of non-fellowship," they still believed that
"on fundamental principles, agreement is necessary to fellowship."
Baptists defended their exclusivism with the Old Testament sentiment
that "two cannot walk together except they agree."18
Late in the nineteenth century, when many American Protestants
rallied for "Christian union," Southern Baptists adhered to their doctri-
nal exclusivism. A nondoctrinaire union of churches, H. H. Tucker
pointed out, required every group to sacrifice its creed, "and thus a union
is formed of men, every one of whom has deserted his colors." When
advocates of church union said that doctrine should not keep Christians
apart, Tucker retorted that "they forget that dogma is all that can pos-
sibly keep them together."19
Heresy
Functionally, Baptists defined heresy as any belief incompatible with
membership in a Baptist church. Samuel Boykin, editor of the Christian
Index, defined it as "a departure in some essential particular, either from
the doctrine of Christ or from the practice he enjoined." The term cov-
ered a wide field from atheism to the doctrines of Free Will Baptists.
Baptists felt some ambivalence regarding their posture toward Presby-
terians, Methodists, and other varieties of Baptists; they were sometimes
reluctant to call their errors "heresy." Beyond the circle of traditional
Protestantism, however, they felt no such ambivalence. They expelled
members for Deism, Roman Catholicism, Christian Science, Mormon-
ism, Spiritualism, and Swedenborgianism.20
Deists, who denied miracles and supernatural revelation, did not long
remain in Baptist churches. Samuel Parr held "Deistical Principles." John
Zachary did also and spoke "reproachfully of revealed religion." Brother
Starr said he "did not believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God, and
that, if in his power, he would destroy the Bible." Their fellow Baptists
excommunicated all of them and anyone who agreed with them. Uni-
versalists, who believed that all persons would in the end be saved, met
the same fate. 21
They also expelled careless Calvinists who rejected any major article
of the Calvinist creed. Phillips Mill Baptist Church "agreed not to Com-
mune with any person Who Does not believe In the final perseverance
of the Saints in Grace." Powelton refused to retain fellowship with any-
one who believed that "a real Christian may loose his Christianity and
finally fall from Grace." The same church withdrew fellowship from
Milly Lord and Nancy Thompson for betraying Arminian convictions
when they "joined the General Baptists."22
Southern Baptists excluded persons for a wide variety of false beliefs.
Penfield excluded J. L. Tarwater for "having denied the divine mission
of our Saviour Jesus Christ." Newnan accused H. F. Smith of denying
the resurrection of the dead; only his assurances to the contrary spared
him from exclusion. Atlanta Second Baptist revoked the license of
preacher W. B. Smith for believing that "the impenitent dead were
annihilated." In the early 1880s, Greensboro excluded four persons
for adopting a "creed inconsistent with the existence of the Baptist
church" and for "false views in relation to doctrine as well as church
organization."23
In 1860, Penfield Baptist Church appointed a committee to investi-
gate a report "in regard to certain fundamental changes in the religious
views of Br. Thos. D. Martin," former editor of the Christian Index.

Although Martin first rebuffed the committee as "inquisitorial," he
finally confessed that he had adopted the teachings of Emanuel
Swedenborg. The committee summarized his heresies:
After some delay and reluctantly he professed now to disbelieve the fol-
lowing doctrines which he formerly entertained, and which this Church
holds: The doctrine of three persons in the Godhead, called the Trinity,
of the general resurrection, of election, of salvation through the imputed
righteousness of Christ, and faith in his name; . . . and does not hesitate
to teach, that there is an intermediate state called Purgatory, that all men
will eventually be saved, whether they have, or have not, the Gospel, and
that the lost Spirits in Hell, and even the Devil himself, after suffering
adequately in penal fires, will be developed from the germ of good that
remains undestroyed, into perfect and holy beings, and will then be trans-
ferred to Heaven.
Although the church endorsed him as "a high-minded and strictly hon-
orable gentleman," they excluded him because "the promulgation of
such doctrines, called the Swedenborgian faith, in general, would be
injurious to the cause of religion, [and] that it would be wicked in us as
a Church to endorse any one who entertains them." The church found
the punishment painful but believed it to be God's will that they pre-
serve doctrinal purity.24
Defecting to the Denominations

Although other evangelical denominations in the South practiced doc-
trinal discipline, Baptists made it a badge of honor. They distinguished
themselves partly by their strictness and partly by their tendency to see
Arminianism as an error that endangered the salvation of church mem-
bers. The practice that caught the eye of other denominations, how-
ever, was the Baptist custom of expelling members who wanted to join
non-Baptist churches.
There were only two ways to get out of the Baptist church: excom-
munication and death. The Hightower Association tried to prevent
churches from merely "erasing" or "dropping" names from member-
ship rolls; it ruled that "a member cannot disconnect himself from the
Church of Christ in any other way than, 1st, by death, or 2nd, by regu-
lar expulsion, under a charge, and the vote of the church." Adiel
Sherwood expressed the consensus: Exclusion is "the only door out of
the Church."25
Baptists believed that to belong to any group defined by its beliefs,
one had to accept those beliefs. When Christians changed their theo-
logical views, they therefore often sought to change their church rela-
tions. This included Baptists, who sometimes joined other denomina-
tions because they changed their minds about Baptist doctrine. A. B.
Corley changed his mind in 1842 and decided to join the Methodists;
the Newnan Baptist Church had no option but to expel him because
"he did not believe in the Baptist faith." Phillips Mill Baptist Church
likewise excluded Patsy Moore for declaring "a nonfellowship with
doctrines held by this Church."26
Other members withdrew without joining other denominations—
merely because they now disagreed with Baptist doctrine. In 1873,
Richard Webb, a minister, requested that Savannah Baptist Church drop
his name from the roll because he had experienced "a change of mind
on the communion question." He had accepted open communion,
rejecting the belief that pedobaptist denominations could not share in
Baptist communion observances. This theological fastidiousness
accorded with the advice of the Hightower Association that churches
should admit no one "who has avowed open communion sentiments."
The topic of communion was one of several that drove ministers and
laity from the denomination. Some could simply no longer "subscribe
to the faith of this church."27
The churches agreed that differences in belief constituted grounds for
separation. The Chattahoochee Association announced in 1826 that it
was not "good order for a church to hold members in fellowship who
do protest against the principles & faith she was constituted upon. . . .
When all the proper means have been used or made use of & fail such
an one should be proceeded against as an offender." The Ebenezer
Association advised churches not to grant letters of dismission to mem-
bers who denied "part of the articles of faith on which said Church was
constituted."28
In 1842, William Moore requested that "his name should be erased"
from the church book: "I do not beleive [sic] as you do." The church
appointed a committee to convince him of his errors. Having failed, it
could not agree to erase his name—this would form an unscriptural third
way out of the church—and excommunicated him. When Moore
returned two years later desiring readmission, the church still showed
no disposition to tolerate his theological disagreement. It would receive
him back only "by Recantation."29
Just as some members thought it disingenuous to remain in a church
if they disagreed with its doctrine, so some felt it deceitful to stay if they
did not feel truly converted. Several requested to have their names
removed because they did not believe they were Christians, had "never
been born again of the Spirit," or had "never experienced religion": Pope
Mangum told the Savannah Baptist Church that he had joined "under
an excitement and did not feel that he could continue a member with-
out practicing hypocrisy." Baptists believed that churches should have
no unconverted members; the doctrine of regeneration by the Spirit
shaped their doctrine of the church. They thought that they alone prac-
ticed this truth, for they alone required a narrative of conversion be-
fore all baptisms. Members who felt unregenerate withdrew because

Baptist doctrine seemed to require it. But the churches did not allow
them merely to withdraw: It was not "according to Gospel order to arrace
[erase] a Members name." They rather expelled them for "renunciation
of the faith."30
The most common reason for leaving was love: woe to the Baptist
who married an outsider. Recently married women suffered exclusion
if they joined a church of another denomination, though they often
returned when their husbands died. Eliza Gilbert assured her former
church that despite her recent Methodism she had "always been a bap-
tist at heart."31
Others left because they disliked Baptist discipline or became dissat-
isfied with Baptist worship. Sarah Sargent left when her church refused
to buy an organ. Although some found the church unrefined, others
found it too refined. When Savannah Baptist Church asked Emiline
McClean why she had joined the Methodists, she answered that "she
was made Sport of by some of the Members of the [Baptist] Church,
and She presumed for no other cause than that they were finer dressed
than what she was."32
When members joined other denominations, their churches tried to
convince them of their error, for to leave a Baptist church was to leave
the faith. Savannah excluded Rebecca Stilwell in 1833 because "she had
positively attached herself to a body who professed the Doctrine of Alex.
Campbell which we believe to be Herrisy." Campbell's group held that
faith was intellectual assent and that baptism regenerated the soul.
When Elza Cameron asked LaGrange Baptist Church for a letter of dis-
mission because she was joining the Presbyterians, the church excom-
municated her and ordered the pastor and clerk to explain why: "the
principal [sic] upon which Baptist Churches are organized as a reason
why her request can not [be] granted & Express to her our entire con-
fidence in her as a Christian." The expulsion of members who joined
other denominations did not consign them to hell; error did not auto-
matically entail damnation. Some errors, after all, were worse than
others. But Baptists had to maintain a church pure in doctrine, so they
could not endorse the errors of other denominations. They had to cen-
sure members who turned away from orthodoxy toward the corrupted
creeds of other communions.33
They justified the censures by recalling their duty to oppose error.
Newnan Baptist Church recorded a spate of such cases. It charged Mary
Jane Swint with "having departed from the Faith of the Gospel and the
Scripture rule laid down for the government of the Church by Christ
and the Apostles by attaching herself to the Methodist Society." It
excluded Sarah Skeen for "having united herself to the Methodist
organization, and by that act having as we believe departed from the
faith of the Gospel." It excluded Sarah Sargent for "having joined the
Presbyterians and thereby subscribing to doctrines unsound and unscrip-

tural." It expelled Elizabeth Rainey for having "united herself to the
Presbyterians and thereby having embraced fundamental errors in
religion."34
Some Baptists charged defectors with heresy, though others disliked
this use of the term. There were murmurs even within the Newnan
Baptist Church. In 1854, shortly after the church had expelled Moses
Westbrook for joining the Methodists, Jonathan Wood requested dis-
missal. He explained that he harbored "dissatisfaction with the action
of this Church in excommunicating Moses Westbrook for heresy[,] stat-
ing [that] this Church had made a charge that it could not establish."
But he failed to gain any support for his position. Baptists had a suspi-
cion of arguments for tolerance and liberality. They feared that charity
toward doctrinal differences concealed hidden heresy. When Wood
criticized his church's intolerance, the conference questioned him "in
regard to his faith" and sniffed out "fundamental errors." It expelled
him "for Heresy; that is for embracing a fundamental error in the faith
of the Gospel."35
After the Civil War, Newnan tempered its language when excluding
defectors. In 1867, James Bohanan and his wife joined the Methodist
church. A member brought a resolution of excommunication charging
them with heresy. "After considerable debate," the church adopted
a substitute resolution, excluding the pair merely for having "joined a
church of a different faith and order from this Church." It showed a
reluctance to label Methodism as heretical. And such ambivalence may
have been widespread even before the war. Some postwar churches
continued to equate defection with heresy, or at least to suggest such
an equation. Benevolence Baptist Church excluded Martha Wilson in
1878 "for heresy" when she joined a "church of different faith & order."
In 1882, Powelton excluded Isabella Jackson for "departure from the
faith" when she defected to "a church of a different faith." In 1897,
Crawfordville expelled Maggie Slack, who had "united with the Meth-
odists and departed from the faith." But most churches made no explicit
reference to the heretical character of the offense, either before or after
the war.36
It made little difference, for in practice they treated members who
departed as heretics. When Atlanta Second Baptist Church cleaned its
membership roll in 1896, it refused merely to erase the names of the
twenty-two members who had joined other denominations; it excluded
them. When Helen Gulp joined her new husband's church and asked
"that her name be erased," the Athens Church "excluded" her. When
Sister Johnson joined the Episcopalians, Atlanta Second Baptist Church
voted twenty-nine to five to exclude. Only in Baptist congregations was
the truth unadulterated.37
Southern Baptists had no trouble identifying truly heretical denomi-

nations. The Roman Catholic church, the Mormon church, the Chris-
tian Science church, and the New church (Swedenborgian) taught doc-
trines so far afield from Baptist views that Baptists had no qualms about
excluding them. But such evangelical denominations as Methodists and
Presbyterians posed a dilemma. Southern Baptists viewed them as
colaborers in the gospel and often cooperated with them in local initia-
tives. All but Landmarkists occasionally allowed other evangelical min-
isters into their pulpits, and they shared preaching duties at camp meet-
ings and other gatherings. They sometimes shared the same meeting
house, and their pastors warmly received one another in ministerial
councils.
Although evangelicals often cooperated, they just as often engaged
in strife. Baptists attacked Methodist and Presbyterian infant baptism.
Methodists attacked Baptist and Presbyterian Calvinism. Presbyterians
attacked Methodist and Baptist church government. Denominational
papers supported the warfare. Controversy was a test of religious truth,
and evangelicals felt obligated to engage in it.38
Crowds gathered for live combat. The controversialist typically
showed up at the appointed preaching service of his foe, and proffered
debate. In 1851, Benedictine priest J. J. O'Connell arrived at his appoint-
ment near Charlotte, North Carolina, to find a Presbyterian minister
waiting to draw him into public debate. Methodist circuit rider James
Jenkins many times rebutted recent attacks of Baptist and Presbyterian
preachers and was always ready for public debate. Baptist preacher
William C. Crane debated a Universalist preacher for five hours in a
Georgia courthouse. Disputation sometimes degenerated, as when a
young Presbyterian gladiator reduced an elderly Baptist debater to tears.
Would-be disputants sometimes agreed to train their sights on sinners
rather than each other, but partisans went away disappointed when
their heroes declined debate.39
Methodists and Presbyterians did not excommunicate members who
joined Baptist churches; they deplored the Baptist practice. But Bap-
tists bristled when other evangelicals accused them of bigotry for
expelling defectors. A few Baptist churches chose merely to erase the
names of departing members. The Sunbury Association began record-
ing erasures in 1841. Baptist leader James M. Pendleton conceded in
his 1867 Church Manual that some churches—presumably including a
few in the South—had begun dropping members because it "is less dis-
graceful than exclusion." But most refused to take this path.40
In refusing, the southerners distinguished themselves from northern
Baptists. Northern Baptist associations began recording erasures around
1820, and the practice became widespread in the 1840s. By the time of
the Civil War, it was nearly universal in the North. In the South, it made
little headway until the turn of the century. Still rare in 1900, it became
common in the late 1920s.
Southern Baptists in the nineteenth century believed that such a prac-
tice sacrificed theological principles. Choosing a church was not like
choosing clothes—a matter of taste and comfort. Church membership
implied assent to the doctrines of the church. To change denominations
was to change religious belief. To join the Christian church of Alexander
Campbell was to subscribe baptismal regeneration. To become a Pres-
byterian was to accept infant baptism. To become a Methodist meant
embracing the Arminian doctrine that everyone had sufficient grace to
decide for salvation. Baptist members who embraced Methodist or Pres-
byterian beliefs therefore abandoned correct doctrine and departed from
the faith.
Even when members did not understand the theological differences,
Baptists believed that membership implied the duty of supporting the
doctrines. When Sister Ball left Savannah Baptist Church to join the
Methodist church, the committee asked her "if she approved the doc-
trines of the Methodist Church, particularly in relation to 'Baptism,' and
the 'final perseverance of the Saints/ " She answered that she did not
understand them. The committee reproved "the inconsistency of her
conduct" because she joined a church when she did not believe, or at
least did not understand, its doctrines.41
Adiel Sherwood explained why Baptist churches felt obligated to
exclude members who joined denominations that practiced infant bap-
tism. For Baptists, Sherwood attested, it was a matter of obedience to
Christ's commands, no matter how illiberal the practice appeared to
others:
A church is not a society for interest or curiosity and connexion with it to
be made and dissolved at pleasure; but it is formed to promote the glory of
God and joined as a matter of duty in obedience to the general tenor of
instructions contained in the New Testament 1 consider a Baptist church
which allows its members to depart and join Pedobaptists as accessory to
the following errors and irregularities: . . . 2d. It admits that pouring and
sprinkling are baptism or that the ordinances as positive institutions are
trifling concerns. 3d. It allows there is a door out of the church in fellow-
ship, when the Bible knows of none; for no door is recognized except
exclusion. . . . All through the New Testament the duty is incumbent on
the church to watch over and reprove its members for errors in faith or
practice. If one joins a people, not recognized in the N.T. [New Testament]
the duty is plain to reclaim from the error; if it cannot succeed, the only
course is exclusion. The N.T. allows no other course how harsh soever this
may appear to those who whine about liberality, but who are governed by
false and erroneous feelings, rather than Scripture requirements.
Toward the end of the century, when Baptists more frequently joined
other denominations, excommunication became a routine affair, espe-
daily in town and city churches, which handled most of these cases in
the press of other matters. But even when excommunications were pro
forma, most churches continued to resist any suggestion that joining
another denomination was acceptable. Although they were more reluc-
tant to call it heresy, they persevered in the determination to make it
an occasion of discipline. Democratic religion meant doctrinal unity.42
7
Associations, Creeds,
and Calvinism
In the 1850s, the churches of Georgia's Flint River Baptist Association

endured considerable strife in defense of creeds, Calvinism, and asso-
ciational authority. It began in 1851 when two churches complained
that Bethlehem Baptist Church in Jasper had "discarded her Articles of
Faith." The association interpreted Bethlehem's action as divisive and
doctrinally subversive. It convinced the pastor, Willis Jarrill, "to get
Bethlehem Church to bring us a system of belief at our next Associa-
tion." In return, it agreed to delay action.
The following year, Bethlehem Baptist Church presented as their
creed a few scripture phrases: "The Baptist Church of Christ at
Bethlehem Believing fully that the scriptures of the old and new Testa-
ments are all sufficient to regulate the faith and practice of all Chris-
tians We have resolved to take the Bible and the Bible alone for our
guide.—But as a matter of convenience to us & that we may the better
be enabled to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of piece we have
selected and set forth as a basis of Christian Union the—following Truths
1st There is one body 2nd One spirit 3rd one Hope 4th One Lord 5th
One Faith 6th one Baptism & 7th one God—and father of all." To fur-
ther elucidate their "system of Belief," the church added two pages of
scripture verses grouped according to traditional topics in theology. The
98
Associations, Creeds, and Calvinism 99
association took offense and resolved that "our own self-protection

requires us now to declare Bethlehem church no longer a member of
this body, until she conforms to our established usage, which is to require
of churches to have a plain and unequivocal system of belief, which
will locate and define their notions of the Bible."1
Shortly after the 1852 association meeting, the Tirzah Baptist Church,
in which the pastor Willis Jarrill held his membership, divided over the
creedal issue. The creedal faction complained that Jarrill had for years
agitated against creeds. When members confronted him, "he would then
with soft words, say that he believed every sentiment contained in the
Creed; and farther, that he was not understood." But he persisted in
abusing creeds as "the relics of Popery, the Devil's Clipping Shears, and
the Clipping Shears of Fellowship." The creedal group in the Tirzah
Church therefore expelled him, mainly for "renouncing our creed."2
The 1852 Flint River Association anticipated the church's action. A
delegate moved to declare Jarrill a heretic, and the association appointed
a committee to consult with him. Jarrill answered "no" to three ques-
tions: "1st. Do you believe that our confession of faith is only a synop-
sis of our views upon the Bible? 2nd. Do you believe that that synopsis
can be supported by the word of God? 3rd. Are you willing to continue
in our organization, and will you assure us that in the future you will
maintain the sentiments of our confession of faith, as able to be proven
by the scripture, and cease comparing it to the relics of Popery, and
calling it the devil's clipping shears of fellowship?" On hearing Jamil's
answers, the association declared him a "schismatic man," resolving
"that we cannot any longer recognize him as an orderly, orthodox min-
ister of our body." He rejected both the idea of creeds and the Calvinist
content of Flint River's creed.3
Undaunted, Jarrill secured the support of majorities in the Tirzah and
Holly Grove Baptist Churches and became the pastor of the Teman Bap-
tist Church. These churches in 1853 protested the resolution against Jarrill
as an "unauthorized stretch of Associational power" and accused some
of the "most respectable" ministers of exercising "inquisitorial power."
The association cast out the three churches.4
Associational Authority and Church Autonomy

Baptist churches cooperated with one another in large part in order to
define and protect the boundaries of primitive democratic religion.
When Baptists organized new churches, they invited "helps"—minis-
ters of other congregations, who examined the applicants, assessed their
proposed constitution, and evaluated their orthodoxy. Similarly, local
churches refrained from ordaining ministers on their own authority but
sought help from other churches, which sent their ministers to form a
"presbytery" to examine the candidate and issue a recommendation.
Baptist tradition permitted local churches to act alone, but in the inter-
est of unity they sought the endorsement of other churches.5
They also exercised mutual oversight when they had problems with
discipline or government. When County Line Church had disciplinary
problems, they requested neighboring churches to send "helps, to adjust
some difficulties Existing between the church . . . & Brother Thomas
Rhodes their Pastor." The helping churches typically sent two or three
leading members on an appointed date, and they formed a council to
hear the case and make a recommendation. Although a church could
reject the advice of the council, few did.6
If a church became "disorderly," neighboring churches might call a
council. In 1834, Mount Zion accused the LaGrange Baptist Church of
fomenting division by receiving members who once belonged to schis-
matic congregations. Dissatisfied by the response from LaGrange, it
announced that it had "called on our Sister Churches at Sardis and
Bethlehem as helps to meet us on Saturday . . . at LaGrange to labour
with us to try and convince you of your error so that the union of the
Churches may be preserved." LaGrange, obstinate at first, eventually
agreed to discontinue the practice.7
When rumors arose that Bairds Baptist Church allowed a member to
rent his property "for a place of retail of ardent spirits," Penfield Baptist
Church appointed a committee "to visit our sister church and labor with
her in the spirit of Christian faithfulness and love." When a member at
LaGrange charged the church with "tolerating dancing," the church
agreed to request three nearby churches "to send, each, three mem-
bers as helps to the church to consider this charge."8
This mutual oversight was a form of interchurch discipline. Though
the churches abjured any right to excommunicate other churches or
their members, they declared a right to "disfellowship" each other. To
disfellowship a church was to announce that it had departed too far from
scriptural norms to retain its status as a New Testament church. It had
broken union; it was schismatic.
Interchurch discipline followed the pattern of congregational disci-
pline. Joseph Baker, editor of the Christian Index, explained that "before
we declare, by word or act, non-fellowship with a sister church, we
should use every lawful means within our power to convince her of
what we conceive to be her departures from the gospel of Christ."
Churches typically sent an investigating committee to the offending
church, and if it failed to receive repentance or adequate proof of inno-
cence, the investigating church called for a council. Offending churches
that ignored the advice of councils could expect disfellowship.9
The primary means by which Baptist churches exercised mutual over-
sight was through controlling the membership of associations. In
England, Particular Baptists were organizing associations as early as
1652. Baptist immigrants brought the associational concept to the

American colonies. The Philadelphia Association was the first, organiz-
ing in 1707. The first in Georgia, the Georgia Association, formed in
1784. By 1829, there were seventeen in the state. Baptists consistently
refused to call associational oversight "discipline," however, lest the
authority to determine membership in associations be confused with
the authority of the local church to determine its membership. The
churches were "independent in matters of discipline—so that one
Church has no power over another." An association, composed of
autonomous churches, had "no power to enforce her recommendations
on the churches."10
Baptist associations could "withdraw from any church or churches,
whom they shall look upon to be unsound in principle, or immoral in
practice, till they be reclaimed." This power to exclude any church that
deviated from "the orthodox principles of the Gospel" gave the asso-
ciation an effective authority over the doctrine and practice of member
churches. In 1836, the Washington Association appointed a committee
to labor with Mount Olive Baptist Church, which had closed the church
doors to several ministers who favored missions. The church denounced
the association's meddling as tyranny, whereupon the association re-
solved that it must "in consideration of the disorderly conduct of Mount
Olive Church ... withdraw from her, in terms of the Constitution, and
she is no longer considered a member of this body."11
Although such events were not common, the associations showed a
determination to oust refractory congregations. The Hightower Asso-
ciation threatened to expel any churches that admitted members on the
basis of alien immersion. It expelled six churches for refusing to recog-
nize baptisms performed by an immoral minister. The Ocmulgee Asso-
ciation expelled a church for Arminianism. The Middle Association
withdrew fellowship from Rocky Ford Baptist Church because, against
the advice of the association, it admitted a member excommunicated
by another church.12
The discipline usually restored the wayward churches to soundness.
When Nails Creek Baptist Church failed to excommunicate its minister
for immorality, the Sarepta Association requested it to reconsider and
report to the next meeting. When the church delayed, the association
concluded that it had disrupted the union, injured the reputation of the
association, and undermined the cause of Christ. It resolved "to with-
draw her connexion with such Church." Eventually, the church ejected
the minister and gained readmission.13
Because associations disclaimed power to enforce their advice,
churches sometimes defended themselves by asserting their indepen-
dence. This rarely discouraged the associations. They did not deny that
the churches were independent and free to do as they pleased, but
churches could not retain membership in the association while they

deviated from orthodoxy: "We can never place truth and error on the
same footing."14
The editor of the Christian Index, David Shaver, grew incensed when
advocates of open communion, appealing to the idea of freedom,
demanded membership in the associations.
They tell us that by virtue of "the time-honored Baptist principles of church
independence and the right of private judgment," our people everywhere
"must receive evangelical Baptist churches into associational fellowship,
without restrictions on the question of communion." ... Can that be true
Independency which would compel churches, whether they will or will
not, when forming Associations, to enlarge the bounds of fellowship until
it embraces practices false to their own fundamental principles and fatal
to their very being? ... We, at least, shall content ourselves with the Inde-
pendency, which leaves churches free to draw the lines of "associational
fellowship" in consonance with their convictions as to scriptural order....
We shall, therefore, turn a deaf ear to the pleas of that false Independency
which means, first church-slavery, and then church extinction.
Appeals to private judgment and religious liberty provided straying
churches no more protection from associational discipline than they did
straying individuals from church discipline. The associations denied
accusations of intolerance or persecution. They did not excommunicate
members or dissolve churches, much less compel churches by force: "We
utter no threats of pains and penalties—we exhibit no fire and faggot."
They merely announced to a disorderly church that "if you will pursue
a course contrary to that which we conceive the scriptures prescribe,
you must pursue it alone."15
Calvinism and Authority

To many southern Baptists, Calvinism and discipline went hand in hand.
Calvinism encouraged them to believe that although the painful prun-
ing might seem to harm the church, God's secret providence and pre-
destination would prevail. The discipline, in turn, protected Calvinist
doctrine by expelling its critics. Georgia Baptists kept up with the divi-
sions among Calvinists at home and in England and were familiar
especially with the works of Andrew Fuller, John Gill, and Calvinist
hymn writer John Newton.
Georgians drew on a long tradition that reached directly back to John
Calvin, the sixteenth-century Geneva reformer whose teaching empha-
sized the sovereignty of God and the primacy of scripture. His teaching
spread widely in Europe and was further developed by his successors
Theodore Beza and Francis Turretin. In 1610, some Dutch followers of
Jacob Arminius objected to Calvin's views of human salvation. The
Arminian Remonstrants summed up their doubts in five points. The

Dutch church hosted the Synod of Dort, a gathering of the leaders of
Europe's Reformed churches, which answered each point: It affirmed
total depravity (fallen humans are unable to turn toward God), uncon-
ditional election (God elected persons apart from any consideration of
their actions), particular redemption (Christ's atonement was for the
elect only), irresistible grace (God's grace always effected conversion),
and the perseverance of the saints (the elect will not fall away). These
became known as the "five points of Calvinism."16
Arminianism did not prosper in the Netherlands but attracted many
followers in England and America. John and Charles Wesley promoted
Arminian ideas and ensured that Methodist churches in England and
America preached an Arminian gospel. The first English Baptists were
the Arminian General Baptists, as were many early American Baptists.
Although General Baptists in America became a small minority among
Baptists by 1800, other Baptists took up Arminian ideas. In New
England, Benjamin Randall began converting Calvinist Baptist churches
into Arminian ones, leading in 1827 to the formation of the Freewill
Baptist General Conference, which grew to 1,586 churches by 1910.
Freewill Baptist churches in the South were less numerous (limited
largely to North and South Carolina) and did not join the northern body
but formed associations that organized a general conference by 1921.17
Despite pockets of Arminian or freewill sentiment among Baptists in
the South, few southern Baptists embraced Arminianism before the
twentieth century. As early as 1800, most Arminian Baptists in the South
had either died or been converted to Calvinistic ideas. The first endur-
ing Arminian Baptist churches in Georgia appeared around 1830, under
the leadership of Cyrus White. By 1846, Arminian Baptists numbered
almost 2,000, but accounted for only 3 percent of Georgia's 58,000 Bap-
tists. By 1870, of some 115,000 Georgia Baptists, only 808 were mem-
bers of Arminian churches. Late into the nineteenth century, pastors
could still expect the approbation of their colleagues for boasting that
their church was "perfectly sound in doctrine, especially Calvinistic."18
Regular Baptist churches undoubtedly harbored a number of mem-
bers who held Arminian ideas. As long as they did not embrace full-
blown Arminianism and kept their opinions to themselves, many
churches left them in peace. Joseph Baker argued that no one "who
relies wholly on the Lord Jesus for salvation, should be excluded from
the church because of errors in doctrine, so long as his Christian char-
acter is good, and he holds his errors as private property."19
The most visible display of Baptist Calvinism appeared in the confes-
sions of faith adopted by Baptist churches and associations. Virtually
every church creed affirmed the two fundamental tenets of Calvinism:
that human nature was radically depraved due to original sin and that
God was the absolute author of salvation, electing individuals for sal-
vation before the creation of the world and creating faith by the opera-
tion of the Holy Spirit.
Some of the creeds were expansive. Members of Hopeful Baptist
Church professed their belief in "the fall of Adam and the imputation
of his sin to his posterity in the corruption of human nature, and the
impotency of man to recover himself by his own free will ability" and
in "the everlasting love of God to his people, and in the Eternal Elec-
tion of a definite number of the human race to grace and glory, and
there was a covenant of grace or redemption between the father and
the Son befoure the world began, in which their Salvation is Secure,
and that those in particular are Redeemed."20
A few churches, rejecting such creeds as insufficiently detailed,
adopted the lengthy Second London Confession of 1689, which had
been adopted by many northern associations. English Particular Bap-
tists produced the First London Confession in 1644 to show Parliament
that they were orthodox Calvinists. In 1677, they approved a Baptist
version of the Westminster Confession, the Second London Confession.
When they met again in 1689, they republished it with a new preface.
Elias Keach, son of a leading English pastor, brought the 1689 edition
with him when he immigrated to the colonies. Adopted by the Phila-
delphia Association, it became the basis of most Baptist confessions.
When Greensboro Baptist Church formed in 1821, the members adopted
a brief confession of faith and then added that "this Church adopts the
confession of faith published by the Baptist ministers in London in the
17th century and acknowledged by the Philada. &• Charleston associa-
tions." Others adopted it, too.21
The shortest creeds confessed belief in "the fall of Adam, and the
imputation of his Sin to his posterity, the Corruption of human nature,
the Impotency of fallen man to do that which is Spiritually Good, the
Everlasting love of God to his people, the Covenant of Grace, the Doc-
trine of Election, Particular Redemption, Justification by the Righteous-
ness of Christ Imputed, pardon & Redemption thro [ugh] his Blood,
Regeneration and Sanctification by the Influence and operations of the
holy Spirit, the final perseverance of the Saints in Grace." Even creeds
that made a virtue of brevity affirmed belief "in particular and uncon-
ditional election."22
Associations adopted confessions on the same pattern as the church
creeds. The Georgia Association and others wrote creeds virtually iden-
tical to the confession of Hopeful Baptist Church. Association creeds
typically emphasized "eternal and particular election" or "the Eternal
Election of a Definitive Number of the Human Race." Some associations
praised the Second London Confession and formulated their creed as a
synopsis of the longer confession, introducing it therefore as "An
Abstract of Principles Held by the Baptists in general, agreeable to the
confession of faith adopted by upwards of one hundred congregations

in England, published in Philadelphia in 1742, which is a Standard for
the Baptists." A small number of southern associations adopted the
London Confession itself.23
Baptist apologists were proud that their summaries of faith came from
the "Old Confession, published in England, first in 1643 [1644], and
subsequently in 1689." Jesse Mercer saw the London Confession as the
basis of all associational creeds, claiming that "some Associations have
adopted it in part, some as a whole." Because other creeds were merely
"abstracts" of this one, Baptists often spoke as if there existed only one
Baptist creed.24
Calvinism found other expressions: Jesse Mercer was not the only
editor of the Christian Index who reassured subscribers by advertising
his Calvinist orthodoxy. When Samuel Boykin and Sylvanus Landrum
took over the paper, they recommended themselves as "Calvinistic, strict
communion Baptists." When T. P. Bell assumed editorial responsibili-
ties, he pledged that the paper would "stand, as it has done in years
gone by, for the 'Old Theology.' " So frequently did the editors write
and publish articles on Calvinist theology that a pledge to propagate
Calvinism seemed almost a prerequisite for holding the editor's chair.
As late as 1899, the paper ran a six-month series on Calvinism's "doc-
trines of grace."25
When ministers and deacons gathered to promote unity among the
churches, they often discussed theological and practical questions
designed to confirm them in Calvinism. At one meeting, delegates
affirmed the limited atonement: Asked whether "the sins of all man-
kind were imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ, when he hung and died
on the cross, or for as many as should in the end be saved," the session
answered, "for as many as shall in the end be saved." At a different meet-
ing the delegates affirmed that "the doctrine of eternal and particular
election" is "a bible doctrine."26
Although voices now and then called for an Arminian theology, Cal-
vinists after 1800 had little fear that Arminianism could spread. For one
thing, the associations maintained vigilance: The Hightower Associa-
tion spoke for a united Calvinist front when it resolved that it "would
consider any Church denying the doctrine of imputed righteousness,
and human depravity, heterodox in doctrine."27
Regular southern Baptists would not maintain fellowship with
Arminian churches, or approve the sending of letters or visitors to
Arminian associations. The non-Calvinist United Association tried in
1842 to open formal correspondence with the Central Association,
which declined, concluding that "we can see no way in which a per-
manent correspondence can be opened, except upon those principles
received as orthodox by our denomination generally." The Chattahoo-
chee Association instructed churches to defrock any minister "who
publicly denounces the doctrine of human depravity, Salvation by grace,

and makes general war on the doctrine of Election." The Sarepta
Association told them to refuse church office even to anyone who did
not "believe it to be expedient to preach and contend for the doctrine
of predestination and election."28
One after another, associations counseled their churches to expel any
preachers who taught "that Christ atoned for the whole human fam-
ily," denied a "special, and eternal election," or refused to proclaim "the
doctrine of Election." They advised them to punish laity who dared
suggest "that Christ died indiscriminately for all men." The Tugalo
Association said that believers baptized by "free will" preachers had to
be baptized again. As late as 1891, Baptist leaders argued that "an appli-
cant for admission [to church membership] who rejects the doctrine of
election should not be admitted." For most nineteenth-century south-
ern Baptists, to reject Calvinism was to deny the gospel of grace.29
Churches dismissed members to join another Baptist church with
letters of dismission certifying their good standing. Some included in
these letters a testimony of the church's orthodoxy: "Whereas our
Beloved Brother John Bigar, & our Beloved Sister Mary Bigar, his
affectionate consort, both members of us, the Savannah Baptist Church,
holding Believers Baptism, Eternal & particular [election], Effectual
calling, Sanctification by the Spirit, & the Saints final perseverance thro'
grace to glory, Have requested ... to grant them letters of dismission, ...
do hereby dismiss" them. Other churches certified themselves in these
letters as "holding particular redemption," or "holding the doctrines of
grace."30
The Exclusivism of Orthodoxy

Not every Baptist refused fellowship to Arminians. Jesse Mercer
acknowledged that most churches had a few members with Arminian
notions and thought they "should be borne with and admonished," not
excommunicated, "unless they become contumacious." Joseph Baker
agreed that the denial of "eternal and unconditional election" should
not debar them from membership, but, like Mercer, he insisted that if
they tried to "make proselytes to their faith and create a party in the
church, we should feel bound to vote for their exclusion; not because
of their faith but because of their schismatic conduct."31
In 1843, Baker even suggested associational fellowship with Georgia's
small companies of Arminian Baptists, though with no apparent impact
on denominational sentiment. Although the leaders of these groups
could be full-blown Arminians, their churches and associations normally
adopted creeds that were more traditional. Baker thought that these
creeds, Calvinistic except for their denial of unconditional election, made
closer union possible.32
Baker's toleration of disagreement did not go far. Even he urged sepa-

ration from proponents of a general atonement. He commended the
example of Christ, who cautioned his listeners "against the self-
righteous, or—what would be called in the present day—the Arminian
doctrines of the Pharisees." Baker believed that Arminians preached
salvation by human merit and declared that it was sinful to associate
with such preachers.33
In 1874, J. S. Lawton, moderator of the Rehoboth Association and
co-owner of the Christian Index, urged an almost latitudinarian toler-
ance of divergent beliefs. Reflecting a trend that was just beginning to
emerge, he argued that if Baptists united "on the great Baptist principles
of regeneration, immersion, and strict communion," further differences
in theology should form no barrier to church fellowship. "Hyper-
Calvinist" antimission Baptists, "moderate" Baptists, and "even
Arminian" Baptists should be tolerated, Lawton urged, because "none
of us are infallible." He thought that practice was more important than
belief, but he was a generation or two ahead of his time.34
Although Arminianism was not widespread, complaints could be
heard by the 1830s that too many "Baptists nowadays are afraid to
preach the doctrines of Grace" because church members complained
about "the doctrine of eternal and particular election." William
Holcombe worried that other denominations were noticing the neglect:
"some of the Pedobaptists are saying that Baptists are becoming ashamed
of Predestination and Election, and that they will soon quit preaching
it." Calvinist doctrines were unpopular outside the church, and some
ministers would not "preach the doctrine of election, lest they should
suffer persecution." Later in the century, some Calvinists feared that
neglect of their doctrines—combined with Methodist successes—was
infecting churches with notions of free will and general atonement. They
complained that election was ignored in "pulpit performances" and that
preachers glossed over "eternal election" and "predestination."35
In many instances, southern Baptists saw Arminianism even in mild
departures from high Calvinism. Sharon Baptist Church, in the
Arminian United Association, professed belief in original sin, depravity
and inability, perseverance, and in the necessity of the Holy Spirit for
conversion. Its statement on election nettled Calvinist Baptists, how-
ever, for it described election as "according to foreknowledge." It was
not surprising that Arminianizing Baptists sometimes abjured the name
"Arminian."36
The response was renewed calls for fidelity to Calvinist doctrine in
pulpit, print, and assembly. When P. H. Mell, perennial president of the
Southern Baptist Convention, took charge in 1852 of Antioch Baptist
Church in Oglethorpe County, he concluded that "a number of the
members were drifting off into Arminianism." Mell decided that a Bap-
tist church should have Baptist doctrine, and therefore he "preached
to them the doctrines of predestination, election, free-grace." So popu-

lar was his Calvinist preaching during his twenty-five year pastorate that
a Methodist preacher called the region "Mell's Kingdom."37
From one corner of the state to another, churches and associations
defrocked preachers for questioning Calvinist doctrines, criticized even
slight alterations in Calvinist creeds, and blocked fellowship with doc-
trinally careless congregations. Just as the Georgia Association dis-
fellowshiped Jeremiah Walker and his Arminian followers in 1790, so
the Sunbury Association refused fellowship to four Arminian churches
in 1880. Associations refused to alter their creeds from "eternal elec-
tion of a definite number" to "election according to the Scriptures."
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Calvinists won victory after
victory. They held Georgia for Geneva.38
As late as 1885, Baptist leaders still proclaimed that "the Arminian
doctrine . . . is one of the most deadly heresies." It was so damaging
because it robbed preaching of its power and religion of its pure doc-
trine. Jesse Mercer thought that the more Calvinistic the preaching, the
deeper and more enduring the impression on sinners. If salvation was
by grace, added his father, Silas, the doctrine of election was "the very
foundation of our faith" and the basis of revival. Arminianism, warned
Baptist apologists, was a halfway house on the road to unbelief. Its end
result was "cold, irreverent, dreary Rationalism." Calvinism sustained
moral purity; Arminianism tolerated "hypocrites."39
Calvinists felt that the attraction of Arminianism was its popularity
with people outside the true church, whether Methodists or unbeliev-
ers. In 1890, the editors of the Christian Index, expressing shock at reports
that most Baptist ministers in northern cities were Arminians, attrib-
uted the decline of Calvinism in the North to its unpopularity. In the
South, by contrast, Baptists knew that "doctrinal purity is more and
better than popular favor."40
Freedom and Creeds

The widespread belief that Baptists have always opposed creeds is wrong.
Historians have been misled by attending only to what Baptists said—
and only to part of what they said—rather than to what they did. Bap-
tists berated other denominations as creedal and called for "no creed
but the Word of God," but they encountered creeds every time they
entered their churches and association meetings.41
Early Baptists were not liberal individualists. They maintained that
the right of individual conscience in religion was inalienable and that
creeds did not infringe that right. They balanced the individual's need
to follow conscience with the community's need to define truth and
morality. They did this by establishing voluntary, creedal churches.42
Baptist denunciations of creeds were only rarely outright rejections.
When they objected to creeds, they were objecting to religious confes-
sions enforced by a civil government, imposed on churches by a hierar-

chy, corrupted by unscriptural doctrines, or serving as a legal authority
in place of the scriptures. They disliked creeds that claimed independent
authority, for the Bible alone, they argued, could bind the conscience.
In practice, they placed great stock in creed making. When a Missis-
sippi church excommunicated Georgia missionary Lee Compere for
holding Arminian notions, he demanded scriptural evidence against his
views. The moderator of the conference replied that "any sort of doc-
trine" could be proved by biblical texts, that the church judged the
meaning of scripture, and that they must be governed by the views
embodied in their confession. Baptists taught that all persons were free
to believe what they wished, but churches were free to exclude those
who rejected Baptist doctrine.43
Churches expected applicants to agree with their creeds. Although
they did not usually require public subscription to the creed, they did
demand submission to the doctrines in it. Joseph Baker explained that
the confessions embodied scriptural doctrine, and the scriptures, not the
confessions, regulated belief. But creeds were vital, Baker wrote, for
without them the churches could not preserve doctrinal unity. Appli-
cants should not join unless they agreed with the creed. Baker described
the usual practice: "The question we have generally heard asked on this
subject, is, in effect, this: 'Do you believe in the doctrines of the gospel
as generally held by Baptists, as far as you understand them?'... Every
one wishing to unite with a Church ought to know what are the views
entertained by those with whom he seeks to unite; for how can two
walk together except they agree? One that cannot fellowship with our
views of scriptural doctrine, certainly should not seek to have church
fellowship with us."44
Some churches read their confessions to prospective members and
required assent, even when they brought letters of dismission from other
Baptist churches. Newnan Baptist Church received a husband and wife
from a Baptist church in Tennessee, but only "after our faith being read
and acknowledged." The same church received "Harry a servant" only
upon his "adoption of the articles of our Faith."45
Associations would not admit churches unless they had adopted an
orthodox confession. The Tallapoosa Association received churches
"after hearing their Articles of Faith read," and it examined the ortho-
doxy of other associational creeds before agreeing to open correspon-
dence with them. As late as 1908, applicant churches could expect asso-
ciations to examine their creeds. When Battle Hill Baptist Church applied
to the Stone Mountain Association, it attached "a copy of our Articles
of Faith as adopted at the organization of the church October 13th, 1907,
and respectfully request the same be examined by your usual method."
Churches usually secured admission, but associations were not accom-
modating when they discovered an unsound creed. The Ebenezer
Association objected to Hartford Baptist Church's articles of faith and
did not admit it until it adopted the association's creed. The Western
Association rejected the application of Antioch Baptist Church until it
exchanged its "defective" creed for "the constitution of this Body."46
Associations refused fellowship with other associations that had
unsound confessions. In 1880, a number of churches formed the
Gillsville Association, which adopted the New Hampshire Confession
and prepared to join the Georgia Baptist Convention. Georgia Calvinists
opposed fellowship with any association with a creed as vague as the
New Hampshire Confession, which could accommodate both Arminians
and Calvinists. New Hampshire Baptists, smarting from the success of
Benjamin Randall and his Freewill Baptists, sought to soften their Cal-
vinist identity to prevent additional churches from defecting. They
adopted a new confession in 1833 that expunged or obscured such
Calvinist distinctives as human depravity, imputed righteousness, and
eternal election. With later modifications back toward Calvinism, it
became the most popular Baptist confession by the early twentieth cen-
tury. C. D. Campbell, pastor of Athens First Baptist Church, pledged
opposition to the Gillsville Association's application for membership.47
Southern Baptists suspected groups that adopted the New Hampshire
Confession not only because the creed contained error but also because
it failed to distinguish clearly between error and truth, especially the truth
of election. Why would any group adopt it in place of abstracts of the
London Confession unless it was to move toward Arminianism? The
petition of the Florida Association for admission in 1846 to the Georgia
Baptist Convention caused a "protracted debate" over its use of the New
Hampshire Confession. The convention granted membership after Florida
delegate James McDonald assured everyone that the association was
not Arminian, but Florida Baptists sent no delegates the next year.48
His experience at the convention induced McDonald to reconsider
the New Hampshire creed. In 1847, he criticized it for being ambigu-
ous about depravity, election, and perseverance. Joseph Baker also
pleaded with the Florida churches to abandon the New Hampshire
Confession, and finally they did, adopting in its place an abstract affirm-
ing "the doctrine of eternal and particular election." They had evidently
adopted the New Hampshire Confession because it was easily at hand
in the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, not because they wished to
tolerate Arminian doctrine, though Arminian sentiments lurked behind
one Florida apologist's statement that the New Hampshire Confession
at least moved beyond the "old Popish doctrine of original sin."49
Opposition to Creeds
If confessions were so important, why did Baptists decry them? Why
did they so often insist that they had none? Francis Wayland, president
of Brown University, declared that "an established confession of faith . . .
is impossible" with Baptists. Virginia Baptist editor Henry Keeling spoke

of "Baptist churches, with no creeds." Tennessee Baptist professor A. S.
Worrell admitted that Baptists had creeds, but he called for "the aboli-
tion of all creeds except the New Testament."50
Jesse Mercer faulted creedal churches for not making "the Bible the
all-sufficient rule of faith and practice." In place of the Bible, they sub-
stituted their "excellent standards," assuming that the common people
and the ministers would err if they exercised their own judgments.
Baptists placed "the inspired Volume into the hands of the reader" and
trusted that it would not fail "under the guidance of the Spirit, to lead
him into all necessary truth." Mercer argued that Baptists had "always
professed to take the Bible as our standard, our creed, our confession."51
Historians have mistaken such anticreedal statements as evidence of
Baptist commitment to individual autonomy. They have taken them
to mean that Baptists opposed an enforced doctrinal conformity. Bap-
tist confessions were not, the consensus says, statements of what must
be believed and could not serve to discipline or exclude dissenting views.
They have concluded that Baptists rejected creeds because they espoused
individual freedom.52
Yet Mercer almost persuaded the Georgia Association to adopt the
most robust of all Baptist creeds, the Second London Confession. In 1808,
Mercer introduced a resolution to this effect, though in the end the
association agreed that its original confession was adequate. Most Bap-
tists imitated Mercer's approach—touting the Bible as the only creed of
Baptists while insisting on the need for explicit confessions of faith. At
bottom, Baptists rejected creeds that seemed to claim authority inde-
pendent of the Bible. In the same breath, they abjured any "standards"
except the Bible and insisted that they had always had "a confession of
Faith." The difference, as they saw it, was that other denominations
appealed to their creeds, whereas Baptists appealed to the scriptures that
authorized their creeds.53
The rhetoric against creeds reflected the Baptist sense of democracy.
Other denominations imposed their creeds from above: from civil gov-
ernments, as in European churches, or from church hierarchies, as in
Presbyterian and Methodist churches. Baptists adopted them voluntarily
from below, each church voting democratically to embrace the form of
scriptural truth. They jointly had the authority to determine what the
scriptures taught, and they formed their creeds from "the pure democ-
racy of the New Testament." Baptist anticreedalism was a rejection of
creeds imposed on local churches from above.54
Some baptists associated "creeds" with state churches, which toler-
ated such "human elements" as infant baptism because they wanted to
include all citizens. State churches therefore replaced membership based
on conversion and purity with one based on assent to creeds. They pro-
moted an "implicit faith" in creeds that precluded the testing of human
traditions by scripture. Baptists commended their own creeds as being

void of human teachings and containing only scriptural truth. "It has
been our peculiar glory," wrote William J. Hard, pastor of Augusta
Baptist Church, "to take the scripture as our guide:... the constitution
of our churches, their ritual discipline, and creed, accord with the New
Testament."55
The Baptist cry of "no creed but the Bible" was not so much anticreedal
as antipedobaptist, antihierarchical, and anti-Erastian. They attacked the
"no-creed" doctrine, associating it with the errors of Alexander Campbell.
Asa Chandler conceded that "some zealously contend against all human
creeds and confessions," but he asked in response: "What harm can creeds
do, if they contain the truth? Is the truth less valuable because it is pub-
lished, or declared in a creed? . . . Creeds that do harm, are those that
contain error—not those that are founded upon Bible truth."56
The distinctions between Baptist and non-Baptist use of creeds created
confusion. In the spring of 1842, W. H. Stokes wrote two articles alleging
that the divisions of Christianity resulted from deference to creeds: Chris-
tians should adopt the Baptist principle—"put the people, even all the
people, upon the business of examining for themselves that they might
know what the Bible does teach; it would foster an independence in these
investigations which never can co-exist with a blinded deference to
creeds." He scorned the Episcopalians' Thirty-nine Articles; the Presby-
terians' Excellent Standards, and the Methodists' Most Excellent Disci-
pline. The Baptists were different: "Our motto is, the Bible—the Bible as
God gave it—nothing suppressed, nothing transferred!"57
Some readers asked him whether he intended to say "that everything
like a confession of faith should be set aside by religious denominations."
Stokes explained that he objected only to the improper use of confes-
sions. Baptists had confessions, he conceded, but required no subscrip-
tion to their articles as a condition of membership and imposed no obli-
gations on ministers to conform to anything but biblical truth. Stokes
was, in fact, so taken with the Second London Confession that he wished
to "furnish every Baptist family in America with a copy" and urged every
association to adopt it.58
Baptists demanded that individuals understand scripture for them-
selves not because they privileged individualism but because they be-
lieved that saving faith had to be exercised individually. Their populist
approach to Bible interpretation was based on a conviction that lay Bible
study and public instruction would lead to basic uniformity of belief.
Creeds expressed that uniformity; discipline enforced it.
Creeds and Discipline

Baptists adopted creeds for two main reasons: First, creeds bore testi-
mony to their orthodoxy and prevented misinformed criticism. Christian
diversity, said James Armstrong, gave rise to "many false representa-
tions, and injurious calumnies, which are heaped upon the different
sects without just grounds." Creeds protected churches and their doc-
trine from slander. Second, creeds offered a plain statement of an under-
standing of scripture, so that none who disagreed would sow division
by joining the creedal community. By the adoption of creeds, Armstrong
reasoned, "each particular denomination will then be circumscribed
within proper boundaries; and individuals holding opposite sentiments,
will unite with that sect whose principles are most congenial with their
views." If dissenters joined the denomination, strife and division would
result. Creeds were necessary for harmony and cooperation.59
Associations often listed these two justifications in the preambles to
their confessions: "And as we are convinced, that there are a number
of Baptist churches, who differ from us in faith and practice; and that it
is impossible to have communion where there is no union, we think it
our duty, to set forth a concise declaration of the faith and order upon
which we intend to associate." Churches likewise included similar pre-
ambles: "Whereas there is very Different Opinions in the world about
Religion, therefore many Denominations Cannot see Eye to Eye with
Each other; we think it wright to point out Sum particular articles of
our faith to this End, that we may bee of the same minde with Each
other, that peace, union, and true fellowship, may abound amonst us
without ajar." 60
Critics of confessions, who professed only "their adoption of the Bible
in general terms," were often seeking, W. H. Stokes argued, "a sort of
shield for heterodox opinions." Many Baptists saw opposition to creeds
as a disguised threat to Calvinist orthodoxy. And crypto-Arminians often
did express their discontent with Calvinism by attacking the principle
of creedalism. When Brother Hamrick of the Tallapoosa Association
rejected in 1868 its confession of faith, his real objection was evidently
to the doctrine of election. When Marietta First Baptist Church endured
five years of controversy and a schism over the article on election in its
creed, the "Anti-Predestinarian" party included a group "preferring the
abolition of all Creeds."61
The 1850s struggle in the Flint River Association revealed the com-
plexities of the battles over creeds. Willis Jarrill claimed not only that
creeds were Satanic and divisive but also that the Baptist creed "did not
contain a single Bible sentiment." He opposed it because of its Calvin-
ism. One of his allies confirmed this when he lambasted the association
for investing so much energy in "an unimportant difference of opin-
ion." Comparing the dispute to a disagreement over the color of the
whale that swallowed Jonah, he observed that "while a portion of the
Baptist Church believe that there is only a certain few who were elected
and foreordained to go to heaven from the beginning of all time, another
portion believe, most conscientiously it appears, that all men can inherit
this greatest of all blessings, by strictly complying with our Biblical
mandates."62
The association had suspected all along that Jarrillite anticreedalism

was a blanket for some heresy. At the 1852 meeting, the association so
admired Virginian Eli Ball's speech against anticreedalism that they
placed it in the minutes, an unusual action. Ball tried to demonstrate
that "the no creed system is paralyzing in its influence, and dangerous
in its tendency" and that Baptists who pretended to oppose all creeds
and to take only the Bible as their guide were on the path to Unitarian-
ism, Universalism, Arianism, or atheism. To advocate anticreedalism was
"to abandon long established doctrinal sentiments, under the pretext
of throwing away human creeds for the bible." Ball reasoned that a creed
defined an understanding of the words of revelation. Baptists therefore
founded their faith not on the creed but on the Bible. Yet the creed was
the expression of the faith: "It expresses to others what we believe the
word of God teaches." Every Christian had a creed, an understanding
of what the Bible taught. Those who opposed creeds were unwilling to
write down what they believed. They could never be "safe guides for
the church as teachers."63
Ball's arguments repeated the Baptist commonplace that "desire for
the destruction of creeds arises among such as have very little regard for
the Bible teaching." When in 1837 Arminian James Willson argued that
it was inexpedient for the Georgia Association to retain its articles of faith
because they caused strife, he proposed that each Baptist explain the
Bible for himself. Jesse Mercer assailed Willson's position: "This charity
rejoices in iniquity; as it admits the amalgamation of every sentiment,
for which its holder finds a foundation in the Bible, according to his own
explanation. It would harmonize predestinarians, arminians, Unitarians,
antinomians and universalists, &c. All these would come in, and claim
the Bible, as the foundation of their different creeds, each explaining
for himself." The Georgia Association refused to abandon its creed.64
Such eminent leaders as Adiel Sherwood and David Shaver warned
in the 1860s that opposition to creeds threatened the integrity of the
church. Shaver contended that opposition to creeds was one of the ten-
dencies of a latitudinarian Gilded Age. Rationalists, liberals, and "the
broad Evangelical school" warred against creeds because they thought
that Christianity aimed at spiritual life rather than doctrine. The result
of such "credophobia" was always error. Aversion to creeds concealed
the hatred of divine truth that sinfulness fostered. The strategy of error
was to prepare the way "by an outcry against creeds." Ultimately,
anticreedalism was a rejection of the gospel of grace; it was a gospel of
salvation by human effort. So he exhorted Baptists to protect their creeds
and their orthodoxy. If orthodoxy ever fell, "the secret spring of mis-
chief" would be found not among unbelievers but in the lack of "defi-
nite, uncompromising, faithful testimony" from pulpits professing
orthodox belief. He remained confident: "Baptists, as friends of creeds,
will not be likely to abandon them."65
Baptists believed that orthodox belief divided the church from the
world. Creeds protected that belief, especially the Calvinist doctrines that
alone could "humble the pride of man, and exalt the Lamb of God." To
surrender creeds was to relinquish the truth, which would entail the
loss of piety, the dissolution of the churches, the loss of the Bible, and
the abandonment of hope for salvation.66
At the end of the century, they were still guarding their churches
against the depreciation of doctrine. While inclusivist values won the
hearts of other American denominations, Baptist leaders in the South
continued to praise "the principle of exclusion as a factor in the formu-
lation of doctrine." In accepting creeds based on the Second London
Confession, churches drew a "sharp defining line" that shielded the
flocks.67
In a sense, Willis Jarrill was correct: Baptist creeds did function in
many ways as "Clipping Shears of Fellowship." In Jamil's view, this
made creeds demonic, for they fomented unjustifiable schism over doc-
trinal differences. But in the view of most Baptists, creeds signified a
divine duty to obey Christ, who commanded his church to preserve
purity in life and doctrine. Creeds protected the doctrines that formed
the "walls and bulwarks of the Church." The exclusivism of southern
democratic religion demanded a populist creedalism.68
8
Democratic Religion
Transformed
In many ways, Southern Baptists succeeded in their struggle against the

"age of progress." Early in the twentieth century, Baptist churches in
the South still showed few signs of accepting progressivist and modernist
agendas for the church. They were unmoved by the assured results of
the higher criticism of the Bible, by the alleged scandal of miracles, or
by the supposed offensiveness of a wrathful God requiring propitiation.
But Baptists embraced other forms of progress. Many Baptists were
captivated by the ideals of the New South. They sought to incorporate
scientific methods of social organization into their communal piety. In
time, commitment to the ideals of the New South would transform
Southern Baptist views of individual freedom and ecclesiastical author-
ity. The clearest indication of change was the loss of church discipline.
By the 1920s, Southern Baptist church discipline had disappeared.
Although a few isolated churches kept up the practice into the 1940s,
the fate of Southern Baptist discipline had been sealed by 1900. Many
Baptists knew it. In a report of the Western Association in 1910, pastor
J. A. Bell lamented the loss: "When have you heard of a church vindi-
cating her righteous claims by an effectual arraignment of her malicious
or delinquent members? Church discipline, it seems, must be reckoned
as a thing of the past, belonging to the fossil remains of bygone ages."
In 1915, the Ebenezer Association confessed that "the matter of arraign -
116
Democratic Religion Transformed 117
ing our disorderly members before the Church in Conference is very

much a thing of the past. We have ceased to require our members to
live, at least, a decent Christian life."1
Although preachers in every decade had warned of the decline of
discipline, the twentieth-century Jeremiahs were right. In Georgia,
Baptist churches began a steady pattern of declining discipline in the
1840s, despite a brief reversal in the 1870s. In the 1840s, they excom-
municated annually an average of 201 persons per 10,000 church mem-
bers. By the 1940s, church discipline had fallen by more than 90 percent,
with churches excluding an annual average of only 18 per 10,000
members.
Northern Baptists, who had never achieved the southern levels of strict-
ness, began a similar decline in the 1850s. In the North, discipline fell
from a peak of 143 average annual excommunications per 10,000 mem-
bers in the 1850s to only 7 in 1910 to 1920. Southern Baptists, although
lagging behind the northerners, transformed their heritage of commu-
nal authority and relinquished the right to judge the moral behavior of
individuals. Democratic religion took on new meaning.2
Jeremiads of Decline
Few Baptist preachers in any period were satisfied that the churches
faithfully practiced discipline. In church meetings, associational gath-
erings, and denominational newspapers, critics exhorted the churches
to faithful, strict discipline. Complaints could be heard in every era, but
beginning around 1850, the laments became more frequent, until by
the 1890s they were commonplace.3
Careful observers could notice changes as early as the 1840s, when
the statistical decline began. Antebellum reports occasionally decried
"neglected discipline," failure "to enforce the laws of Christ in regard
to discipline," a standard of church discipline "too low in most of our
churches," and a church "accustomed to indulge a very loose reign of
discipline." In 1846, Joseph Baker observed that "our churches in Geor-
gia are entirely too lax in discipline, and we fear they are growing more
and more so." But these were changes in the texture of discipline;
changes in its fabric occurred after the Civil War.4
By the 1870s, an array of Southern Baptists agreed that something
was terribly wrong with the discipline of the churches. The cry of the
day was for a "revival of discipline." Preachers issued warnings that
"church discipline has become deplorably lax" or that "we are without
discipline." Associations fretted that "the great needed work among the
churches is discipline" and urged pastors "to insist upon a stricter disci-
pline." North Carolina preacher J. A. Stradley suggested in 1873 that
the best way for Southern Baptist churches to grow would be for them
to shrink: "If the Baptists of North Carolina would, during the present
year, exclude from their churches 10,000 unworthy members, they

would do far more to increase their real strength and true prosperity
than if they were to add the same number."5
By the 1890s, such jeremiads were standard in discussions on the
condition of Southern Baptist churches. Recognizing that "the discipline
of members is a much neglected duty of our churches," churches passed
resolutions to enforce discipline. "So far have our Churches already
departed from primitive piety," LaGrange First Baptist Church lamented
in 1890, "that not one in twenty perhaps will enforce Scriptural disci-
pline." Such laments were out of step with the optimism of the New
South.6
The urbanization of the South accelerated after the Civil War. The
number of villages doubled from 1870 to 1880 and again by 1900. Towns
and cities burgeoned in 1880s, southern urban growth nearly doubling
the national average. In the New South era, railroads expanded their
lines faster in the South than in the nation as a whole, which stimu-
lated commerce and industry. In the 1880s, capital, wages, and prod-
uct value all more than doubled, outpacing the growth of New England's
industrial revolution fifty years earlier.7
This New South nurtured exuberant optimism. Such southern boost-
ers as Louisville's Henry Watterson and Atlanta's Henry Grady spread
the gospel of the New South in newspapers and lecture halls. The South
was the proud equal of the North, Grady told New York's elite in 1886.
It had "nothing for which to apologize" and "nothing to take back," and
it was glad to exchange slavery for the commerce, industry, and racial
cooperation that now characterized the region, Grady exaggerated.
Capitalism promised to remedy the South's ills.8
The laments also seemed to ignore the phenomenal growth of the
denomination, from under 1 million in 1870 to more than 3.6 million
in 1926. In 1870, Methodists led southern churches with 42 percent of
all adherents, compared to 30 percent for Baptists. By 1926, Baptists
claimed 43 percent and Methodists only 28 percent. But the laments
served an explanatory function. Whenever Southern Baptists experi-
enced slow growth or spiritual torpor, the reason was ready at hand:
The churches did not exercise discipline.9
Delegates to a special meeting of western Georgia churches in 1851
had resolved that they could not "reasonably expect the blessing of God
upon us, as a Denomination, until we return again to the 'old paths,'
and reinstate in our churches, that soundness of faith, purity of prac-
tice, and vigor of discipline, which once characterized us." Such obser-
vations continued through the rest of the century. Baptists blamed the
absence of discipline for declensions in spirituality, interest, and effi-
ciency. The decline of discipline explained why the church seemed
powerless. Pastor E. V. Baldy ascribed the rise of aberrant theologies to
the loss of discipline. "Holiness" movements emerged in postwar
Methodism to restore emphasis on purity and spawned groups like the

Salvation Army, which came to Georgia's villages by 1890. "Would it
not be well for our churches to consider whether or not the 'Holiness'
heresy, and Taith-cure' movement are not both a rebuke and a warn-
ing to our churches," Baldy asked, "a reaction occasioned by the gen-
eral looseness on the part of our churches in the matter of discipline,
and a low standard of morality and faith, which satisfies so many pro-
fessed Christians?"10
Nothing availed to restore discipline to its former rigor, and Baptists
feared that God would withhold the blessings of revival and piety.
Churches no longer able to protect their purity would become infested
with worldliness; they would lose the title of "Church of Christ." The
only consolation was that Baptists had a rational explanation for
instances of spiritual declension, an explanation that retained its power
into the twentieth century.
Obstacles to Discipline
The wonder is not that Baptist discipline fell on hard times but that it
ever flourished at all. As David Butler acknowledged, "Discipline, as
administered by the church, is seldom, if ever, a pleasant duty." Mem-
bers found it distasteful. "It is not always a pleasant task," W. H. Stokes
noted, "to admonish a brother—to point out his delinquencies and urge
him a speedy amendment." Churches sometimes shrank from discipline
to avoid hurt feelings. Pastor Benjamin Roberts commented on the fre-
quency with which "tenderness" became an excuse for neglecting dis-
cipline. The agents of discipline in a local church had to expect resent-
ment, especially from the family and friends of the accused. They
sometimes faltered: "It is not popular, or it is cruel, or it is distasteful."11
Discipline committees sometimes dragged their feet and had to be
rebuked for their negligence. In reply, they decried the mortification
they endured in carrying out their commission. They appended to their
verdicts the lament that their task was a "painful duty," a source of
"unqualified regret." Basil Manly Jr., pastor of a church that was about
to exclude a young woman for fornication, expressed to a fellow pastor
his anguish: "I presume that our Church will take action next Sat. at
the regular church meeting. The young lady had expressed the great-
est penitence; and much sympathy is felt for her, together with no small
indignation against Mr. Schreiber [her partner]. My own feeling is one
of profound grief."12
They also found discipline difficult because it created "much trouble."
W. H. Stokes confessed that churches sometimes avoided pursuing dis-
cipline because "we know if we begin, we shall be under the necessity
of prosecuting a long course of dealing, and this is so unpleasant, that
rather than go into it, we suffer sin upon our brethren." It was trouble-
some to endure extended discussions in successive conferences, espe-

cially for the investigating committees. The Powelton Baptist Church
excluded Sister Allen for falsely accusing Sister Frazier of having borne
illegitimate children. The case took two months of "considerable inves-
tigation" on the part of the committee, which met with the alienated
parties, witnesses, and other concerned parties but failed to resolve the
difficulty. Two months later, the church agreed to reconsider the case
and persevered through three conferences filled with "considerable
conversation." At an impasse, the church called in "helps" from other
churches. After six months, it decided to stand by its excommunication
of Sister Allen.13
Some churches observed the rule "that whoever makes a motion that
results in the formation of a committee shall be appointed chairman of
that committee." This meant that whoever initiated discipline against
a member would have to lead the investigation and make the report.
Since many cases, like that of Sisters Allen and Frazier, involved "ex-
tended and unpleasant investigations," members hesitated long before
they would "place themselves in a position, of accuser and voluntary
and active prosecutor of their delinquent brethren."14
The distress was especially great when the accused were influential
or well connected. The churches did discipline influential members, but
the impediments were well-known: "It is no easy matter to carry a dis-
ciplinary process through, where the offender is obstinate and has
influential friends in the church and congregation." Samuel Henderson
acknowledged that "we all have known persons tolerated in neighbor-
hoods, nay, kept in churches for years on account of their relationships
to worthy people" because their kindred and friends interposed a bar-
rier to protect them from exclusion. Disciplinary action against promi-
nent members could be a special sign of church fidelity. A young Adiel
Sherwood noted it in his journal when Mars Hill Baptist Church
"assembled in conference and excluded a valuable member."15
When a wealthy member transgressed, the brethren were "pretty sure
to 'make haste slowly.' " It was noticeable that the man who paid $100
toward the pastor's salary "can go farther into the world without dan-
ger to his church relations, than a poor man." Wealth sometimes over-
came piety in disciplinary proceedings. Pastor A. L. Moncrief described
a case in which a pious Sunday school superintendent accused the
wealthiest and most influential member of the church with drunken-
ness. Attempting to evade censure, the offender won a majority in his
favor, and at the next conference it rejected the charge against the
wealthy member and excluded the superintendent "on false charges."16
By the late nineteenth century, however, such difficulties were halt-
ing the exercise of moral authority in the churches. They never
renounced the goal of purity or the duty of discipline, but in the end
they preferred sinners in the flock rather than "vexatious discipline."17
Dancing and Worldly Amusements

The most distressing issue was "popular amusements," especially danc-
ing. Jesse Mercer referred to it as the "vexed question." It was the rock
on which discipline foundered. Baptists had invented nothing new in
their proscription of dancing. A statute of pre-Reformation Zurich had
outlawed dancing "in order that the Lord God will protect us, that our
crops may flourish in the fields, and that there may be good weather."
Baptists had little reason to expect that growing numbers of members
would balk at discipline against dancers and effectively jeopardize the
ecclesiastical authority on which discipline stood.18
Antebellum American culture was divided on the moral character of
dancing and other amusements. Many of the amusements denounced
by evangelicals constituted the staple enjoyments of the southern gen-
try. Countless Americans, not just the affluent, adopted the ideals of
aristocratic gentility, in which dancing transformed the awkward car-
riage of youth into the graceful, refined movement of adults. But danc-
ing did not find universal favor. Many colleges prohibited it, as did the
University of Georgia under the presidency of Presbyterian minister
Moses Waddell.19
Since many southerners danced, Baptists had to remind their mem-
bers that it was prohibited behavior. In 1794, Phillips Mill Baptist Church
resolved that it was not "lawful" for Christians to "attend on publick
Meetings of Dancing and other Vain amusements." Savannah Baptist
Church adopted new bylaws in 1835, pronouncing that "we hold the
assembling together of persons of any age or character for dancing and
other discipation, as highly improper for professors of religion." The
Washington Association in 1837 counseled the churches that it was not
"consistent with Gospel order, for Church members to attend balls or
dancing parties."20
Early Americans viewed dancing as part of the education of children,
so the Baptists criticized dancing schools more frequently than danc-
ing. In 1799, a member of Powelton Baptist Church asked whether it
was "right for a member of a Baptist church to enter or suffer to be
entered his children that are under his jurisdiction to a dancing school?"
The church answered unanimously in the negative. Christian parents
should not, churches urged, allow their children "to attend and danc[e]
at baals [balls] or parties" or "to visit houses where there is fiddling."
Associations reminded churches to excommunicate parents who "allow
their children & wards to frequent balls, or be scholars at dancing
schools."21
In the early nineteenth century, all the evangelical churches censured
their members who danced or abetted dancing. Methodist circuit rider
Peter Cartwright once recalled that early Methodist parents "did not
allow their children to go to balls or plays; they did not send them to
dancing schools." Presbyterians resolved that their members should not

permit their children to attend balls, dances, and other worldly amuse-
ments. Among Protestants, Episcopalians had the dancing to themselves:
One of them observed that "gay society seems to have been relegated
to the Episcopalians," who alone "supported the race course, dancing
master, and theater." Eliza Andrews complained when the evangelical
preachers of Washington, Georgia, attacked dancing: "I wish we had
an Episcopal Church established here to serve as a refuge for the many
worthy people who are not gamblers and murderers, but who like to
indulge in a little dancing now and then."22
In large part, the churches succeeded in keeping their members off
the dance floors. Every revival of religion diminished dancing's stock.
When evangelist George Whitefield promoted the Great Awakening in
the South in 1740, the dancing masters began "to cry out that their craft
is in danger." Itinerant dancing master Nelson Mount had a prosper-
ous school in Monticello, Georgia—filled with "back sliding Method-
ists"—but he had to reconsider his plan to set up a school in Macon when
"a great revival" occurred there. Conversely, Dorothy Shorter confessed
that her attendance at dancing school had hardened her heart against
religion. Dancing and evangelical religion did not mix.23
When antebellum Baptists ventured to dance, their churches cured
them of the practice. Baptist leaders could almost always convince the
laity that dancing was immoral. As late as 1858, Newnan Baptist Church
prosecuted five men for sanctioning a dancing school and persuaded
all five of their error. One by one, the five confessed their actions
"wrong" and admitted that dancing was unchristian. It was the same
with other fashionable amusements, which included the theater and
circus, cards and other games of chance, and billiards. Before the Civil
War, the churches usually succeeded in enforcing discipline against all
of them.24
A revival in 1837 in Greensboro steeled its inhabitants against the
theater. The protracted meeting in the Presbyterian church was held
over for a fifth night, when a theatrical company advertised it would
begin its show. As the church bell signaled the beginning of the ser-
vice, the theater musicians took up a melody beckoning the citizens
to come to the show. The thespians shipped out the following day,
for young and old filled the church, while "the theatre room had not
its first visitor!" In 1841, the Protestants of Talbotton accomplished
the same feat, for two nights furnishing no customers for a theatri-
cal troupe. 25
By the 1840s, Presbyterian and Methodist churches found it increas-
ingly difficult to dissuade members from worldly amusements. There
were instances of Presbyterian elders resigning in frustration and Pres-
byterian ministers battling reluctant congregations. In 1847, B. M.
Democratic Religion TransformedD 1233
Palmer wanted to keep the members of the Columbia, South Carolina,

Presbyterian Church away from dances, the theater, the opera, and the
racecourse. The elders refused to allow him to announce his intention
to apply "wholesome discipline" until Palmer threatened to resign on
the grounds that "his conscience would not permit him to be the pas-
tor of a dancing church."26
Methodist minister Moses Henkle, editor of the Nashville Christian
Advocate, complained at midcentury that Methodist discipline had run
aground on the indulgence of fashionable amusements: "In every place,
we hear complaint, that members . . . trample on the rules, by direct
and open acts of violation. How many theatre-going members are hang-
ing, as dead weights, on the Church! How many have danced away their
last 'desire to flee from the wrath to come.'... And all this takes place
among people who have solemnly subscribed to these very stringent
rules of holy living."27
The years following the Civil War brought a crisis in Southern Baptist
discipline. For the first time in their history, the churches encountered
sustained resistance to discipline. Somehow the war had changed the
churches, and they noticed the difference. One observer, looking back
in 1866 at the war, saw it as a time of changing moral standards: "Vice
and immorality of almost every kind have been rapidly on the increase
during the last five years, and, what is still worse, public sentiment has
become so much demoralized that many things are now thought right,
or at least admissable, which formerly all men agreed in pronouncing
wrong."28
In 1868, the Ebenezer Association blamed the war for neglect of dis-
cipline: "The war and its results have largely demoralized many of our
church members, and as such, there is too much intemperance, pro-
fanity, neglect of church duties, heresies, dissensions, and general
unchristian conduct, tolerated by the followers of Jesus. Many, perhaps
all, of our churches need purifying, and the only way to secure the
strength and efficiency of the churches is to keep them pure." In 1866,
Penfield Baptist Church blamed the increase in dancing on the ill effects
of the war, for it had effaced "the lines of distinction between the Church
and the world" and produced "a conformity to practices and amuse-
ments not sanctioned by the word of God."29
The Civil War had given a jump start to southern "civil religion."
After the war, southern churches would find more to bless in the soci-
ety, and the society would find the religion more congenial. The soci-
ety became more religious as the churches became less hostile to the
society. Although some Southern Baptists resisted, the denomination
followed the cultural trend. The earliest sign that Baptists would trans-
form their piety appeared in their ineffectual opposition to dancing
and amusements.30
Even before the war, there were rare instances of opposition to dis-
ciplining dancers. In 1857, LaGrange Baptist Church excluded George
W. Chase when he confessed that "he had danced at different times in
public and private, that he saw nothing wrong in doing so and intended
doing so again whenever he had an opportunity." In 1859, Penfield
Baptist Church forgave Brother and Sister Morgan when they pledged
to abstain from dancing in the future, in spite of the fact that Brother
Morgan said he "did not consider that they had sinned thereby [in danc-
ing] against God, or Christ, or the Bible."31
After the war, more and more Baptists made their peace with danc-
ing. Hue Gibson earned exclusion in 1866 when he "persisted in the
belief of the charge [dancing] being no harm in his view of the scrip-
ture." Ira Reid suffered the same outcome when he "stated that he had
attended dancing parties, and had danced, that he did not think it a Sin
and was not sorry for dancing." Rosa Howell gained her freedom from
the church in 1894 when she charged herself with dancing, adding that
"she expected to continue to dance." Eunice O'Brien eluded exclusion
only when she recanted her former opinion that "she does not consider
dancing a sin." Powelton Baptist Church forgave G. W. Stewart's danc-
ing when he pledged to desist, even though Stewart admitted that "he
did not believe dancing to be a sin."32
Dancing Baptists multiplied in the 1860s and 1870s. Contrary to the
downward trend for most actionable offenses, the average annual rate
at which Georgia churches tried members for dancing offenses rose from
8.4 trials per 10,000 members between 1785 and 1860 to a rate of 18.1
between 1861 and 1880, more than doubling the prewar rate. Still, the
churches were much more reluctant to exclude the dancers. Georgia
Baptists accused of dancing between 1861 and 1880 received exclusion
less than half as often as those accused of dancing between 1785 and
1860. Most churches held that promiscuous dancing was wrong in prin-
ciple, but in practice they relaxed their strictness.33
In response, Baptist leaders attacked dancing and other amusements
on every front: in the churches, in the associations, and in the press.
Denunciations proliferated in church meetings. An early proclamation
admitted that Baptists were beginning to see no harm in worldly amuse-
ments. In 1857, LaGrange Baptist Church resolved:
Whereas a question seems to exist in some minds in relation to the fit-
ness and propriety of certain popular amusements as theater going,
attendance of the circus, and patronising dancing and dancing Schools—
a fact which in its manifestation in our own midst has been a subject of
deep regreat to members of the church, Whereas we are convinced that
the interests of religion are suffering . .. and whereas we as a church are
unwilling to have any complicity with such a sentiment, Therefore re-
solved that it is the sense of this church, that such practices are of
unchristian and immoral tendency, and inconsistent with Gospel order.

2nd Resolved that we cannot find it in our conciences to connive at per-
sistence on the part of any in these practices.
The Washington and Athens churches passed resolutions against danc-
ing in 1864, Atlanta First Baptist Church in 1866, and Newnan Baptist
Church in 1869. So did numerous other churches for several decades:
They decried the "worldly tendency" of dancing and amusements,
"which though they may be approved of by the world have ever been
regarded by the most devout and pious as unfriendly to the growth of
vital Godliness." The associations repeatedly issued the same warning.34
They opposed not only dancing but also all other forms of worldly
amusements. In 1851 the Rehoboth Association summarized the illicit
amusements that drew the flood of postbellum resolutions. It announced
that neither members nor their children should attend "Theatres, Cir-
cuses, Balls, Dancing Schools, Horse Races, fashionable card-parties, or
. . . any other similar places of amusement." Dancing almost always
appeared in such lists, and card playing appeared often. The Greens-
boro Baptist Church approached a complete list in 1870, condemning
"the patronage of bar rooms, billiard Saloons, card tables, circuses, and
dancing parties." Yet the list went on. Churches proscribed shooting
matches, chess, drafts, and backgammon. One clerk tried unsuccessfully
to bar baseball.35
Young people invented various "plays" and "games" that provided
some of the pleasure of dancing without the name. The churches found
the dancing games just as objectionable, censuring youth who "dance
and play those games equivalent thereto." Associations advised churches
to discipline any member who engaged in "the modern fashionable
dances under the various sham names of 'Stealing Partners/ 'Twisti-
fication/ 'Wild Irishman/ etc." Powelton Baptist Church forgave a num-
ber of young members who "confessed to the charge of playing after
violin, [who] did not know until [that] time this was dancing." The
popularity of these games induced one church to define dancing as "any
amusement at Social gatherings requiring music or the Calling of fig-
ures in its performance." Others were content to prohibit "dancing . . .
or anything bordering so near to dancing." The Hightower Association
denounced broadly "plays, such as carrying on, after the Fiddle, a kind
of dance called Twistification—Grind the Bottle—or any other such idle
plays."36
Yet the churches became more permissive. They became uncertain
about any discipline for worldly amusements. They thought worldly
amusements evil, but they hesitated to address the evil by means of
discipline. One difficulty was that young people were the main offend-
ers. The churches tried to censure parents who allowed children to dance
or "play," but this did not solve the problem. The dilemma was that the
churches were growing mainly through an influx of younger converts,

and they were unwilling to cut off the younger generation. Dancing
and other amusements appealed primarily to the youth. Churches tried
to explain that the amusements were "injurious to youth," devices to
"entrap the young." But the LaGrange Baptist Church recognized the
dilemma: "The idea is so prevalent that if we enforce church discipline
and exclude members they will be lost," and the churches balked at
losing the youth.37
As Baptists began to doubt the propriety of discipline for dancing
church members, they responded in ambivalent ways. On the one hand,
they drummed out resolutions against amusements; on the other, they
sometimes expunged those resolutions. In 1871, Georgia's former gov-
ernor Joseph E. Brown, a member of Atlanta Second Baptist Church,
submitted a resolution that members who frequented "Theatres or places
of Worldly Amusement where exhibitions immoral in themselves
or indecent or offensive to good taste or good manners, are witnessed"
should be subject to discipline. The resolution passed, but only "after
considerable discussion." A portion of the church, irritated by this action,
secured a unanimous passage of a compromise resolution the follow-
ing month in which the church abrogated "all Rules heretofore adopted
as a basis of disciplinary action." The church did not pledge to refrain
from discipline for amusements, but the more liberal party ensured that
each case would require an assessment of culpability of the amusement,
which would entail the need for "considerable discussion." The church
left its position shrouded in ambiguity.38
A decade after resolving to prohibit "dancing in any of its forms,"
Crawford Baptist Church voted in 1885 to "expunge its definition of
dancing as it now stands on the minutes." On the eve of the Civil War,
Newnan Baptist Church agreed unanimously that dancing was contrary
to "the principles and spirit of Christianity" but refused to adopt a reso-
lution that made "attendance of balls and cotillion parties ... a subject
matter of [disciplinary] dealing." The next year the church could not
agree on what action they should take toward members "who patronize
dancing schools." It continued to express its "disapprobation" of danc-
ing, but its indecision about disciplinary action gave dancers a measure
of immunity.39
Powelton Baptist Church rescinded in 1878 its article against danc-
ing and card playing. "Our reason for advising that this article be struck
out," the committee explained, "is not that we have any doubts of danc-
ing or card playing being immoral amusements, but we think the teach-
ing of the new Testament sufficient to guide us in the disposition of all
cases." LaGrange Baptist Church likewise repealed its rules that required
discipline for amusements, substituting "the Old and New Testaments
[as] its only rule of its faith and practice." The argument was essentially
the same as the one made by Arminian Baptists who struggled against
creeds. But if the Bible prohibited dancing and card playing, what was
the harm in writing it down?40
The churches split into three factions on the question of dancing and
amusements. The conservatives remained convinced that scripture for-
bade dancing and that dancers should be subject to discipline. The lib-
erals accepted the complete innocence of dancing. The moderates felt
that dancing was unspiritual and unscriptural but were unwilling to
exclude Baptists who felt differently. By way of compromise, churches
repealed the resolutions requiring discipline while continuing to de-
nounce the activity.
When dancing liberal F. M. Cleveland stood before his church to
answer the charge of dancing, he admitted attending a dancing party,
but the moderate faction's tolerance prevailed. Cleveland felt he had
done nothing wrong, so the church "agreed to drop the case and relieve
Brother Cleveland from any charge of unchristian conduct." The Geor-
gia Association recognized the existence of the liberal faction: Since
"fiddling and dancing" had become so popular in southern society,
"some members of the Church profess to believe them to be harmless
practices." In LaGrange Baptist Church, the moderates blocked disci-
pline against dancers, prompting a conservative member to prefer "a
charge against the church for neglect of duty in tolerating dancing."41
Only the predominance of the moderate view explains both the
denunciations of dancing and the evidence that churches were "delin-
quent in reporting the names of such members as ... do injury to the
cause of Christ by participating in the amusements of the world." Many
churches followed the policy of Savannah Baptist Church, urging self-
restraint and a "be ye kind" toleration of those who indulged. By
the 1890s, Southern Baptist opposition to worldly amusements was
mostly baying at the moon. By then, the rate at which Georgia churches
brought members to trial for dancing offenses had fallen well below
antebellum levels; the rate at which 1890s churches actually excluded
members for dancing offenses had fallen by more than 70 percent. Reso-
lutions against amusements became plaintive cries of congregations that
had lost the resolve to discipline.42
Urban Religion
Although the South long remained a predominantly rural area, its rapid
urbanization after Reconstruction shaped southern culture. The prom-
ise of the New South was not rural cotton, the price of which remained
low because of overproduction, but urban industry and commerce.
Every village hoped to become the next Birmingham, whose coal and
iron operations spurred growth from 3,000 inhabitants in 1880 to
133,000 in 1910. The lure of the city attracted educated professionals
and ambitious illiterates.43
In 1886, New South aspirations brought the first electric streetcars in

the nation to Montgomery, Richmond, and Atlanta. Electric lights and
telephone systems spread yet more rapidly. The region's 11 percent of
the nation's urban population had 18 percent of the nation's munici-
pally owned power stations and 22 percent of its telephone systems.
Urban religion prospered as well. As railroads connected county after
county to urban areas, rural life, including church life, began to follow
the fashions and values of the city. Baptists noticed the change.44
During the antebellum period, urban congregations labored under a
dark cloud. Several cities had difficulty establishing Baptist congrega-
tions, and the urban churches often remained smaller than many rural
congregations. The growth of Baptist work in New Orleans and Mobile
was painfully slow. Jesse Mercer wondered aloud why "our brethren
have so much trouble getting pastors in Southern Cities."45
The explanation came from Baptist ambivalence about urbanity. In
addition to their reputation as centers of wickedness, cities inspired awe.
The cool refinement of city dwellers intimidated the poorly educated
Baptist preachers. They shrank from city pulpits in part because city
churches would not accept them. Conscious that their Presbyterian and
Episcopalian neighbors considered them unworthy of respect, urban
Baptist congregations sought well-educated preachers who could attract
the more "respectable" classes. The same consciousness impelled aspi-
rations for an educated clergy. Urban Baptist preachers attracted the
notice and respect of their peers and acquired the salaries and wealth
to go along with it. They commanded salaries five to ten times higher
than their rural counterparts and attained wealth four times above the
national average.46
Basil Manly Sr., president of the University of Alabama, declined to
accept a pulpit in Richmond, explaining that the labor was too demand-
ing and "the people in a city are sermon-ridden. They grow hard,
insensible, if not carping and surly." Jesse Mercer recalled his visit to
Charleston, South Carolina: "I went to the place with many prejudices
against the brethren in that place, taking it for granted, that as they lived
in a large city, they were a proud, formal, fashionable people, and had
very little religion." Although Mercer went away impressed by Charles-
ton piety, prejudices against urban Baptists did not die easily. In 1877,
an African-American Baptist preacher commended Atlanta pastor Frank
Quarles, who was "a good servant of God, even if he does live in a city,
and in Atlanta at that; and he has just as much good practical religion
in him as if he was born and raised in the country. The truth is, I am
beginning to believe that a great many of our city brethren are very
nearly, if not quite, as good as our country brethren, any way."47
Country Baptists after the war began to believe the same thing—or,
at least, to believe that if city Baptists were not quite as good as country
Baptists, they were nonetheless worthy of emulation. By 1870, the lead-
ership of the southern denomination had passed to the city pulpits. In

1868, the Western Association, denouncing the spread of worldliness
and popular amusements, placed the heaviest burden on "city and town
churches, which are look[ed] up to as examples."48
S. G. Hillyer recalled in 1869 the time "when the strength and wealth
of our denomination were in the country. The planters, and their fami-
lies, formed a large and influential membership, which gave tone to
public sentiment, and regulated, in a great degree, the state of Chris-
tian morality." But a revolution had occurred: "The churches of our large
towns and cities are generally stronger. The superior influence is now
with them. . . . The intelligence, wealth, and social position, and able
ministry, with which they are so highly favored, must necessarily make
them conspicuous in the ranks of our denomination, and give their
opinions and practices a power for good, or for evil, which is almost
irresistable." On city churches rested the burden of conserving doctri-
nal fidelity and moral purity for the denomination, Hillyer argued,
because "it is a fact, the country imitates the city, and country churches
imitate city churches."49
Although many Baptists considered the ascendancy of urban churches
a mixed blessing, for traditionalists it was a catastrophe. Urban churches
proved incapable of sustaining discipline and the exclusivist vision on
which it stood. On a per member basis, postbellum town and city churches
in Georgia brought their members to trial at about one-third the rate of
their village and rural counterparts and excluded their members at about
one-half the rate. The difference was not that urban Baptists committed
fewer transgressions but that urban churches were more tolerant.
The city churches retained the policy of exclusion when members
joined other denominations. They maintained their opposition to rec-
ognizing alien immersion. They adhered to the principle of close com-
munion. Indeed, they were more likely to exclude those members
whom they managed to bring to trial. Town and city churches excluded
57 percent of defendants in the 1860s, increasing to 69 percent in the
1890s. Village and rural churches showed the opposite trend, declining
from 50 percent in the 1860s to 33 percent in the 1890s.
The sagging exclusion percentage in rural churches indicated some
relaxing of discipline, but the rising exclusion rate of the urban churches
may not indicate sustained strictness. Much postwar urban church dis-
cipline consisted of lopping off defectors to other denominations, often
by sweeping clean the membership roll. More than half of all trials in
urban churches between 1861 and 1900 involved offenses against the
church, most by members who joined another denomination.50
Conservatives bemoaned the failure of the urban churches to pro-
vide leadership. F. M. Law urged the need to trim the church because
drunkenness, fighting, gambling, and dancing often "pass unnoticed"
and congregations exhibit "little or no difference between the church
and the world." This was true "especially in our towns and cities," where
immorality was "more tolerated ... than in the country churches." J. B.
Gambrell, the president of Mercer University, argued that country
churches exercised "something like New Testament discipline"; city
churches did not. Urban Baptists were more generous and less preju-
diced, but many of them were "so broad and attenuated, that they
amount to little or nothing in a moral or spiritual way. And, as to preju-
dices, they have none, no, not even against the Devil or his agents and
enterprises.. . . Many a city Baptist church is over trained in form and
breadth till the rugged integrity of the New Testament is trained out."
The exclusiveness that undergirded discipline withered before the
inclusivism of the urban environment.51
The soft spot in urban discipline, observers thought, was tolerance of
worldly amusements. S. G. Hillyer accurately predicted that once urban
Baptists extended the walls of the church enough to include members
who pursued worldly amusements, all Baptist discipline would collapse.
"If therefore, our city churches relax their discipline, and tolerate irreg-
ularities of behaviour, inconsistent with a pure Christian morality, these
irregularities will be sure to find apologists and even advocates among
the people of the country. Sooner or later, discipline will be relaxed
everywhere." The offenses that posed a clear and present threat, fret-
ted Hillyer, were "rafflings, card-playing, dancing, attending the the-
atre, and opera, &c. . . . Thus the blandishments of wealth, the power
of fashion, and the subtle relations of society, (so-called,) conspire to
carry the church along with the world, in the giddy pursuit of pleasure."
The barriers of discipline were "broken down."52
Another observer excoriated city churches for setting a bad example.
When country churches attempted to discipline members for dancing,
the dancers pleaded that city pastors "favor dancing, regard it as inno-
cent, allow it in their houses and qualify their daughters to attend. And
then, too, the practice of the large city churches and the expressions of
their pastors, from the seaboard to the mountains, are minutely and
forcibly detailed, with the question accompanying, 'Why shall not this
church do likewise? And why should our pastor propose to be more
righteous than these learned, pious city preachers?' The result is, church
discipline is trampled under foot."53
Urban churches did not hold the line against worldly amusements.
Whereas almost one in four discipline cases in rural churches between
1861 and 1900 included charges of worldly amusements, barely one in
twenty urban cases did. In the town and urban churches, discipline for
dancing declined by 60 percent after the antebellum period. Rural and
village churches between 1861 and 1900 prosecuted members for danc-
ing at a rate twenty-three times higher than that of urban churches in
the same period; they excluded dancers at a rate eleven times higher.54
Although town and urban churches occasionally announced their

opposition to dancing and amusements, they showed little resolve to
address the issue by means of discipline. Rural and village churches
entered a similar decline a little later. Urban Baptists blazed the trail
that the rest followed. Many began to view dancing, within proper
bounds, as an innocent pursuit. In addition, they were developing bet-
ter, more efficient methods of promoting spirituality than through cor-
rective church discipline.
Efficiency and Progress

Before the late nineteenth century, Baptists defined the church in terms
of its purity. The preacher explained and proved pure doctrine, which
carried power for conversion and piety. Praise and prayer proceeded
according to the pure example of the apostles. Church government
conformed to the pure pattern of the primitive church. Membership was
reserved for the pure and was guarded by discipline.
By the late nineteenth century, the paradigm of the pure church
seemed less compelling. It was the vision of the efficient church that
captivated Baptists of the Gilded Age. Baptists by no means abandoned
the quest for purity, but it no longer gave the policies and principles of
Baptist churches their shape. The search for the efficient church trans-
formed traditional notions of purity. Baptists were not alone. Churches
across the nation were abandoning old models of congregational life.
They instituted more efficient systems of church finance and trans-
formed themselves into centers of social life and recreational activity.
Efficiency became the watchword of a new generation.55
The ideal of the efficient church informed the labors of postbellum
pastors, especially in city pulpits. In 1872, the members of Atlanta Sec-
ond Baptist Church, not satisfied with their level of piety, called a meet-
ing "to promote a more efficient church organization." Baptists of an
earlier generation might have considered such a goal presumptuous
because the pattern of church organization revealed in the New Testa-
ment was the true one and, if true, then most efficient. Now efficiency
meant something else.56
Savannah Baptist Church in 1873 appointed a committee on "Sys-
tematic Effort." The committee took it for granted that its goal, and the
goal of lay Bible study, was "church efficiency." Athens Baptist Church
sought to remedy meager attendance at meetings in 1867 in order "to
ensure the efficiency of the church." The Georgia Association urged its
churches to adopt means "for making each and every member efficient
in the discharge of that particular line of duty for which he has talent."57
Where antebellum southern churches might have honored the dis-
ciplinary abilities of their pastors, postbellum churches sought efficiency.
Barnesville Baptist Church, expressing appreciation for pastor R. J.

Willingham at his resignation, praised him first as "an efficient servant."
Newnan Baptist Church voiced their esteem for J. H. Hall upon his res-
ignation from a pastorate that he "so efficiently and acceptably filled."
Efficiency headed the list of virtues for New South pastors.58
The success of postbellum churches, especially in the cities, compelled
them to seek new methods of organization. Missionary and educational
enterprises established before the war required broader financial sup-
port from the churches. Town and city churches expanded and built
tasteful new buildings to house their larger congregations. Carpeted and
furnished to suit refined tastes, churches introduced instrumental music,
ordered expensive organs from New York firms, and employed organists
and professional quartet choirs to thrill their audiences. The prominent
churches required prominent preachers and had to pay $2,000 or $3,000
annually to attract and keep them.59
The unintended result of such trappings of success was that discipline
was squeezed out of its traditional home, the monthly church confer-
ence. Urban church conferences, already swelled with the press of
financial business necessary to address perennial fiscal straits, reached
such size that merely keeping up with the admission and dismission of
members proved a burden on conference time. Harried meetings shoved
disciplinary business on sidings to attend to more urgent concerns. In
this way, Atlanta First Baptist Church neglected to dispose of a profan-
ity charge for sixteen months, a fraud charge for twenty-nine. Urban
Baptists could do little more by way of discipline than visit peremptory
excommunication on notorious offenders and defectors.60
The efficiency of the churches had two components: system and
activity. To achieve efficiency, the churches sought a system that would
produce generous financial giving. When Atlanta Second Baptist Church
recorded church revenues three times greater than in any previous year,
Baptist editor H. H. Tucker concluded that "system is the secret of the
whole of it." The plan that postbellum southern churches adopted was
"the System Known as the Envelope System."61
Traditionally, Baptist churches had raised money with the subscrip-
tion method. At the beginning of each year, members put their names
on the subscription list, pledging a certain sum toward the pastor's sal-
ary. They relied on the same method when erecting or improving their
buildings, contributing to missions, or aiding impoverished church
members. In the postwar economy, Baptist churches experimented with
pew rents, assessments based on income, or a system of church dues,
sometimes with a paid dues collector.62
Eventually, most raised part or all of their budget with the envelope
system, in which members pledged to give a small amount weekly or
monthly, remitted in an envelope. Athens Baptist Church adopted the
plan in 1868, Atlanta First in 1871, Atlanta Second in 1872, Savannah
Democratic Religion TransformeDD 1333
in 1873, LaGrange in 1888, Crawfordville in 1896, and Newnan in 1897.

William Strickland endorsed the sentiment of the Stone Mountain
Association, which recommended in 1870 that the "Envelope System be
adopted by the churches."63
In the drive toward efficiency, churches also organized the member-
ship into a system of standing committees. Baptist churches were mov-
ing in this direction by the 1850s, but it was in the 1870s that the move-
ment achieved its final form. Macon Baptist Church led the way,
appointing in 1877 standing committees on visitation, social visitation,
the sick, the poor, strangers, absentees, Sunday schools, and missions.
Other churches, especially those in towns and cities, followed suit. The
committees realized the second component of the Baptist pursuit of effi-
ciency—activity. With "the whole church" divided into committees, "the
aim is to give every member of the church something to do," produc-
ing "a tender-hearted, happy, united and enthusiastic band of work-
ers, going about doing good." One of the great purposes of Christian
training, Baptist leaders urged, was "to increase the efficiency of the
church by calling into useful activity every member."64
The pursuit of system and activity entailed a new conception of the
pastor. Traditionally, Baptist pastors viewed themselves as custodians
of orthodoxy and purity. They expected orthodox preaching to create
right belief and pure behavior. Pastors in the New South supplanted
the priority of proclaiming truth with that of efficient management of
pious workers. "Without organization there would be no system; with-
out system there would be no efficient work.... Much of the pastor's
time must be given to the arrangement of the work and the appoint-
ment of workers."65
Notions of the mission of the church underwent a similar transfor-
mation. A church aiming at efficiency valued orthodoxy and purity as
secondary objectives. The primary goal was action—"The essence of
Christianity is activity," Baptist preachers began to feel. The goal was
to make every member "available and useful," because "Christianity
must be progressive, and to be progressive must be aggressive. It must
not wait for something to be, but must do something." Activism became
the crowning virtue of Baptist piety in the twentieth century.66
The churches applied their activism to missions and evangelism, but
no longer did they conduct evangelism only to save sinners and estab-
lish pure, orthodox churches. Baptists found a larger vision that trans-
formed the evangelistic task itself. J. B. Gambrell, Progressive Era presi-
dent of the Southern Baptist Convention, goaded Baptist pastors to the
task of "getting everybody in the church to do something," in order that
Baptists might achieve their highest goal—to "gather in and dominate
all the forces in this widening, intensifying, complex civilization, by a
masterful spirit of evangelism." Evangelism would establish a pure social
order.67
Belief in the inevitability of progress fueled the transformation of

Southern Baptist churches from asylums of the sanctified to efficient
labor clubs. As early as the 1840s and 1850s, Baptists thought they could
discern moral progress in "this age of improvement." Late-nineteenth-
century Baptists, still eschewing the notion of progress in doctrine,
embraced the idea that "the one universal law of this nineteenth cen-
tury is progress." The century was, pastor S. M. Provence declared,
"remarkable for its progress."68
The organizers were not dismayed by the "great number of unorga-
nized Baptists in our midst." Despite such inefficient congregations, they
discerned "a spirit of progress in almost all our churches." They ascribed
this moral advance primarily to the efficient labor of the laity: "the breth-
ren ... are feeling more than ever their individual responsibility." Bap-
tists paraded the new progress in their yearly associational gatherings.
The Middle Association changed the name of its annual report on the
"State of Religion" to the "Progress and Development of the Churches,"
reporting triumphantly that "within the last ten years our churches have
increased the number of members more than one thousand; they have
more than doubled their contributions to the various mission fields and
other benevolent work The salaries of our pastors have been greatly
increased and more than fifty thousand dollars has been added to the
value of church property. Much progress has been made in our Sun-
day school work. . . . The greatest progress, however, has been in
woman's work."69
The progress had two foci: First, Baptists were giving more money to
missions, to the support of the clergy, and to the improvement of church
properties. In 1870, Georgia Baptists reported no state missionaries and
contributions to missions of $4,151. In 1880, they reported 24 mission-
aries and $16,829 given to missions. By 1895, the numbers grew to 54
missionaries and $57,417. Second, they were proliferating organizations
for efficient labor, such as Sunday schools and Sunday school unions,
young peoples' unions, and women's missionary unions. LaGrange
Baptist Church praised pastor J. W. Ford primarily for his abilities in
advancing the financial support and efficient activity of church mem-
bers. "The improvement of the church property, increased effort in the
benevolent enterprises of the church, larger attendance upon public
worship and the devotional meetings of the church," the church
resolved, attested to his "spiritual power."70
The New Form of Democratic Religion

In turning to the efficient church, Southern Baptists did not repudiate
the need for discipline and purity, but they did subordinate them to a
new agenda. Church discipline did not long survive service to its new
master. In theory, church discipline had a significant place in produc-
ing an efficient church. The leaders of LaGrange Baptist Church felt that
"our declension in moral power and spirituality and our loss of interest
and efficiency in all departments of church work" could be attributed
to a neglect of discipline. The "only way to secure the strength and
efficiency of the churches," the Ebenezer Association urged, was to "keep
them pure" through discipline. The Georgia Association reminded its
churches of the "importance of exercising strict, Godly discipline, that
our members may become more and more efficient." Church efficiency
increased, some Baptists urged, in the unlikely soil of discipline.71
In practice, Baptists could not overcome complacency about discipline.
If they grew alarmed at the decline of discipline, their confidence in
progress assuaged their fears. B. M. Callaway, looking back over the
history of Sardis Baptist Church in 1888, speculated that the decline of
discipline was evidence of spiritual advance. Noticing that "cases of dis-
cipline are becoming less frequent," Callaway concluded that "church
members are generally better now" and "the moral tone of professing
Christians is on rising ground." He predicted that "improvements in the
future would tend to further elevate the Christian character of church
membership and diminish crime and the necessity of discipline in the
churches." The deacons of Savannah Baptist Church took the same view
of their congregation's infrequent recourse to discipline: "Our member-
ship as a whole is orderly in Christian walk and conversation, and but
little occasion has existed, and does exist, for arraignments of our mem-
bers for misconduct."72
Pastor J. H. Fortson took the sanguine view that progress in the church
meant transforming discipline from correction into nurture: "We know
the churches are not so strict in discipline as in former years, yet we
hope there is more formative discipline. If it is true that corrective dis-
cipline is not so good, but formative discipline is better, we hope this
indicates growth. There is certainly less dram drinking and, therefore,
less drunkenness among our members. We believe also that our mem-
bers are less inclined to join the dancers." Traditionally, Baptists thought
of discipline as "corrective discipline," the censure of transgressions
among members. Antebellum Baptists recognized that the church also
had the task of "formative discipline," the spiritual training of its mem-
bers. Basil Manly Sr. could explain in 1843 that "discipline means
instruction. It therefore includes the whole order of a Christian church.
Preaching is discipline; the administration of the ordinances is discipline;
the infliction of church censures is discipline; and all the ways in which
the edifying of the body of Christ is promoted, constitute discipline."
But in the vast majority of cases, antebellum Baptists reserved the term
discipline for "the infliction of church censures."73
By the end of the century, discipline was redefined. Manly and his
antebellum colleagues saw corrective discipline as a component of for-
mative discipline. For many New South Baptists, formative discipline
displaced corrective discipline. In 1894, Baptist editor J. C. McMichael,

asserting that "the fundamental idea of church discipline should not be
to lop off dead limbs," urged instead that "it should have more especial
reference to taking the new members and training and developing them
into strength and usefulness." Church discipline, McMichael argued
elsewhere, "denotes a process of teaching and training." McMichael
pushed corrective discipline aside, reasoning that true discipline "is a
process which, if faithfully carried forward along all the lines of church-
life, will in great measure prevent the offences that ever make exclu-
sions necessary."74
The old church discipline did not promote efficiency very well; it cut
off members who might otherwise have been mobilized for church
work. The new church discipline sought to turn dead weight into effi-
cient laborers. Pastor J. B. Parrott, promoting young people's unions in
the churches, argued that the answer to any "lack of efficiency" rested
in "discipline and training." The churches, he observed, housed "a vast
amount of raw undeveloped material.... These are to be reached and
developed and utilized by teaching them their duty and training them
in a discharge of it. ... In the neglect of this important duty lies the
secret of the failure of many Christians and the inefficiency of many
churches." The design of discipline was to engage every church mem-
ber in activity, "to increase, concentrate, and direct the agency of Chris-
tians in the conversion of the world."75
Some Baptists did not feel that the demise of discipline was a great
loss. They urged attenuating the penalties. Pastor M. J. Webb sought to
restrict exclusion to cases in which the offender did not repent, in place
of the former practice of excluding all gross offenders, penitent or not.
A few postbellum Baptists went further still, holding "that when a man
is once brought into the church, he should never be excluded for any
cause." Many churches had factions who were "not satisfied that the
church has the right to proceed to extreme disciplinary measure."76
To some extent, this lack of enthusiasm for traditional discipline
derived from the prior commitment to efficiency. Strict discipline would
damage the ability to carry out the reforming mission because it would
mean the loss of workers and their contributions. Churches hesitated
"lest the exercise of wholesome discipline result in injury to the church."
Editor M. B. Wharton, worrying that traditional discipline would weaken
the denomination, found in the exigencies of a changing world a demand
that "we suit our policy to its ever-varying necessities." Early Georgia
Baptists, Wharton admitted, "exercised rigid discipline, but to do that
now would be to exclude our strongest members, especially from a
financial point of view, while other denominations, witnessing the prun-
ing, stand ready with open arms to receive the falling branches." Effi-
cient evangelization of the world depended as much on the generous
offerings of church members as on their organized activity—neither of

which could endure the exclusivist moral discipline of earlier decades.77
Other Baptists felt the attractions of individualist and subjectivist ideas.
At the end of the century, Baptists emphasized as never before "Baptist
distinct! ves," doctrines such as believer's baptism by immersion and soul
liberty. J. L. D. Hillyer, pastor of a Florida church, taught his congrega-
tion that "no one has a right to judge a servant of Christ. Each one must
account for himself before God. This is the basis of that doctrine of 'Soul
liberty,' for which Baptists have always contended." Although Hillyer
probably did not intend to undermine the authority on which discipline
rested, such doctrines extended the reach of individualism and subjec-
tivism in the churches. Lacking confidence in their moral authority over
one another, members grew reticent to initiate disciplinary proceedings,
being "afraid the culprit will rise and say, 'physician, heal thyself/"78
With members equal before the throne of God, none could judge
another. Baptists had traditionally understood the democracy of Bap-
tist churches to mean that all church members exercised ecclesiastical
authority jointly, including authority over belief and behavior. By the
Progressive Era, Baptists began to embrace the idea that a democratic
church meant that all were equally free from ecclesiastical authority.
Pierce Simms, facing charges of dancing, sought to avoid exclusion by
appealing to the individual liberty conferred by church democracy: "He
thought the Baptist church was a democratic body and according to his
opinion each member should enjoy personal liberty & that no one had
a right to interfere with his pleasures." Although Simms did not elude
exclusion, his argument was gaining wider acceptance. The appeal to
individual liberty undermined older notions of congregational author-
ity. New ideas of tolerance, linked to new understandings of "soul lib-
erty," gained entrance to the pantheon of Baptist virtues and made room
for the coexistence in Baptist churches of wide doctrinal differences.
There was a new form of democratic religion.79
The elevation of toleration as an ecclesiastical virtue was a necessary
condition for the Southern Baptist controversy in the late twentieth
century. Baptists had always tolerated a measure of doctrinal difference,
but until the twentieth century, they had also enforced doctrinal unity,
believing that orthodoxy was a source of church life more important
than tolerance. Once the vision of the efficient church replaced that of
the pure church as the goal of Christian community, Baptists could no
longer afford rigid exclusivism. Tolerance improved efficiency in coop-
erative evangelism and missions. The tolerance of the efficient church
gave shade to varied theological opinions, so that once the denomina-
tion belatedly confronted modernism, serious differences emerged.
Southern Baptists did not reject all exclusivism when they individu-
alized their democratic religion. The ecclesiastical authority to enforce
purity eroded, but the less institutionalized authority of a morally con-

servative southern society and a fundamentalist clergy ensured that
Southern Baptist churches retained a measure of commitment to
exclusivism. Although informal, this exclusivism secured considerable
consensus on right doctrine and right living for two or three genera-
tions after the disappearance of church discipline. Even in the late twen-
tieth century, Southern Baptists' commitment to exclusivist orthodoxy
and purity remained strong enough to challenge successfully the pro-
ponents of tolerance and an inclusivist church.
Conclusion
The transformation of democratic authority was a long process. The

churches experienced a revolutionary change between 1850 and 1950.
In 1850, Southern Baptists understood democracy largely in terms of
ecclesiastical authority. In 1950, they understood it primarily in terms
of individual freedom. The revolution gained momentum from individu-
alist trends in American culture, but it also contributed to new forms of
individualism in the churches. The changing character of individual-
ism is an important part of the story of the transformation of American
evangelicalism. The church-oriented evangelicalism of early nineteenth-
century American Protestantism continued the Puritan pursuit of the
pure, primitive church. Twentieth-century American evangelicalism
preferred pietism's traditional approach: the promotion of an individual
spirituality that was loosely connected to the institutional churches.
Evangelicals were no longer convinced that there was a divine man-
date to establish pure churches as the kingdom of God on earth. The
kingdom was within. Individual piety required no mediation of the
ecclesiastical institutions. The role of the church changed.
The story of the Southern Baptist heritage of democratic authority is
a part of the larger story of the transformation of Western culture.
Modernity's reverence of the individual reshaped the social and intel-
lectual landscape of the northern hemisphere. Southern Baptists resisted
the change. Although they embraced aspects of individualism—persons
had to exercise faith individually and possessed inalienable human rights
139
140 Conclusion
as individuals—they rejected its privatizing currents. John Dewey de-

scribed how modernity's new individualism rested on a confidence in
the moral and intellectual discernment of individuals. In modernity,
Dewey said, "there is a gradual decay of the authority of fixed institu-
tions ... and a growing belief in the power of individual minds, guided
by methods of observation, experiment and reflection, to attain the
truths needed for the guidance of life."1 Each reasoning soul discovered
truth and morality privately.
Southern Baptists were latecomers to this aspect of modernity.
Although they recognized that human reason was prone to error, they
preferred to entrust the definition of truth and morality to the congre-
gation rather than to the individual. When a woman who had been
baptized by immersion by a Presbyterian minister sought membership
in a Baptist church in 1856, Basil Manly Sr. refused to privilege her
conviction that her baptism was sufficient for admission. "Even if she
has no sense of the defectiveness of her Pedobaptist immersion," Manly
argued, "this does not prove that it was infallibly right and sufficient. It
is only an opinion of hers, which may be as apt to be wrong as the opin-
ion of other people. Especially, why should she set up her judgment
against that of the whole body of churches of the only people under
heaven who are striving to keep the ordinance of baptism as Christ
delivered it?"2 Southern Baptists privileged corporate responsibility for
truth and morality. It was the basis of their democratic religion.
A significant residue remains. In the Southern Baptist denomination,
churches occasionally exclude an adulterer, but usually prefer to sen-
tence offenders of different kinds to private therapy rather than com-
munal discipline. More commonly, perhaps, Baptist associations agitate
to disfellowship churches that ordain women, tolerate homosexuality,
or recognize alien immersions as valid baptisms. Although selectively
applied and attenuated, the heritage of democratic authority contin-
ues to make its presence felt in American evangelicalism.
Notes
Abbreviations Used in Notes

EU Special Collections, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University,
Atlanta, Ga.
GDAH Georgia Department of Archives and History, Atlanta, Ga.
MU Special Collections, Main Library, Mercer University, Macon, Ga.
SETS Special Collections, James P. Boyce Centennial Library, Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky.
Introduction
1. Bradley J. Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modern-
ists, and Moderates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 132. This was
Longfield's description of Presbyterian moderate Charles R. Erdman.
2. Cecil E. Sherman, "An Overview of the Moderate Movement," in The
Struggle for the Soul of the SBC: Moderate Responses to the Fundamentalist Movement,
ed. Walter B. Shurden (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1993), 40, 42.
3. Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Philadelphia: Judson, 1950), 15.
4. See H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press,
1987), 32-48; Torbet, History, 59-62.
5. McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 123-152; Torbet, History, 220-238.
6. McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 206, 203.
7. Robert B. Semple, History of the Baptists in Virginia (1810; reprint, Lafayette,
Tenn.: Church History Research and Archives, 1976), 98-101,449-452; Torbet,
History, 222-226, 239-252.
141
142 Notes to Pages 7-13
8. Jesse Mercer, History of the Georgia Baptist Association (Washington, Ga: n.p.,
1838; reprint, Washington, Ga.: Ga. Baptist Association, 1980), 16, 140; Robert
G. Gardner, et al., A History of the Georgia Baptist Association, 1784-1984 (Wash-
ington, Ga.: Wilkes Publishing Company, 1988), 537.
9. Although most non-Landmarkists believed in Baptist successionism, they
did not elevate it to the same status. For Graves, succession determined the
validity of the churches; for other Baptists, validity derived from following the
apostolic example more than from apostolic succession.
10. Robert Gardner, Baptists of Early America: A Statistical Study (Atlanta: Geor-
gia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 35; Adiel Sherwood, A Gazetteer of the State
of Georgia (Charleston, S.C.: W. Riley, 1827; reprint, Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1939), 132, 130-131, 117-120, 129-131; J. R. Graves, The South-
ern Baptist Almanac and Annual Register, for the Year of Our Lord, 1852 (Nashville:
Tennessee Publication Society, [1851?]), 15; "Statistical Table of the Denomi-
nation in Georgia, for I860,"Minutes, Georgia Baptist Convention, 1860,46-47;
Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the
Year I860 (Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1861), 259; James
Stacy, A History of the Presbyterian Church in Georgia (Elberton, Ga.:n.p. [1912?]),
285.
11. William W. Sweet, "The Churches as Moral Courts of the Frontier,"
Church History 2 (1933): 3-21.
Chapter 1
1. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, Savannah, 2 May 1806, 6
and 13 June 1806, 31 August 1806, 12 and 14 September 1806, MU.
2. I recorded 33,383 excommunications from association records. For each
year from 1846 to 1860,1 multiplied the church members not in my associa-
tion sample by the average annual exclusion rate of the sample, rendering an
additional 4,319 exclusions. I estimated 2,500 to 5,000 additional exclusions
from churches outside my sample from 1785 to 1845.
3. Matt. 18:15-17; 1 Cor. 5.13; Justin Martyr, Apology, 1.66; Tenullian, Apol-
ogy, 39.3-4, 46.17. See also O. D. Watkins, A History of Penance, 2 vols. (1920;
reprint, New York: Burt Franklin, 1961); R. S. T. Haselhurst, Some Account of
the Penitential Discipline of the Early Church (New York: Macmillan, 1921).
4. Martin Bucer wrote that "the corruption of discipline ruins the entire
ministry of teaching and sacraments, and the devil fills their place with super-
stitions" (The Common Places of Martin Bucer, ed. and trans. D. F. Wright
[Appleford, England: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1972], 205). Calvin argued that
without discipline the "Church cannot retain its true condition" and that "the
safety of the Church is founded and supported" by "doctrine, discipline, and
the sacraments" ("Articles concerning the Organization of the Church and of
Worship at Geneva," in Calvin: Theological Treatises, ed. and trans. J. K. S. Reid,
Library of Christian Classics [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954], 51; "Reply
to Sadolet," in ibid., 232). See also Robert M. Kingdon, "Peter Martyr Vermigli
and the Marks of the True Church," in Continuity and Discontinuity in Church
History: Essays Presented to George Hunston Williams, eds. F. Forrester Church and
Timothy George (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979), 199-201; Jeffrey P. Jaynes, " 'Ordo
et Libertas': Church Discipline and the Makers of Church Order in Sixteenth
Notes to Pages 13-15 143
Century North Germany" (Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1993);

Wolfgang Dobras, Ratsregiment, Sittenpolizei und Kirchenzucht in der Reichsstadt
Konstanz 1531-1548 (Gutersloh, Germany: Gerd Mohn, 1993).
5. Increase Mather, The Order of the Gospel, Professed and Practised by the
Churches of Christ in New England... (Boston, 1700; reprinted in Increase Mather
vs. Solomon Stoddard: Two Puritan Tracts [New York: Arno Press, 1972]), 3. See
also John Cotton, The Way of the Churches of Christ in New-England (London, 1645;
reprinted in John Cotton, The New England Way [New York: AMS Press, 1984]),
304; Edmund S. Morgan, Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea (New York:
New York University Press, 1963^, 9-16. On Separatist discipline, see Timothy
George, John Robinson and the English Separatist Tradition, National Association
of Baptist Professors of Religion Dissertation Series 1 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer
University Press, 1982), 136-148. On early Baptist discipline, see T. Dowley,
"Baptists and Discipline in the 17th Century," Baptist Quarterly 24 (1971):
157-166; James Lynch, "English Baptist Church Discipline to 1740," Founda-
tions 18 (1975): 121-135. On New England Puritan discipline, see Emil
Oberholzer, Jr., Delinquent Saints: Disciplinary Action in the Early Congregational
Churches of Massachusetts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956); Morgan,
Visible Saints, 22-25.
6. See Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (New York:
Norton, 1988), 161-205.
7. Quoted in Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in
the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 23. See also pp. 90-97,
272-361.
8. Mrs. B. H. Gammell, Letter to Mrs. Marion Baber Blackshear, 5 August
1867, Baber-Blackshear Collection, Special Collections, University of Georgia
at Athens; Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1818, 4. Baptist pastor James
Ferryman expressed a view common in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
America: "It cannot then be denied, that the public prosperity of our land
depends upon the virtue of the people" (The Christian Index, 12 December 1839,
801).
9. John Asplund, The Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination in North
America (1791; reprint, Goodlettsville, Tenn.: Baptist Banner, 1979), 47; Min-
utes, Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1761, in A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of
the Philadelphia Baptist Association, from A.D. 1707 to A.D. 1807 (Philadelphia:
American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 85; Jesse Mercer, "Comprehen-
sive Commentary," The Christian Index, 24 February 1835, 3.
10. Minutes, Sunbury Baptist Association, 1830, 8.
11. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 17 April
1824, in Conference Minutes of Bethesda Baptist Church: August 1817 to December
1865, transcribed by Vivian Toole Gates (Tyler: East Texas Genealogical Soci-
ety, 1991); Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, Hancock County, Ga., 25
November 1848, 1 April 1866, MU. In the late nineteenth century, churches
began to dismiss the congregation prior to the observance of communion. See
Church Book, Newnan Baptist Church, Newnan, Ga., 23 June 1855, MU;
Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, Athens, Ga., 7 January 1877, MU;
A. W., "Is It Right?" The Christian Index, 22 June 1871, 97.
12. John Asplund, The Universal Register of the Baptist Denomination in North
America (Boston: John Folson, 1794), 5.
13. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 24 August
1834, MU; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 19 April, 1807;
Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, 17 October 1852; Church Book,
Springfield African Baptist Church, Augusta, Ga., 2 January 1881, MU; Stokes,
"Baptism in Rivers," The Christian Index, 16 April 1841, 249. Second (Wentworth
Street) Baptist Church in Charleston, S.C., planned to construct a baptistry in
their new building (Thomas F. Curtis, "Extracts from Dr. Curtis Discourse,"
The Christian Index, 12 August 1842, 500).
14. J. H. Campbell, "Revival Scenes and Incidents," The Christian Index, 18
September 1879, 2.
15. Ministers' Meeting, "Condensed Statement," The Christian Index, 27 July
1837, 475-476; Whilden, "State of Religion," in Minutes, Rehoboth Baptist
Association, 1870, 16.
16. William Rabun, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1809, in
Jesse Mercer, History of the Georgia Baptist Association (Washington, Ga.: n.p.,
1838), 187; Jesse Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1806,
in ibid., 167; Jesse Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1811,
in ibid., 196. See also W. D. Lane, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Associa-
tion, 1805, in ibid., 164.
17. Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, LaGrange, Ga., 28 Sep-
tember 1890, MU.
18. S. G. Hillyer, "A Converted Church Membership," The Christian Index,
18 February 1892, 2. See also Jesse Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist
Association, 1816, in Mercer, History, 227-228.
19. Ripley, "An Essay on the Mutual and Distinct Duties of Christians in
Governing the Churches," in Tracts Read before the General Association of Georgia
(Augusta, Ga.: William J. Bunce, 1825), 7, 6; Basil Manly Jr., Letter to Rev.
M. B. Wharton, 12 February 1873, Basil Manly Jr. Collection, SETS.
20. James Ferryman, "No. 1," Christian Index, 9 December 1842, 770. The
same phrase appeared in a speech given before the national Baptist Triennial
Convention ("An Address to the Baptist Denomination of the United States,"
Christian Index, 21 July 1836, 435).
21. Conference meetings were called "days of discipline" twice in the
Savannah's Church Book (6 June 1806, 12 April 1811). For a number of years,
the church met in conference weekly.
22. Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, 19 November 1853. Atten-
dance at conference meetings could fail for various reasons, including inclem-
ent weather, epidemic, or warfare.
23. "Receiving Members to the Church," The Christian Index, 27 May 1842,
323; Stokes, "Faith," The Christian Index, 20 May 1842, 313. See also A Bible
Baptist, "Relating Christian Experience," The Christian Index, 18 August 1870,
125.
24. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 15 November 1834. Church
clerks probably did not ordinarily record such instances, which represented
no official action on the part of the church. In this case, the clerk noticed the
action ex post facto, for on this date the objection to Charles's character was
removed, and he was received into membership. But see Church Book,
Powelton Baptist Church, 2 September 1867, 5 October 1867.
Notes to Pages 20-23 14 5
25. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 7 July 1839, 2 August 1839;
Mercer, quoted in Charles D. Mallary, Memoirs of Elder Jesse Mercer (New York:
John Gray, 1844), 65-66.
26. Morgan, Visible Saints, 64-112.
27. In some cases, the articles of faith were embedded in the covenant. Some
churches did not adopt a decorum. Some eighteenth-century churches may
have adopted covenants after they constituted. In the nineteenth century, the
clergy called to help constitute a church would not proceed without some
written statement of the church's doctrine and practice.
28. Morgan, Visible Saints, 17, 36-40.
29. Champlin Burrage, The Church Covenant Idea: Its Origin and Development
(Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1904), 26-33, 85-94, 125,
156, 173-209; Charles W. Deweese, Baptist Church Covenants (Nashville:
Broadman Press, 1990), 24-59; David Lowes Watson, The Early Methodist Class
Meeting (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1985), 36-37, 83-84, 107-108.
30. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 10 June
1785, MU. The same covenant, or one very similar, can be found in the church
books of Athens First Baptist Church, 15 August 1840; Beaverdam Baptist
Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 18 March 1836, MU; Washington First Baptist
Church, Washington, Ga., 29 December 1827, MU; Atlanta First Baptist Church,
Atlanta, 1 January 1848, GDAH; Crawfordville Baptist Church, Taliaferro
County, Ga., 24 August 1802, MU; Powelton Baptist Church, 1 July 1786;
Antioch Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., 14 July 1813, GDAH; Atlanta
Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, 1 September 1854, GDAH.
For a discussion of the various kinds of covenants adopted by Baptist
churches, and for a number of covenant texts, see Charles W. Deweese, "The
Origin, Development, and Use of Church Covenants in Baptist History" (Th.D.
dissertation. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1973).
31. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 10 June 1785.
32. Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 3 August 1861.
33. Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 4 October 1856. Similarly
see Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 22 May 1841. Cases could
continue for some time: A case unresolved after about five months was long;
one such case dragged on for two years and four months (Church Book,
Powelton Baptist Church, 31 August 1792, 3 January 1795).
34. Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, Stephens County, Ga., 23
June 1827, 23 February 1833, 6 July 1839, MU; Church Book, LaGrange First
Baptist Church, 12 February 1831.
35. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 7 Septem-
ber 1839, 10 March 1849, MU. See also Church Book, Savannah First Baptist
Church, 24 September 1832.
36. Georgia Baptists excommunicated annually 186 persons per 10,000
church members 1781-1850, or 1.86 percent. My sample counted 21,468
excommunications and 1,154,147 member-years. Northern Baptists excom-
municated annually 118 persons per 10,000 church members 1761-1850, or
1.18 percent. My sample counted 24,357 excommunications and 2,058,793
member-years. Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Athens, Georgia, did not enter-
tain a single charge from 1837 to 1900 (Vestry Minutes, Emmanuel Episcopal
Church, Athens, Ga., GDAH). Presbyterians censured members at a rate perhaps

one-tenth that of Baptists. W. D. Blanks cataloged 1,150 trials in 61 Presbyte-
rian churches 1800-1899 ("Corrective Church Discipline in the Presbyterian
Churches of the Nineteenth Century South," Journal of Presbyterian History 44
[1966]: 99). Assuming that the churches averaged 50 members and that 50
percent of trials resulted in either suspension or excommunication, Presbyte-
rians would average 19 censures per 10,000 members annually, about one-
tenth the Baptist rate. The combined censure rate of Atlanta First Presbyte-
rian and Mount Zion Presbyterian, Hancock County, is much lower, about 9
censures per 10,000 members annually (Session Records, Atlanta First Pres-
byterian Church, Atlanta, 1858-1900, GDAH; Session Records, Mount Zion
Presbyterian Church, Hancock County, Ga., 1813-1900, GDAH). Georgia
Methodists expelled 48 members per 10,000 annually, combining all reported
expulsions, drops, and withdrawals (Covington Circuit, Athens District,
1836-1838, 1843-1852, EU; Gainesville Circuit, Cherokee District, 1834-1835,
EU; Grantville Circuit, LaGrange District, 1869-1877, EU; Gwinnett Circuit,
Lawrenceville District, 1836-1853, EU; Louisville Circuit, Augusta District,
1836-1864, EU; Macon Station, Macon District, 1841-1849, EU; Newton Cir-
cuit, Athens District, 1838-1842, EU; Suwanee Circuit, Athens District,
1831-1833, EU; Trinity Charge, South Atlanta District, 1887-1890, EU). Mem-
bership figures were obtained from published annual conference records. The
records included 184 ejections and 38,536 member-years.
37. Dealing(s): Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 3 April 1895;
Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, Columbia County, Ga., 16 January 1790,
12 August 1870, MU; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 3 May 1845,
27 May 1850; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 26 December 1829,
24 January 1857; "Decorum," Church Book, Antioch Baptist Church, Forsyth
County, Ga., front of Church Book dated 1849-1865, GDAH.
Church dealing(s): Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 12 Febru-
ary 1831 (quote in subheading); Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 5
June 1830.
Trial: Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, Stephens County, Ga.,
6 July 1839; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 5 July 1788; Church
Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 22 May 1841; Church Book, Greensboro
First Baptist Church, Greensboro, Ga., 12 September 1824, GDAH.
38. Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 13 August 1831, 9 Octo-
ber 1831; Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, 16 May 1829.
39. Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, 2 March 1839.
40. Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, 6 July 1839; Manuscript
Minutes, Tugalo Baptist Association, 1833, 60, MU.
41. Quoted in Mallary, Memoirs, 446.
42. Minutes, Hephzibah Baptist Association, 1812, 2. The query is followed
by four dots and the words "voted out." See Thomas R. R. Cobb, An Inquiry
into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America (Savannah: W. Thorne
Williams, 1858), 1:230; and George M. Stroud, A Sketch of the Laws relating to
Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Kimber
and Sharpless, 1827), 65-76.
43. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 5 January 1816; Church
Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 1 May 1851.
44. Church Book, Crooked Creek Primitive Baptist Church, Putnam County,
Ga., 23 January 1819, MU; Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, 16 May 1829
(similarly, 15 August 1829), January 1815, and 15 March 1823; Church Book,
Powelton Baptist Church, 3 July 1819; Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church,
20 April 1845; Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 11 June 1808; Church
Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 5 July 1788, 1 August 1788.
45. Church Book, Benevolence Baptist Church, Crawford County, Ga., 28
September 1878, MU; Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, February and
March 1806. See also William Innes, "Of the Improper Treatment of Offences,"
The Christian Index, 12 October 1833, 55. Most churches discouraged initiating
public dealings for private offenses but had no compunction about receiving
such "disorderly" accusations. Once they had been made public, churches
treated them as "public" offenses.
Chapter 2
1. G. E. Thomas, ''Rev. Jesse Mercer and His Ecclesiastical Court," The Chris-
tian Index, 13 July 1863, 4; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, Hancock
County, Ga., 6 September, 4 October, and 1 November 1817, MU.
2. W. B. Johnson, quoted in Charles D. Mallary, Memoirs of Elder Jesse Mercer
(New York: John Gray, 1844), 410; Richard Wood, "A Request," The Christian
Index, 24 March 1836, 163; Adiel Sherwood, "Life and Times of Jesse Mercer,"
The Christian Index, 4 September 1863, 4. See Learner, "Heads of a Discourse,"
The Christian Index, 10 March 1836, 133; Deacon, The Christian Index, 2 June
1835, 3; Inquirer, The Christian Index, 27 October 1835, 3; and Mallary, Mem-
oirs, 256.
3. Thomas, "Rev. Jesse Mercer," 4; 24 July 1863, 4. Powelton Church may
have experienced a revival of piety, purity, family devotions, and benevolent
activity, but they did not experience a rush of new converts. Powelton's bap-
tisms in this period were at an average rate and did not approach the number
they witnessed in the revivals of 1801-1803, 1812-1814, or 1828-1829.
4. Mercer, "Hear What the Spirit Saith to the Churches, No. II," The Chris-
tian Index, 6 August 1841, 506. See Mercer, "The Importance of an Elevated
Standard of Christian Morality," quoted in Mallary, Memoirs, 256.
5. J. M. P., "Constitution, Government and Discipline of the Primitive
Churches," The Christian Index, 18 February 1836, 92; Jesse Mercer, "Church
Policy," The Christian Index, 15 September 1836, 562; Jesse Mercer, in [William
H. Stokes], "Brother Mercer's Late Sermon at Washington," The Christian Index,
23 July 1841, 473; Wm. J. H—d [William J. Hard], "To the Georgia Baptists-
Greeting," The Christian Index, 18 January 1838, 24.
6. See Richard T. Hughes and C. Leonard Allen, Illusions of Innocence: Protes-
tant Primitivism in America, 1630-1875 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1988), 53-187; and Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 68-81.
7. Joseph S. Baker, "The Christian Church—No. 3," The Christian Index, 30
June 1843, 411; Joseph S. Baker, "The Christian Church," The Christian Index,
16 June 1843, 379. See also Isaac Backus, A History of New England with Par-
ticular Reference to the Baptists (1777-1784; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969),
2:405-406. By contrast, Landmark Baptists taught that by practicing infant
baptism, pedobaptists renounced any proper claim to be churches at all. Infant

baptism was no baptism, and no baptism, Landmarkists urged, meant no
church.
8. J. L. Dagg, "Brief Discussions of Important Doctrines: Church Action,"
The Christian Index, 21 August 1863, 1; William H. Stokes, "Legislating for the
Church," The Christian Index, 18 June 1840, 400. See also Church Book,
LaGrange First Baptist Church, LaGrange, Ga., 8 May 1857, MU.
9. Adiel Sherwood, "Extracts from Sherwood's History of Georgia Baptists,
No. 2: Religious Liberty," The Christian Index, 2 June 1843, 341; Mercer, "Reply
to H.—No. 1," The Christian Index, 11 February 1836, 67-68; Sherwood, "Life
and Times," 4. See also Clio, "Masonry," The Christian Index, 28 October 1834, 3.
10. Church Covenant, Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, Atlanta,
1 January 1848, GDAH; J. H. Taylor, The Christian Index, 19 March 1841, 171;
Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 7 July 1785,
MU; Jesse Mercer, History of the Georgia Baptist Association (Washington, Ga.,
1838), 30-31. The Sandy Creek Baptist Association, the oldest in North Caro-
lina, adopted an identical statement in 1816 ("Principles of the Sandy Creek
Association," in William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith [Valley Forge, Pa.:
Judson Press, 1969], 358).
11. Clio, "Masonry," 3; Minutes, Bethel Baptist Association, 1840,4. On pub-
lic and private offenses, see P. H. Mell, Corrective Church Discipline (1860; reprint,
Athens, Ga.: E. D. Stone Press, 1912), 10-24; Jesse Mercer, "Circular Letter,"
Georgia Baptist Association, 1806, in Mercer, History, 169-171; Melancthon
[Adiel Sherwood], "Offences," The Christian Index, 28 October 1834, 3; Micajah
Fulgham, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist Association, 1816, 7-8;
Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, Columbia County, Ga., July 1806, MU;
Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, Newnan, Ga., 26 December 1829,
MU.
12. Baptist Confession of Faith and a Summary of Church Discipline (Charleston,
S.C.: W. Riley, 1831), 148-156; Joseph S. Baker, "Church Discipline," The
Christian Index, 1 March 1844, 1; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church,
Savannah, Ga., 2 May 1806, MU; James M. Pendleton, Church Manual, Designed
for the Use of Baptist Churches (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Soci-
ety, 1867), 142-144. Some churches employed a third class of censure, sus-
pension, entailing a temporary loss of office, voting rights, and communion
participation but not membership.
13. Melancthon [Adiel Sherwood], "Is Discipline an Internal Right of the
Church?" The Christian Index, 14 September 1833, 2; Jesse Mercer, The Chris-
tian Index, 12 October 1833, 54; Adiel Sherwood, "To 'A Young Member,'" The
Christian Index, 29 October 1833, 63.
14. Roberts, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Washington Baptist Association,
1829, 5; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 26 February 1831; Church
Book, Antioch Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., 13 November 1831,
GDAH.
15. Jesse Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1816, in
Mercer, History, 224.
16. Sylvanus Landrum, "Church-Discipline," The Christian Index, 23 June
1858, 2; J. L. Dagg, "Brief Discussions of Important Doctrines: Church Action,"
The Christian Index, 21 August 1863, 1. See also Jesse Mercer, "Circular Let-
ter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1806, in Mercer, History, 171; and Jesse
Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1821, in Mercer, History,

244.
Mercer, History, 153, 154; Jesse Mercer, "A Dissertation on the Resemblances
and Differences between Church Authority and That of an Association," The
Christian Index, 10 December 1833, 86.
18. W. O. Wyer, Letter to Jesse Mercer, 15 February 1830, MU.
Mercer, History, 172.
20. Backus, History, 2:74; Silas Mercer, Tyranny Exposed and True Liberty Dis-
covered; Wherein Is Contained the Scripture Doctrine concerning Kings (Halifax [North
Carolina?]: Thomas Davis, 1783), 57.
21. Leonard W. Levy, The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amend-
ment (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 46-49.
22. See Bertram Wyatt-Brown, "The Antimission Movement in the Jackso-
nian South: A Study in Regional Folk Culture," Journal of Southern History 36
(1970): 501-529.
23. Manuscript Minutes, Echaconnee Primitive Baptist Association, 1837,
65, MU; Luke Robinson, The Christian Index, 19 October 1837, 672; Mercer,
The Christian Index, 9 June 1835, 2; Jesse Mercer, "Unanimity of Sentiment
among the Baptists," The Christian Index, 16 December 1834, 5. The Ocmulgee
Baptist Association resolved that "the churches have put their keys into the
hands of the Association," giving the association authority to regulate the dis-
cipline of the churches (quoted in Mercer, History, 106-125).
24. Nathan Hatch, "The Christian Movement and the Demand for a Theol-
ogy of the People," Journal of American History 67 (1980): 564; Minutes,
Shaftesbury Baptist Association, 1817, 7. See also John Leland, The Writings of
the Elder John Leland, ed. L. F. Greene (New York: n.p. 1845), 59-60; and Hatch,
Democratization, 97, 101, 163.
25. John Cooper, The Christian Index, 8 February 1838, 69; Jesse Mercer,
The Christian Index, 8 February 1838, 69-70.
26. J. L. Dagg, A Treatise of Church Order (Charleston, S.C.: Southern Baptist
Publication Society, 1858), 274. See also Jesse Mercer, "Circular Letter," Geor-
gia Baptist Association, 1806, in Mercer, History, 167.
27. Church Book, Antioch Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., 1 Au-
gust 1852, 8 August 1853, 5 August 1860. In these instances, the church's
annual meeting turned into a protracted meeting. The annual meeting was a
quarterly communion meeting to which was added settling church finances,
choosing the pastor for the coming year (they were generally elected to one-
year terms), and the reading and revision of the church roll. See its church
book for 2 February 1814 and 11 June 1814.
28. C., The Christian Index, 12 November 1833, 71. See Adiel Sherwood,
"Sharon Camp Meeting," The Christian Index, 12 November 1833, 71. Sherwood
wrote that Georgia Baptists did not much employ the new measures until after
1820 (Sherwood, "Life and Times of Jesse Mercer," The Christian Index, 15 June
1863, 1). Sherwood, from upstate New York, may have played an important
role in introducing them.
29. Elias Hibbard, The Christian Index, 3 December 1833, 82; Jesse Mercer,
"From Correspondents," The Christian Index, 18 August 1836, 497; Jesse Mercer,
"Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1806, in Mercer, History, 167.
30. Joseph S. Baker, "Eastern Louisiana Baptist Association," The Christian

Index, 16 February 1844, 3; J. C. Solomon, "Friendship," The Christian Index, 6
March 1890, 5; W. D. Atkinson, "Elements of Church Prosperity," The Christian
Index, 31 January 1878, 3.
31. Landrum, "Church-Discipline," 2; Church Book, Washington First Bap-
tist Church, Washington, Ga., 2 January 1869, MU.
32. James J. Davis, "How Can We Best Promote the Spirituality of the
Churches?" The Christian Index, 9 June 1887, 2; J. H. Kilpatrick, quoted in
W. L. T. P., "Seminary Commencement," 11 June 1885, 4; Minutes, Stone
Mountain Baptist Association, 1874, 11. See also Minutes, Central Baptist Asso-
ciation, 1892, 12; and J. M. Hurst, "Georgia Baptists," The Christian Index, 13
March 1890, 2-3.
33. Jesse Mercer, "From Correspondents," The Christian Index, 22 Decem-
ber 1836, 785; Mercer, "Reply to H.—No. 1," The Christian Index, 11 Febru-
ary 1836, 67. See also A. T. N. Vandivere, "Circular Letter," Manuscript
Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association, ca. 1845, 286, MU; S. Rowe, "Circu-
lar Letter," Minutes, Bethel Baptist Association, 1843, 7; Samuel Henderson,
"Undisciplinable Offenses," The Christian Index, 15 January 1880, 1; "Hin-
drances to the Advancement of Religion," The Christian Index, 22 July 1847,
237; Joseph S. Baker, "Trimming Lights," The Christian Index, 27 January
1848, 29; and Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1806,
in Mercer, History, 167.
Mercer, History, 167; A Layman, "Backsliding Church-Members," The Christian
Index, 11 September 1851, 146. See also Minutes, Western Baptist Association,
1901, 13.
35. Jesse Mercer, "From Correspondents," The Christian Index, 22 Decem-
ber 1836, 785; Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1821, in
Mercer, History, 244. See Mercer, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Associa-
tion, 1806, in Mercer, History, 167; J. F. Reeves, "Revival," The Christian Index,
3 March 1892, 13; "Prompt Discipline," The Christian Index, 12 August 1852,
129; W. H. Robert, "Atlanta Baptist Church," The Christian Index, 21 April 1853,
82; William Henry Strickland, "Salem Church, Rockdale County, Ga.," The
Christian Index, 9 March 1871, 38.
36. T. H. Stout, "Bethel, Randolph County, Ga.," The Christian Index, 21 Sep-
tember 1871, 146.
37. Robert Gardner, Baptists of Early America: A Statistical Study (Atlanta: Geor-
gia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 35; Robert Gardner, et al., A History of the
Georgia Baptist Association, 1784-1984 (Washington, Ga.: Wilkes, 1988), 12;
Minutes, Georgia Baptist Convention, 1861, 31. One million Baptists is a con-
servative estimate: 649,528 Southern Baptists in 1860, 435,471 northern Bap-
tists in 1867; 118,000 Primitive and Free Will Baptists in 1852 (W. W. Barnes,
The Southern Baptist Convention, 1845-1953 [Nashville: Broadman, 1954], 306;
American Baptist Yearbook, 1868 [Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication
Society, 1868], 101-111; J. Lansing Burrows, ed., American Baptist Register for
1852 [Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1853], 495). Joseph
Wilson counted 1,020,442 Baptists for 1860 (Wilson, The Presbyterian Histori-
cal Almanac, and Annual Remembrancer of the Church, for 1861 [Philadelphia:
Joseph M. Wilson, 1861], 327). The U.S. population grew from 3,929,214 in
Notes to Pages 3 7-40 151
1790 to 31,443,321 in 1860, a rate of 800% (U.S. Bureau of the Census, His-
torical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part
2, [Washington, D.C.: The Bureau, 1975], 1:8). Baptist increase was 1,493%.
Georgia's population grew from 83,000 in 1790 to 1,057,000 in 1860, a rate
of 1,273% (U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics, 1:26). Georgia's
Baptist increase was 2,970%.
Chapter 3
1. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 34.
2. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 20 Decem-
ber 1828, 19 June 1830, MU.
3. Ibid., 17 January 1835 (first and second quotes), 18 July 1835.
4. See, for example, John A. Broadus, Should Women Speak in Mixed Public
Assemblies? (Louisville, Ky: Baptist Book Concern, 1880).
5. "A Summary of Church Discipline," Charleston Baptist Association, 1774,
in James Leo Garrett, Baptist Church Discipline (Nashville: Broadman, 1962),
31; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, Hancock County, Ga., 1 June 1792,
MU; Church Book, Benevolence Baptist Church, Crawford County, Ga., 28
September 1878, MU. The discipline manual, which prohibited female vot-
ing, was adopted by Charleston First Baptist Church and Savannah First Bap-
tist Church.
6. Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, Columbia County, Ga., 20 June
1830, MU. Another slave member introduced a charge in the same meeting;
likewise in the minutes of 15 December 1832. For an instance in which a black
member was present at a conference (without being "subpoenaed" as a wit-
ness, plaintiff, or defendant): Ben, a slave, was charged with adultery, and "Ben
being present" denied the charge (Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church,
Wilkes County, Ga., 12 November 1790, MU).
7. Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, Stephens County, Ga., 21
May 1814, MU. See George M. Stroud, A Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery in
the Several States of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Kimber and
Sharpless, 1827), 76-77.
8. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 16 June 1827; see also 19 Sep-
tember 1829. A charge of absence from church elicited a confession of back-
sliding, profanity, hostility, and other improprieties (ibid., 18 July 1835, 17
September 1835).
9. Ibid., 18 October 1828, 18 January 1834, 15 March 1835, 19 April 1835.
10. Clerks recorded the response of defendants in 2,128 cases out of 3,776:
130 defendants acknowledged their guilt merely; 64 confessed their guilt but
excused their conduct; 1,544 confessed their guilt and repented; 228 confessed
their guilt but refused repentance; and 162 denied their guilt.
11. Church Book, Mount Olive Baptist Church, Mitchell County, Ga., 23
December 1877, MU.
12. This sample excludes those cases in which absence from church con-
ference constituted the only charge.
13. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 5 July 1806; see also 1 Febru-
ary 1806.
15 2 Notes to Pages 40-43
14. Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, 27 February 1819.

15. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 12 March
1859, MU.
16. Church Book, Little Ogeechee Baptist Church, Screven County, Ga.,
August 1806, MU; Church Book, Hopeful Baptist Church, Burke County, Ga.,
February 1851, MU; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 1 August 1823,
1 November 1823.
17. Church Book, Vernon (formerly Mount Pleasant) Baptist Church, Troup
County, Ga., 6 August 1853, MU; Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church,
1 June 1839; Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 13 December 1840. See
also Church Book, Vernon Baptist Church, 5 July 1851, 3 September 1853, 1
October 1853.
18. Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 450-453.
19. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 1 November 1823; Church
Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, July 1808, July 1811, 17 July 1838; Church
Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 1 August 1823.
20. For example, association minutes included annual statistical tables con-
taining a column that recorded the number of excommunications. The Geor-
gia Baptist Association usually headed this column "Excommunicated" (or its
abbreviation) 1803-1851, after which "Excluded" replaced it. In the tables of
the New Sunbury Baptist Association (Georgia), "Excommunicated" last
appeared in 1862 (except for a cameo in 1885), replaced by "Excluded." In
the tables of the Hephzibah Baptist Association (Georgia), "Excommunicated"
lasted until 1875, after which it was replaced by "Excluded."
21. The bishop of Aries in the sixth century lamented that among men
concubinage before marriage was so pervasive that "the bishop cannot excom-
municate all" but must "endure and wait" for God to grant them repentance
(Caesarius of Aries, Sermon 288, quoted in O. D. Watkins, A History of Penance
[1920; reprint. New York: Burt Franklin, 1961], 2:551). The church's excom-
munication was a "spiritual" penalty. But the medieval church endorsed the
idea that secular governors had a responsibility to punish spiritual offenders.
Heresy became a capital crime against the state. The church barred them from
grace; the state exiled, enslaved, or burned them. See Henry Charles Lea, A
History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New York: Macmillan, 1922),
1:326-359.
22. R. H. Rivers, The Life of Robert Paine, D.D., Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South (Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1884), 192.
23. Church Book, Greensboro Baptist Church, Greensboro, Ga., 9 July 1876,
GDAH.
24. E. M. Green, "Life and Letters of Dr. Palmer," Presbyterian Standard 47
(May 1907): 5.
25. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 1 December 1804. Later in the
century, however, some city churches adopted this kind of publishing because
their congregations became large and their conference attendance small and
because knowledge of excommunications did not circulate sufficiently among
the larger public. See Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, Savan-
nah, 1 September 1859, MU; Church Book, Macon First Baptist Church, Macon,
Ga., 4 June 1886, MU.
26. "A Monster of Iniquity," Washington [Georgia] News, 19 May 1829, 1.
27. Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, Atlanta, 31 July 1852,
GDAH; Church Book, Vernon Baptist Church, 1 March 1851. See also Church
Book, Antioch Baptist Church, Forsyth County, Ga., 9 May 1856, GDAH; Min-
utes, Tallapoosa Baptist Association, 1868, 5; Manuscript Minutes,
Chattahoochee Baptist Association, 1830, 40, MU.
28. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 13 April 1851. See Church Book,
Macon First Baptist Church, 2 March 1855.
29. Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, Newnan, Ga., 26 Febru-
ary 1831, MU; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 21 June 1812.
See also Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 30 December 1791; and the
case of William Barnes, discussed previously in chapter 1. Churches that mis-
sionaries established in other nations did this also. Adoniram Judson noted
that "of the Burman converts eight have been excluded . . . besides three or
four in Rangoon, on whom the sentence has not been formally pronounced"
(Adoniram Judson, The Christian Index, 7 October 1834, 4).
30. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 1 August 1823; Church Book,
"Gospel Order," Newnan First Baptist Church, 11 June 1828; Henry Holcombe,
"Circular Letter," Minutes, Savannah River Baptist Association, 1809, 7; "Cov-
enant," Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, beginning of second Church
Book, 1820. See also Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 14 June 1851;
Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 14 December 1852. For expressions of
voting as a privilege: voting on leaders, Church Book, Barnesville Baptist
Church, Lamar County, Ga., May 1884, MU; voting on discipline, Church Book,
Powelton Baptist Church, 31 December 1808. Churches distinguished their
poor as "poor Saints" (Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 5 August
1814) and "the poor of the church" (Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church,
4 January 1877; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 11 July 1868).
For examples of aid to poor members, see Church Book, Bethesda Baptist
Church, 16 January 1819,19 December 1840, 15 January 1842, 16 April 1886,
14 May 1896; Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, Athens, Ga., 30
November 1861, MU; Church Book, Beaverdam Baptist Church, Wilkes
County, Ga., 16 February 1861, 15 November 1862, MU; Church Book, Hopeful
Baptist Church, May 1818; Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, September
1809. See also John L. Dagg, "Brief Discussions," The Christian Index, 21 Au-
gust 1863, 1.
31. Quoted in James Holmes, "Dr. Bullie 's " Notes: Reminiscences of Early Geor-
gia and of Philadelphia and New Haven in the 1800s, ed. Delma Eugene Presley
(Atlanta: Cherokee, 1976), 168.
32. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 14 April 1849; Church Book,
Penfield Baptist Church, 11 November 1854; Church Book, Bethesda Baptist
Church, 14 June 1851; Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, 23 Sep-
tember 1815; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 26 February 1831.
See also Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 7 June 1851; Church Book,
Powelton Baptist Church, 5 July 1788, 1 August 1788.
33. Minutes, Washington Baptist Association, 1832, 2.
34. Excluded for drunkenness, Early gave on different occasions $50 and
$10 to missions and contributed $10 of Pastor B. M. Sanders's $85 salary
(Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, 26 September 1840, 9 Janu-
ary 1841, 25 September 1841).
35. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 12 May 1855, 9 June 1855, 7
July 1855, 7 June 1856, 8 November 1856; Church Book, Kiokee Baptist
Church, 19 June 1835 (James and Susannah Culbreath returned after 35 years),
18 November 1842 (Jacob Few, a slave, returned after 36 years); Church Book,
Washington First Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 20 October 1833, MU;
Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 5 July 1788, 1 August 1788, 2 Au-
gust 1788; Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 14 June 1851, 17 Novem-
ber 1855; Church Book, Washington First Baptist Church, 1 October 1859;
Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 2 January 1790. See also Church Book,
Penfield Baptist Church, 18 September 1859.
36. See these minutes in which minorities prevented restoration: Church
Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 28 April 1805; Church Book, Penfield Bap-
tist Church, 12 May 1855, 9 June 1855, 7 July 1855. For examples of demand
for personal appearance, see Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, 21 April
1833, 20 October 1834.
37. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 1 July 1849; Church Book, Poplar
Springs Baptist Church, 22 July 1826; Church Book, Washington First Baptist
Church, 1 October 1859. See also Church Book, Long Creek Baptist Church,
Warren County, Ga., 21 May 1853, 21 October 1853, MU.
38. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 4 April 1795, 2 May 1795.
39. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 12 April 1811.
40. Ibid., 30 April 1813, 4 March 1814. The church allowed Sister Houver
to withdraw and join the Methodist church without censure (18 March 1814,
15 April 1814).
41. Ibid., 21 May 1813,5 June 1813; Minutes, Savannah River Baptist Asso-
ciation, 1813, 5; ibid., 1814, 3.
42. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 16 October 1814, 23
December 1814, 1 January 1820, 13 December 1823.
43. Ibid., 18 November 1815, 5 and 12 January 1815, and 9, 16, and 23
February 1816.
44. Church Book, Greensboro Baptist Church, 4 February 1860; Church
Book, Long Creek Baptist Church, 21 May 1831; Church Book, Savannah First
Baptist Church, 1 October 1830,1 April 1866; Church Book, Greensboro Baptist
Church, 4 February 1860, 5 March 1860; Church Book, Savannah First Bap-
tist Church, 8 August 1831.
45. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 8 June 1822; Carolyn
White Williams, History of Jones County, Georgia, 1807-1907 (Macon, Ga.: J. W.
Burke, 1957), 313; Church Book, Crooked Creek Primitive Baptist Church,
Putnam County, Ga., 26 December 1818, MU; Church Book, Sharon Primi-
tive Baptist Church, Monroe County, Ga., 5 June 1886, MU; Church Book,
Antioch Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., June 1830, 7 June 1834,
GDAH; Church Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, 11 April 1877,
GDAH; Church Book, Washington First Baptist Church, 5 September 1857;
Church Book, Antioch Baptist Church, 1 June 1867. See also Church Book,
Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 12 November 1790; Church Book, Greensboro
First Baptist Church, 9 July 1876.
46. Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 370, 327-401.
47. Minutes, Bethel Baptist Association, 1841, 14-16.
48. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 4 February 1849.
Chapter 4
1. See James Henley Thornwell, "The Christian Doctrine of Slavery," in The
Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, ed. John B. Adger (Richmond: Pres-
byterian Committee of Publications, 1871-1873; reprint, Carlisle, Pa.: Banner
of Truth, 1974), 4:428; James O. Farmer, The Metaphysical Confederacy: James
Henley Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values (Macon, Ga.: Mercer Uni-
versity Press, 1986), 106-110, 158-159.
2. Morgan Edwards, Materials towards a History of the Baptists (Danielsville,
Ga.: Heritage Papers, 1984) 63.
3. Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 193. See Isaac, Transformation, 172-177.
4. On female voting, see also Randy Sparks, On Jordan's Stormy Banks: Evan-
gelicalism in Mississippi, 1773-1876 (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press,
1994), 50-51, 153. Antebellum Baptists frequently called ordained ministers
elders. Some churches also appointed "ruling" elders, who were not ordained
ministers (Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 9
February 1787, 11 May 1787, 10 August 1787, 10 March 1792, MU; Church
Book, Powelton Baptist Church, Hancock County, Ga., 5 May 1787, 3 August
1787, 29 May 1811, 6 July 1811, MU; Church Book, Long Creek Baptist
Church, Warren County, Ga., membership list, February 1788, MU; Church
Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, 12 January 1872, GDAH; Min-
utes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1794, 7).
5. Minutes, Dover Baptist Association (Virginia), 1802, 10; A. S. Worrell,
Review of Corrective Church Discipline (Nashville: Southwestern, 1860), 208-216,
219; Sylvanus Landrum, "Should Females Vote in Our Churches?" The Chris-
tian Index, 8 February 1860, 1.
6. Jesse Mercer, The Christian Index, 9 September 1834, 2, quoted in Charles
D. Mallary, Memoirs of Elder Jesse Mercer (New York: John Gray, 1844), 447-448.
See also Eliza C. Allen's article supporting Mercer's position ("Right of Females
to Vote in the Churches," The Christian Index, 2 March 1837, 140).
7. Henry Holcombe, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Savannah River Baptist Asso-
ciation (South Carolina and Georgia), 1809, 7; Martha, The Christian Index, 20
October 1836, 642-643; Watchman, "It Is a Contest for Principle," The Chris-
tian Index, 17 December 1833, 90; I. R. Branham, The Christian Index, 26 April
1894, 2. Holcombe did not extend these privileges to include the ministry, for
a woman "is not to teach, under any circumstance, as would render her teaching
an usurpation over the man" (p. 8).
8. Minutes, Hephzibah Baptist Association, 1812, 3; Manuscript minutes,
Sarepta Baptist Association, 1828, 113, MU; Minutes, Western Baptist Associa-
tion, 1869, 3, 9.
9. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 31 December 1808, 3 February
1809; A Venerable Minister, The Christian Index, 10 June 1834, 90; Church Book,
Powelton Baptist Church, 3 July 1845; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist
Church, Newnan, Ga., 7 July 1869, MU; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist
Church, Savannah, Ga., 21 May 1813, MU. In one controversial case, the church
affirmed the right of women to vote in discipline cases, and two women voted
in a roll call ballot (Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, Atlanta, 12
December 1888, GDAH).
10. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 19 February 1855, 27

January 1859.
11. Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, Greensboro, Ga., 12
September 1824, GDAH; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 5 May 1827;
Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, 13 January 1833. Similarly,
two male blacks voted against restoring an excluded slave, preventing his res-
toration (Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 28 April 1805).
12. James M. Simms, The First Colored Baptist Church in North America (Phila-
delphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1888), 112.
13. A. S. Worrell argued against according slaves voting rights in the
churches for the same reasons he opposed the right of children to vote—because
of their intellectual immaturity and their restriction from voting in civil elec-
tions (Review, 219).
14. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 10 March 1860. In some,
perhaps most, churches, slaves probably did not vote on government, since
white evangelicals considered slaves to be members of the master's household,
albeit in minority.
15. Church Book, Little Ogeechee Baptist Church, Screven County, Ga.,
October 1829, MU; Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, Greene County,
Ga., 14 February 1818, MU; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church,
LaGrange, Ga., 12 May 1866, MU. Similarly, see Church Book, Antioch Bap-
tist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., 12 December 1818, GDAH; Church Book,
Savannah First Baptist Church, 26 May 1809, 16 February 1812, 1 July 1831;
Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, Stephens County, Ga., 27 June
1829, MU; Church Book, Hopeful Baptist Church, Burke County, Ga., Novem-
ber 1826, MU; Church Book, Long Creek Baptist Church, 20 April 1831.
16. Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, Columbia County, Ga., 15 Octo-
ber 1825, MU; Church Book, Little Ogeechee Baptist Church, October 1832.
See Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 29 November 1835, 26
August 1838; Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, 13 January 1833;
Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, Athens, Ga., 2 April 1833, MU;
Church Book, Antioch Baptist Church, 14 April 1822, 8 June 1823. Little
Ogeechee Church, for example, appointed standing black discipline commit-
tees but left no evidence of the existence of a conference for the black members.
17. In the sample, 555 females and 1,114 males sustained excommunica-
tion; among whites, the difference was greater still, numbering 315 females
and 778 males.
18. A. T. Holmes, "The Duties of Christian Masters," in H. N. McTyeire
et al., Duties of Masters to Servants: Three Premium Essays (Charleston, S.C.: South-
ern Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 131; H. N. McTyeire, "Master and Ser-
vant," in McTyeire et al., Duties, 7.
19. Shaler G. Hillyer, Manual of Bible Morality: A Text Book for Elementary and
Academic Schools and for the Help of Parents in Training Their Children at Home
(Richmond, Va.: B. F. Johnson, 1897), 103; R. B., "The Influence of Novel
Reading in Young Females," The Christian Index, 29 June 1837, 413. See also
Hezekiah A. Boyd, "Circular Letter," Georgia Baptist Association, 1810, in Jesse
Mercer, History of the Georgia Baptist Association (Washington, Ga., 1838), 193.
20. A Lover of Woman, and a Friend of Decency, The Christian Index, 16 July
1840, 463; H. H. Tucker, "Vashti," The Christian Index, 28 May 1885, 8;
Macedonia Temperance Society, The Christian Index, 6 May 1834, 71 (3); [Jesse
Mercer], "Woman's Influence," The Christian Index, 14 September 1833, 3.
21. J. Lansing Burrows, ed., American Baptist Register, for 1852 (Philadelphia:
American Baptist Publication Society, 1853), 421-449; Lewis Joseph Sherrill,
Presbyterian Parochial Schools, 1846-1870 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1932), esp. 73-82; Joseph M. Wilson, The Presbyterian Historical Almanac,
and Annual Remembrancer of the Church, for 1861 (Philadelphia: Joseph M. Wilson,
1861), 346, 353. See also Charles D. Johnson, Higher Education of Southern
Baptists: An Institutional History, 1826-1954 (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press,
1955), 25-40; and Kendall Brooks, "In General Education," in Lemuel Moss,
ed., The Baptists and the National Centenary: A Record of Christian Work, 1776-1876
(Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1876), 77-121. Abel
Stevens reported 77 antebellum southern Methodist academies but did not
specify which were female; the North had the same number of academies, with
7,299 male and 10,462 female students (The Centenary of American Methodism:
A Sketch of Its History, Theology, Practical System, and Success [New York: Carlton
&• Porter, 1866], 170, 214). Episcopalians had at least one female academy
before the war, Hannah More Academy in Maryland (James Thayer Addison,
The Episcopal Church in the United States, 1789-1931 [New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1951], 121).
22. M., "Delicacy," The Christian Index, 8 September 1836; Robert Fleming,
"Female Piety: Its Character and Influence," in The Georgia Pulpit: Or Minsters'
Yearly Offering, ed. Robert Fleming, vol. 1 (Richmond, Va.: H. K. Ellyson, 1847),
327, 329. Barbara Welter, describing antebellum views of womanhood, divided
the ideal elements of female character into piety, purity, submissiveness, and
domesticity. Although her analysis is based heavily on northeastern sources,
it largely holds true for the antebellum South as well ("The Cult of True Wom-
anhood, 1820-1860," in her Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nine-
teenth Century [Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1976], 3). Novel reading,
Baptists urged, produced a dislike of domestic duties and a distaste for Bible
reading (R. B., "Influence," 415).
23. J. A. Wynne, "Woman's Place and Work in the Church," The Christian
Index, 26 April 1894, 2; J. B. Hawthorne, "Paul and the Women," in Paul and the
Women and Other Discourses (Louisville, Ky.: Baptist Book Concern, 1891), 3.
24. Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1829.
25. M. J. Lanier, "Ladies' Charitable Association," The Christian Index, 21
January 1857, 10; "Annual Report of the 'Macon Female Tract Society' for
1856," The Christian Index, 21 January 1857, 10; R. Pierce Beaver, American
Protestant Women in World Mission: History of the First Feminist Movement in North
America (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1968), 15-17. See the church books
of Atlanta First Baptist Church, 31 January 1852, 4 September 1852; Athens
First Baptist Church, 10 July 1830; LaGrange First Baptist Church, 14 Decem-
ber 1862; Greensboro First Baptist Church, 1 June 1867. The following is a list
of those female societies in antebellum Georgia whose existence was recorded
(often the contributions from individuals or benevolent societies were not item-
ized)—from the minutes of the Sunbury Baptist Association, 1839-1850: Bap-
tist Female Sewing Society of Savannah, Savannah Baptist Church Ladies'
Foreign Missionary Society, Waynesville Female Baptist Missionary Society;
from the minutes of the Washington Baptist Association, 1850-1856: Sisters
of Sparta, Ladies of Darien, Ladies of Powelton; from the minutes of the Geor-
gia Baptist Convention, 1832-1857: Eatonton Female Benevolent Society, a
few sisters in Athens, sisters of Milledgeville church, Ladies at Richland church,
sisters at Monticello, Columbia County Female Missionary Society, Athens
Female Missionary Society, Americus Baptist Female Missionary Society,
Crawfordville Female Society for Indian Missions, Female Missionary Society
of the Augusta church, Greenwood Female Missionary Society, females of
Powelton, Hamilton Baptist Female Society; from the minutes of the Georgia
Baptist Association 1830-1846: females of Horeb Church, sisters of Mt. Zion
Church, Penfield Juvenile Female Society, Bethesda Ladies.
26. See Luther Rice, "Origin of the Triennial Convention," in I. M. Allen,
The Triennial Baptist Register, No. 2, 1836 (Philadelphia: Baptist General Tract
Society, 1836), 46-48.
27. Proceedings of the General Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United
States (Philadelphia: Anderson & Meehan, 1817), 137; Monroe Missionary
Society, "Worthy of Imitation," The Christian Index, 18 May 1837, 309-310;
R. Pierce Beaver, American Protestant Women in World Mission, 14-37. In 1850,
"the females of Powelton Church" contributed $45.10 toward missions in 1850,
and the rest of the church gave only $29.75, a circumstance repeated in
1853 (Minutes, Washington Baptist Association, 1850, 12; ibid., 1853, 11). See
"Woman's Work," The Christian Index, 4 June 1885, 4; Mrs. Stainback Wilson,
"Women's Mission Work," The Christian Index, 6 June 1889, 2; Jesse Mercer,
"Greenwood Female Missionary Society," The Christian Index, 7 April 1835, 2;
Mary Dandy, "The Hamilton Baptist Female Missionary Society," The Christian
Index, 31 May 1838, 340.
28. E. Vining, "A Decorum for Baptist Churches," The Christian Index, 26
February 1852, 34; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 13 August
1824, 10 April 1825; Jesse Mercer, The Christian Index, 8 September 1836, 548
("Their vote would, in almost all cases, control the vote of the males, and con-
stitute the ruling power"). On required female attendance, see Church Book,
Athens First Baptist Church, 31 January 1846; Church Book, Poplar Springs
Baptist Church, 24 February 1816 (they later excepted "women and servants"
from attendance in the church book of 6 July 1839); Church Book, Atlanta
Second Baptist Church, 11 November. 1870. For instances noting women's
presence and suffrage, see the following church books: Phillips Mill Baptist
Church, 9 September 1820,11 January 1890; Washington First Baptist Church,
Washington, Ga., 25 July 1840, MU; Savannah First Baptist Church, 14 Janu-
ary 1869; Athens First Baptist Church, 9 May 1831 (clerk noted women's
absence).
29. Martha, The Christian Index, 20 October 1836, 642-643.
30. Hawthorne, "Paul," 20, 27; Fleming, "Female Piety," 316, 328.
31. A Lover of Woman, and a Friend to Decency, The Christian Index, 16 July
1840, 463; Fleming, "Female Piety," 325.
32. White males: 21 prosecutions per 10,000 white male members; white
females: 22 prosecutions per 10,000 white female members.
33. Jesse Mercer, The Christian Index, 3 March 1836, 113.
34. Most antebellum churches probably followed the course of Poplar
Springs Baptist Church, which resolved that "all free persons of Couler shall
sit to themselves" and that "the Free People of Couler ocupy the Back Seats in
Notes to Pages 60- 63 159
the meeting house" (Church Book, 1 May 1852, 1 October 1853). On slave
missions, see Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution " in the
Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 96-174; Milton
C. Sernett, Black Religion and American Evangelicalism: White Protestants, Planta-
tion Missions, and the Flowering of Negro Christianity, 1787-1865 (Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow, 1975), 36-58; Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the
American People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 135-151.
35. Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 7 January 1860.
36. C. F. Sturgis, "Melville Letters; or, The Duties of Masters to Their Ser-
vants," in McTyeire et al., Duties, 100; J. S. Law, "Religious Oral Instruction of
the Colored Race," in Fleming, Georgia Pulpit, 439. Southerners attributed to
blacks an inferiority that they at times based on an innate lack of intellectual
or moral capacity and at other times based on a lack of opportunity to develop
their capacities through education and culture.
37. Law, "Religious Oral Instruction," 440; McTyeire, "Master," 29.
38. Minutes, Sunbury Baptist Association, 1830, 7.
39. Robert Gardner, et al., A History of the Georgia Baptist Association, 1784-1984
(Washington, Ga.: Wilkes, 1988), 188-189; Raboteau, Slave Religion, 155;Mw-
utes, Sunbury Baptist Association, 1841, 6; Minutes, Southern Baptist Conven-
tion, 1845, 15; ibid., 1849, 64; ibid., 1853, 57-60; ibid., 1855, 26-28; ibid., 1859,
60-61; Law, "Religious Instruction," 443—444; Church Book, Greensboro Bap-
tist Church, 9 June 1821. On the broader southern effort to teach slaves moral-
ity, see Anne Loveland, Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, 1800-1860
(Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 219-256; Sernett,
Black Religion, 36-81.
40. Law, "Religious Instruction," 441; Sturgis, "Melville Letters," 119;
McTyeire, "Master," 40. See Hezekiah A. Boyd, "Circular Letter," Georgia
Baptist Association, 1810, in Mercer, History, 194.
41. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 15 November 1834; Church
Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, 19 November 1831; S. G. Hillyer, Reminiscences
of Georgia Baptists (Atlanta: Foote 8- Davies, 1902), 185. Penfield Baptist Church
in 1842 appointed a committee "to inquire into the propriety of admitting
Blacks to membership with us." The church was three years old and appar-
ently had no black members prior to this time; the church comprised largely
the faculty and students of Mercer University. It would have been unprec-
edented to question on principle whether blacks could be admitted to white
churches. The question must rather have been an issue of the expediency of
admitting blacks to that church at that time. Penfield admitted black members
shortly afterward (Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga.,
2 July 1842). For a characterization of the common elements in the narrative
of conversion experience, see Hillyer, Reminiscences, 183. Preacher E. B. Teague
asserted that Jesse Mercer was accustomed to say that the narrative should
consist of two parts: "I felt very bad, then I felt very good" ("Rev. C. H. Spurgeon
and His Theology," The Christian Index, 9 October 1856, 162).
42. Quoted in Julia Sherwood, Memoir ofAdiel Sherwood, D.D. (Philadelphia:
Grant & Faires, 1884), 147. For examples of black defendants acquitted after
white accusations, see Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 25 November
1854 (the white who laid in the accusation in this case was elected moderator
pro tern on at least one occasion: 21 December 1854); Church Book, Bethesda
Baptist Church, 7 July 1822. For examples of aid to blacks, see Church Book,
Bethesda Baptist Church, 19 December 1840, 15 January 1842 (the church
appointed a committee "to see to the support of old bro. Tom and wife Rebecca
both free persons of color" and at Tom's death paid his outstanding funeral
expenses).
43. E. Brooks Holifield, 'Toward a History of American Congregations," in
James W. Lewis and James P. Wind, eds., American Congregations (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994), 1:23-53.
44. Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church, 25 September 1824;
Church Book, Vernon Baptist Church, Troup County, Ga., 2 June 1849, MU.
45. See Medial Sobel, Trabelin' On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1979), 250-355. Sobel counted 28 Georgia
churches; adding Friendship Baptist in Atlanta (constituted ca. 1850) makes
29 out of 119 known southern churches.
46. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 20 February 1830. Powelton
Baptist Church twice temporarily abolished black worship services on account
of "the disorderly conduct of the irreligious blacks" who attended along with
the pious ones (Church Book, 3 March 1827, 26 May 1855).
47. Sturgis, "Melville Letters," 115. One association, at least, opposed this
view, resolving "that as far as practicable, the blacks be organized in separate
bodies, subject to the regulation of the Churches." But the motive seems to
have been to preach to them a children's sermon, as it were: "Resolved fur-
ther, That in place of preaching in the usual way, that a system of simple oral
instruction be adopted" (Minutes, Western Baptist Association, 1847, 5). A
separate service, however, was a different matter than separate churches, which
many opposed. See Minutes, Hephzibah Baptist Association, 1849, 4.
48. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 6 July 1805, 22 April 1804, 31
March 1804, 31 December 1808, 3 February 1809, December 1821; Church
Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 9 October 1791, 12 May 1792, 7 February
1800, 8 August 1823.
49. From the following church books: Washington First Baptist Church, 1
August 1835; Greensboro First Baptist Church, 14.July 1822; Kiokee Baptist
Church, June 1812; Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 7 February 1800. For an
instance in which a black served as moderator, see Church Book, Greensboro
First Baptist Church, 7 June 1863.
50. Joseph S. Baker, "Colored Sunday Schools," The Christian Index, 29
August 1845, 2; Resolutions on the State of the Country, Minutes, Georgia Bap-
tist Convention, 1862, quoted in [Samuel Boykin] History of the Baptist Denomi-
nation in Georgia (Atlanta: Jas. P. Harrison, 1881), pt. 1, 235. See Samuel Boykin,
"Repeal of an Unjust Law," The Christian Index, 6 April 1863, 2; Visitor, "Fast
Day Exercises in Milledgeville, Georgia," The Christian Index, 6 April 1863, 2;
[Boykin], History, pt. 1, 264-268; Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World
the Slave Made (New York: Vintage, 1976), 69; Bell Irvin Wiley, "The Move-
ment to Humanize the Institution of Slavery during the Confederacy," Emory
University Quarterly 5 (1949): 207-220.
51. Minutes, Hephzibah Baptist Association, 1849; Minutes, Sunbury Baptist
Association, 1843, 7; ibid., 1849, 16; ibid., 1856, 17.
52. C., "The Representation of Colored Churches," The Christian Index, 10
March 1853, 38; John F. Dagg, "Colored Churches," The Christian Index, 10
March 1853, 38; Minutes, Sunbury Baptist Association, 1857, 4; ibid., 1858, 8;
ibid., 1859, 9.
53. 42 percent (240/576) of black excommunicants applied for restoration;
28 percent (301/1093) of white. Black restorations rejected: 15/240; white:
31/301. Black acquittals: 7.72 percent (67/868) of accusations; white: 7.40
percent (175/2365).
54. White members were prosecuted at an annual rate of 347 prosecutions
per 10,000 white members; blacks at a rate of 194 prosecutions per 10,000
black members. Since churches excommunicated black defendants at a higher
rate than white defendants, the exclusion rates were much closer—whites: 160
excommunications annually per 10,000 white members; blacks: 129 excom-
munications per 10,000 black members.
55. Alcohol—whites: 48 percent of defendants, blacks: 53 percent; personal
speech—whites: 64 percent, blacks: 74 percent; worldly amusements—whites:
53 percent, blacks: 59 percent; sexual—whites: 89 percent, blacks: 83 percent;
church—whites: 74 percent, blacks: 57 percent; violence—whites: 38 percent,
blacks: 60 percent; property—whites: 51 percent, blacks: 77 percent.
Chapter 5
1. I estimate that the black membership in the churches of my research
sample reached an average of 42 percent in the 1840s and 41 percent in the
1850s. The returns of a large portion of Georgia Baptist associations showed
black membership at an exaggerated 48 percent in the 1840s (the Sunbury
Association, with large numbers of slave members, was overrepresented, since
many associations did not report racial statistics in the 1840s) and 40 percent
in the 1850s. The statistical tables in the minutes of the Georgia Baptist Con-
vention understated slave membership, reporting 32.4 percent black member-
ship in 1850, 36 percent in 1855, and 36.5 percent in 1860. Many black mem-
bers went uncounted; as late as 1860, many Georgia churches neglected to
report the racial composition of their membership.
2. J. H. DeVotie, "Georgia Baptist Statistics for 1883," The Christian Index, 8
May 1884, 5.
3. I examined Springfield's extant nineteenth-century records: 1880-1889,
1896-1900 (Church Book, Springfield African Baptist Church, MU); Gillfield's
extant nineteenth-century records: 1827, 1834-1836, 1842-1853, 1857-1862,
1868-1871 (Church Book, Gillfield Church, Alderman Library, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville); and the extant antebellum records of two Louisville
churches: Green Street, 1845-1860, and First Colored, 1842-1860 (both church
books at Archives, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky.). The
sample selected for analyzing African-American church discipline included all
the extant nineteenth-century records of Springfield and Gillfield churches and
the Green Street church, 1846-1849. The sample recorded 1,789 church trials.
4. The black Baptist associations indicated that their churches excommu-
nicated 299 persons annually per 10,000 members.
5. Antebellum Georgia churches prosecuted 194 black members per 10,000
black members annually and excommunicated 129 per 10,000.
6. H. H. Tucker, "Letter from H. H. Tucker, D.D.," in History of the First Afri-
can Baptist Church, from Its Organization, January 20th, 1788, to July 1st, 1888, ed.
162 Notes to Pages 70- 72
E. K. Love (Savannah, Ga.: Morning News Print, 1888), 322. Jesse Mercer
argued in 1837 against the policy of social equality of the races: "Every man
who looks at this subject rightly, knows and feels, that if the black man is free,
he ought to be in his own country—in the land of his fathers! Amalgamation
and promiscuous intercourse, are out of the question.... There the free negro
can go and act for himself, perfectly untrammeled by the superior advantages
of his white neighbor" ("African Colonization," The Christian Index, 15 June
1837, 372).
7. Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 132-136, 137, 146-149, 153-159.
8. James Melvin Washington, Frustrated Fellowship: The Black Baptist Quest
for Social Power (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1986), 147-150.
9. Tucker, "Letter," 323; E. B. Teague, "The African in Selma," The Chris-
tian Index, 9 September 1869, 138. Black Baptist leader E. K. Love stated that
although he disagreed with some of Tucker's points, "the point touching social
equality meets our fullest approval. We have never urged social equality as a
prerequisite to negro greatness" (History, 326). Love later rejected policies of
cooperation with white Baptists and urged strict separation.
10. A. J. Kelly, "Colored Church and Ministers," The Christian Index, 28 May
1868, 87. Perry Jones preached twice and Allen Westhorn once for Mount Olive
Baptist Church, Mitchell County, Ga. (Church Book, 21 May 1870, 23 July
1870, 23 December 1871, MU).
11. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New
York: Harper & Row, 1988), 314; Basil Manly to S. F. Gano, 10 July 1871, Basil
Manly Jr. Collection, SETS, quoted in Joseph P. Cox, "Study of the Life and
Work of Basil Manly, Jr." (Th.D. dissertation. Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary, 1954), 230.
12. Foner, Reconstruction, 112, 282, 287, 292; Edward L. Wheeler, Uplifting
the Race: The Black Minister in the New South, 1865-1902 (Lanham, Md.: Univer-
sity Press of America, 1986), 61-83, appendix.
13. David E. Butler, "The Victory—Rejoice!" The Christian Index, 19 Novem-
ber 1874, 5; "Colloquy with Colored Ministers," Journal of Negro History 16
(1931): 91.
14. A. T. Holmes, "The Colored People," The Christian Index, 17 June 1869,
93. See Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution " in the Ante-
bellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 165-168, 234-235,
293-295; Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New
York: Vintage, 1976), 204-209, 261-271.
15. A. W. Pegues, Our Baptist Ministers and Schools (Springfield, Mass.: Willey,
1892), 113-117, 319-321, 526-539; Wheeler, Uplifting, 75, 82, appendix.
16. William H. Cooper, "Fowl Town (Col.) Baptist Association," The Chris-
tian Index, 23 November 1876, 8. Warren also declined "an offer of $3,000 cash,
for his influence in carrying an election." See G. H. Dwelle, "History of the
Colored Baptists of Georgia," in Love, History, 227; Raboteau, Slave Religion,
141, 214-215, 220, 307-308; J. P. Tustin, "Andrew Marshall," in William B.
Sprague, ed., Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. 6 (New York: Robert Carter,
1865), 258, 259. Marshall was also arrested for preaching without proper legal
license, but the jury acquitted him (John Krebs, "From the Rev. John M. Krebs,
D.D.," in Sprague, Annals, 263-264).
Notes to Pages 72- 74 163
17. [Robert Ryland], "Reminiscences of the First African Church, Richmond,

Va., by the Pastor, No. 4," American Baptist Memorial 14 (1855): 354.
18. Minutes, Washington Baptist Association, 1866, 10; Minutes, Western
Baptist Association, 1866, 6; Minutes, Rehoboth Baptist Association, 1866, 11;
Minutes, New Sunbury Baptist Association, 1874, 20.
19. See Ralph Luker, Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Reform,
1885-1912 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 12-13. The
Freedman's Bureau also spent several million dollars and cooperated closely
with the missionary boards. Southern white support was modest: Southern
Methodists established the Paine Institute in Augusta, Georgia, in 1884; the
Southern Baptist Convention finally gave up its effort to establish a black col-
lege; Texas Baptists helped purchase land for Bishop Baptist College in Marshall,
Texas; Memphis whites supported the industrial department of the Baptist Bible
and Normal Institute. See Luker, Social Gospel, 23; Wheeler, Uplifting, 101;
Pegues, Our Baptist Ministers, 588-589, 608, 620; Rufus Spain, At Ease in Zion:
Social History of Southern Baptists, 1865-1900 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University
Press, 1967), 84-93; John Eighmy, Churches in Cultural Captivity: A History of the
Social Attitudes of Southern Baptists (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,
1972), 32-40; George Sale, "Atlanta Baptist Seminary," The Christian Index, 10
May 1894, l;Minutes, Southern Baptist Convention, 1873, 56. The SBC's Home
Mission Board supported students at other schools as well (Minutes, Southern
Baptist Convention, 1874, 46-47; ibid., 1875, 31).
20. Minutes, Southern Baptist Convention, 1867, 14,49-51, 79; ibid., 1868,
20-21, 62; ibid., 1869, 19-20; ibid., 1870, 25-26; ibid., 1871, 23, 55; ibid., 1872,
56; ibid., 1873, 25-26; ibid., 1879, 46; ibid., 1880, 67; Minutes, Georgia Baptist
Convention, 1880, 39.
21. David Shaver, "A Movement Well-Timed," The Christian Index, 18
November 1869, 178; T. C. Boykin, "The Colored Institute: The Index," The
Christian Index, 16 December 1869, 194; W. T. Brantly, "Institute for Colored
Ministers," The Christian Index, 23 December 1869, 198; E. W. Warren, "The
Macon Institute," The Christian Index, 6 January 1870, 2; E. W. Warren, "Insti-
tute for Colored Ministers," The Christian Index, 22 December 1870, 198; George
Sale, "Atlanta Baptist Seminary," The Christian Index, 10 May 1894, 1; Minutes,
Georgia Baptist Convention, 1895, 44-46.
22. Church Book, Washington First Baptist Church, Washington, Ga., 6 Feb-
ruary 1869, MU.
23. J. J. D. Renfroe, "More Alabama Items," The Christian Index, 21 October
1869, 162; P. F. Burgess, "The Goshen (Colored) Baptist Church," The Christian
Index, 2 March 1876, 2. Three newly constituted African-American churches
in Coweta County, Georgia, retained the services of white preachers (H., "Col-
ored Churches Constituted," The Christian Index, 22 October 1868, 178). White
pastor E. W. Warren requested his church to permit some members of the black
Baptist church to attend services, since "a few of our old colored brethren had
expressed a desire to visit our church &- hear him preach occasionally." The
church left the matter to Warren's discretion (Church Book, Macon First Bap-
tist Church, Macon, Ga., 1 March 1889, MU).
24. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 17 July
1897, MU.
25. Foner, Reconstruction, 158-161.
164 Notes to Pages 75- 77
26. A. T. Holmes, "The Colored People," The Christian Index, 17 June 1869,
93; H. H. Tucker, "Liberia—Kansas—The Exode—The Elect of God," The Chris-
tian Index, 28 August 1879, 4; Sylvanus Landrum, "A Colored Association—
Public Schools—Churches on the Seaboard," The Christian Index, 2 August 1866,
122. See also *L*, "Negro Association—Man with a Gun," The Christian Index,
22 October 1868, 166; D. G. D., "Zion Association (Col'd)," The Christian Index,
12 November 1874, 5.
27. Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, Athens, Ga., 7 April 1867,
MU.
28. Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1865, 5-6; Minutes, Rehoboth Bap-
tist Association, 1866, 11. The only group I discovered to counsel separation
was the Western Baptist Association, which resolved that "we recommend to
our colored brethren within the bounds of this Association the propriety of
constituting churches of. their own" (Minutes, 1866, 7).
29. Edward A. Freeman, The Epoch of Negro Baptists and the Foreign Mission
Board, National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. (Kansas City, Kan.: Central Semi-
nary Press, 1953), 51, 81-84. Walter H. Brooks, a prominent African-American
Baptist pastor, based cooperation on denominational unity: "Yet whatever their
differences, Negro Baptists and white Baptists in America constituted one family
until after the Civil War. Indeed there has never been any formal separation
of the two groups. Each has simply followed the race instinct, in an age of free-
dom, while one group cooperates with the other, North and South" ("The
Evolution of the Negro Baptist Church," Journal of Negro History 7 [1922]:
11-22).
30. S. A. McNeal, "Baptist Doctrine," in Love, History, 224; G. H. Dwelle,
"History of the Colored Baptists of Georgia," in Love, History, 230.
31. W. H. Tilman, "Baptist Church History," in Love, History, 233; Levi
Thornton, "The History of the Baptists," in Love, History, 237; William J. White,
"More about Easter," The Georgia Baptist, 19 April 1900, 4.
32. G. S. Johnson, "The Relation of the White and Colored Baptists in the
Past, Now, and as It Should Be in the Future," in Love, History, 259; T. J.
Hornsby, "The Relation of the White and Colored Baptists," in Love, History,
256-257.
33. Harry Toulmin, The Western Country in 1793: Reports on Kentucky and
Virginia, ed. Marion Tinling and Godfrey Da vies (San Marino, Calif.: Castle
Press, 1948), 30; "Letters Showing the Rise and Progress of the Early Negro
Churches of Georgia and the West Indies," Journal of Negro History 1 (1916):
73; James M. Simms, The First Colored Baptist Church in North America (Philadel-
phia: Lippincott, 1888), 80-81; J. P. Tustin, "Andrew Marshall," in Annals of
the American Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter, 1865), 6: 259; Charles Lyell, A
Second Visit to the United States of North America (New York: Harper, 1849),
2:14-15; J. L. Kirkpatrick, Presbyterian Herald, Louisville, 17 July 1856, quoted
in Kenneth K. Bailey, "Protestantism and Afro-Americans in the Old South:
Another Look," Journal of Southern History 41 (1975):469 (the phrase "doctrines
of grace" was an alias for Calvinist soteriology). See Genovese, Roll, Jordan,
243, 244, 263.
34. A. P. Hill, The Life and Services of Rev. John E. Dawson, D.D. (Atlanta: J. J.
Toon, 1872), 68-69, 97.
35. Charles Octavius Booth, Plain Theology for Plain People (Philadelphia:
American Baptist Publication Society, 1890), 95, 96, 109.
36. Baptist Missionary Convention [Mississippi], Minutes, 1870, quoted in

Patrick Thompson, The History of Negro Baptists in Mississippi (Jackson, Miss.:
R. W. Bailey, 1898), 72.
37. Jerry Freeman, "Colored Western Association," The Christian Index, 11
August 1870, 122; W. J. Mitchell, "Constitution and Ordination—Colored,"
The Christian Index, 25 May 1871, 82; Uniontown Baptist Association [Alabama],
Minutes, 1897, 13; ibid., 1903, 31-32.
38. Minutes, Cabin Creek Baptist Association, 1891; Minutes, Chattahoochee
River Missionary Baptist Association, 1893; Minutes, Zion Baptist Association,
1868, 18.
39. Manuscript minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association, 1830, 123, MU. See
also manuscript minutes, Tugalo Baptist Association, 1824, 23, MU; manu-
script minutes, Chattahoochee Baptist Association, 1871, 76, MU; Minutes, Flint
River Baptist Association, 1829, 2; Minutes, Western Baptist Association, 1833,
5-6; Minutes, Stone Mountain Baptist Association, 1853, 10-11. For examples
of ordination candidates rejected, see the church books of these Georgia
churches: Poplar Springs Baptist Church, Stephens County, 21 December 1832,
MU; Kiokee Baptist Church, Columbia County, 15 February 1795, MU; Wash-
ington First Baptist Church, 8 January 1870.
40. Newspaper clipping, Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, Atlanta,
17 January 1892, GDAH. For a rare instance noting the length of an ordina-
tion examination, see Church Book, Indian Creek Baptist Church, Morgan
County, Ga., 14 January 1835, quoted in A. P. Hill, Life, 38.
41. Church Book, Macon First Baptist Church, 29 June 1855; A. J. Kelly,
"Colored Church and Ministers," The Christian Index, 28 May 1868, 87.
42. Church Book, Springfield African Baptist Church, 21 December 1887,
21 March 1888, MU. See ibid., 18 January 1882.
43. R. H. Simmons, "Ordination," The Georgia Baptist, 8 September 1898, 3;
D. C. Bracy, "Morgan County Notes," The Georgia Baptist., 6 October 1898, 3.
44. First Saints Baptist Missionary Association (Mississippi), Minutes, 1869,
in Thompson, History of Negro Baptists, 49; Union Baptist Association [Alabama],
Minutes, 1904, 20. See E. K. Love, "Regeneration," in The Negro Baptist Pulpit: A
Collection of Sermons and Papers on Baptist Doctrine and Missionary and Educational
Work (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1890), 66, 76-77;
W. H. Tilman, "Baptist Church History," in Love, History, 235.
45. Hornsby, "Relation," 253; Johnson, "Relation," 258, 259.
46. Church Book, Springfield African Baptist Church, 14 May 1899 ("All
Standing moderator] ask[ed] clerk to read the church Discipline or Covenant"),
10 April 1898, 15 March 1899.
47. Minutes, Cooper Baptist Association, 1887, 7.
48. See Church Book, Springfield African Baptist Church, 17 February 1886,
20 January 1886, 13 May 1882.
49. Ibid., 15 July 1885, 20 January 1886, 16 September 1885.
50. Ibid., 21 January 1885, 17 November 1886.
51. Ibid., 11 December 1898, 18 January 1899, 16 August 1899.
52. Ibid., 16 May 1882. Various other formulas applied to fornication: "a
State unfit for church membership and not Being Married" (13 August 1882);
"disorderly living and not Being Married" (17 September 1884).
53. Ibid., 17 November 1886. Springfield had 52 trials per 10,000 members
for offenses against the church; antebellum churches had 50 per 10,000.
54. On slave theft, see Genovese, Roll, Jordan, 599-609. Springfield had 12
trials per 10,000 members for property crimes; antebellum churches had 35
trials of black members per 10,000 black members.
55. Adeline Jackson, in George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Com-
posite Biography, vol. 3, South Carolina Narratives (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood,
1972), pt. 3, 3, quoted in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 224; Church Book, Spring-
field African Baptist Church, 21 December 1887, 16 January 1901, 10 Febru-
ary 1901. The antebellum white churches prosecuted blacks for engaging in
worldly amusements at a rate of 4 per 10,000 members annually. The ante-
bellum black churches prosecuted at a rate of 10 per 10,000. The postbellum
white churches prosecuted members for worldly amusements at a rate of 14
per 10,000; the postbellum black churches, 30 per 10,000. Before emancipa-
tion they excluded the accused 32 percent of the time; after emancipation, 71
percent of the time.
Chapter 6
1. Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, Athens, Ga., 15 August 1840,
MU.
2. H. H. Tucker, "Mistaken, Yet Accepted," The Christian Index, 28 January
1885, 8. Early Baptist churches typically identified themselves as "the Church
of Christ—Buckhead—Burke Co." or "the Baptist Church of christ at New
hope." See Church Book, Buckhead Baptist Church, Burke County, Ga., p. 4
(at the front of church book whose first entry is in 1878), MU; Church Book,
New Hope Primitive Baptist Church, Carroll County, Ga., 25 October 1840,
MU; Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 11 May 1839,
MU.
3. Samuel Henderson, "Doctrinal Preaching," The Christian Index, 14 Novem-
ber 1878, 1; F. M. Hawkins, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Hightower Baptist
Association, 1881, 7; Samuel S. Law, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Sunbury Bap-
tist Association, 1825, 13; Jesse Mercer, "Address to the Baptists of Georgia,"
The Christian Index, 8 December 1836, 754.
4. David E. Butler, "Doctrinal Sermons," The Christian Index, 8 November
1877, 4; J. H. Harris, "Orthodoxy," The Christian Index, 27 March 1884, 2.
5. Jesse Mercer, The Christian Index, 14 September 1833, 1; Mercer, The Chris-
tian Index, 12 October 1833, 54; [Samuel Boykin,] History of the Baptist Denomi-
nation in Georgia (Atlanta: Jas. P. Harrison, 1881), part 2, 391, 528; Shaler G.
Hilly er, Reminiscences of Georgia Baptists (Atlanta: Foote & Da vies, 1902), 123;
Julia Sherwood, Memoir of Adiel Sherwood (Philadelphia: Grant &• Faires, 1884),
167; James McDonald, "Florida Correspondence," The Christian Index, 21 Janu-
ary 1847, 27. Mercer recorded subscriptions for sixteen sets in his account book
(10 June 1823, MU). See Thomas J. Nettles, By His Grace and for His Glory: A
Historical, Theological, and Practical Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1986), 73-107.
6. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 15 April
1826, MU; Church Book, Macon First Baptist Church, Macon, Ga., 1 June 1878,
MU.
7. Church Book, Antioch Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., 9 August
1841, GDAH; Church Book, Crooked Creek Primitive Baptist Church, Putnam
County, Ga., 11 May 1822, MU. Antioch Church also granted John Hendrick
"liberty . . . to exercise his Gift in Prayer Exhortation &c." (7 March 1829).
"Liberty" and "license" were different, the former granting permission, the latter
granting both a more formal permission and a written certificate that petitioned
other churches to recognize the licensee's gifts in preaching.
8. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 27 July
1829, 25 October 1829, MU; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, Hancock
County, Ga., 1 February 1805, 2 March 1805, 31 July 1829, 31 July 1835, MU.
9. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 30 December 1791.
10. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 31 August 1792, 2 November
1793,4 July 1801 (two cases). Silas Mercer planted this church and was a warm
champion of John Gill, whose view of the atonement Fuller modified.
11. Andrew Gunton Fuller, "Memoir," in The Complete Works of the Rev.
Andrew Fuller, ed. Joseph Belcher (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication
Society, 1848), 1:9; J. H. Spencer, A History of Kentucky Baptists from 1769-1885
(Cincinnati: J. H. Spencer, 1885), 1:355-356; Robert B. Semple, History of the
Baptists in Virginia (1810; reprint, Lafayette, Tenn.: Church History Research
and Archives, 1976), 83-84; Church Book, Broad Run Baptist Church, Fauquier
County, Va., quoted in John S. Moore, A History of Broad Run Baptist Church,
Fauquier County, Virginia, 1762-1987 (n.p., 1987), 49.
12. Samuel Law, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Sunbury Baptist Association,
1825, 11-12.
13. Jesse Mercer, "Anabaptism," The Christian Index, 25 August 1836, 513.
See also H. H. Tucker, "Methodist Success," The Christian Index, 4 June 1885,
8; Minutes, Hightower Baptist Association, 1848, 4; Jeremiah Clark and Mark
Cooper, "Strictures on Some Parts of the Ocmulgee Circular," The Christian
Index, 4 February 1834, 17; H. H. Tucker, "Bitter Fruit of the Rebaptism
Excitement," The Christian Index, 4 July 1889, 9.
14. Jesse Mercer, "Address to the Baptists of Georgia," The Christian Index,
8 December 1836, 754, 755.
15. H., "Peace of the Church," The Christian Index, 20 August 1841, 538;
"Christian Union," The Christian Index, 3 January 1839, 13. See David Butler,
"Division in Progress," The Christian Index, 9 October 1874, 1.
16. I. R. Branham, "More Samples," The Christian Index, 1 October 1891, 8.
17. J. C. McMichael, "Close Communion," The Christian Index, 2 March 1893,
4; F. G. Ferguson, "The Baptists, Anti-American," South-Western Baptist, 31 May
1855, 6; David Butler, "Tendencies," The Christian Index, 13 June 1878, 4.
18. J. C. McMichael, "The Exclusiveness of Christianity," The Christian Index,
14 June 1894, 4; Jesse Mercer, "Address to the Baptists of Georgia," The Chris-
tian Index, 15 December 1836, 775; Executive Committee of the Georgia Bap-
tist Convention, The Christian Index, 15 January 1841, 43. See Melancthon
[Adiel Sherwood], "Is Discipline an Internal Right of the Church," The Chris-
tian Index, 14 September 1833, 2; Joseph S. Baker, "Confessions of Faith, &c.,"
The Christian Index, 16 February 1844, 3.
19. H. H. Tucker, "Has the Time Come?" The Christian Index, 9 July 1885, 8.
20. Samuel Boykin, "Queries in Reference to Discipline," The Christian Index,
12 September 1860, 2.
21. Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, Columbia County, Ga., 15
November 1795, MU; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 4 July 1801;
Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, Savannah, Ga., 22 February

1811, MU.
22. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 6 November 1789; Church
Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 5 December 1789, 3 October 1789, 31 August
1792, 2 November 1793. See Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 4 July
1801; Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 9 September 1871.
23. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 12 April 1879; Church Book,
Newnan First Baptist Church, Newnan, Ga., 2 June 1868, MU; Church Book,
Atlanta Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, 4 September 1889, 9 October 1889,
GDAH; Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, Greensboro, Ga., 4 July
1880, 6 November 1880, 1 December 1880, 6 February 1881, 1 January 1882,
GDAH.
24. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 11 May 1860, 9 June 1860.
25. Minutes, Hightower Baptist Association, 1877, 3; Melancthon [Adiel
Sherwood], "Exclusion the Only Door out of the Church," The Christian Index,
14 May 1840, 309.
26. Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 24 July 1842; Church Book,
Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 8 June 1816. See J. B. Jeter, "Distinctive Baptist
Principles," in Baptist Principles Reset, ed. R. H. Pitt (Dallas, Tex.: Standard, 1902),
116. A young Unitarian summed up this attitude: "Surely it would be very sinful
for me to continue in a church whose doctrines I cannot believe" (Mary S.
Blunt, Kingston, R.I., Letter to Rev. J. F. Schroeder, Flushing, N.Y., 30 August
1843, privately held by Mike Wilkinson, Atlanta).
27. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 31 March 1873 (James
Blackshear made a similar request at the same meeting, having changed his
"views on church government"); Minutes, Hightower Baptist Association, 1878,
3; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 23 September 1838.
28. Manuscript minutes, Chattahoochee Baptist Association, 1826, 17, MU;
Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist Association, 1831, 2.
29. Church Book, Vernon Baptist Church, Troup County, Ga., 1 October
1842, 6 July 1844, MU.
30. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 20 November 1847; Church
Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 4 May 1871, 29 May 1871; Church Book,
Beaverdam Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 19 February 1842, MU; A. J.
Kelly, "Excluding Members," The Christian Index, 1 June 1876, 2. See Church
Book, Penfield Baptist Church, 14 December 1852, 13 December 1856; Church
Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, 17 October 1846; Church Book, Bethsaida
Baptist Church, Fayette County, Ga., 21 February 1874, MU.
31. Church Book, Antioch Baptist Church, 2 December 1854. See Church
Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 10 December 1875; Church Book, Ath-
ens First Baptist Church, 1 April 1877; Church Book, Macon First Baptist Church,
2 February 1855; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 4 March 1869.
32. Church Book, Macon First Baptist Church, 2 March 1855; Church Book,
Athens First Baptist Church, 31 May 1873; Church Book, Newnan First Bap-
tist Church, 22 September 1855; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church,
27 August 1832.
33. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 27 May 1833; Church
Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, LaGrange, Ga., 13 November 1842, MU.
34. Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 27 November 1858, 22

December 1860, 22 September 1855, 27 October 1855. See also 22 September
1860, 24 July 1852, 22 June 1844.
35. Ibid., 21 October 1854, 21 October 1854.
36. Ibid., 25 May 1867; Church Book, Benevolence Baptist Church,
Crawford County, Ga., 24 August 1878, MU; Church Book, Powelton Baptist
Church, April 1882; Church Book, Crawfordville Baptist Church, Taliaferro
County, Ga., 13 November 1897, MU. For other instances, see the church books
of: Beaverdam Baptist Church, 1890, 1892,1900; and Crawford Baptist Church,
Oglethorpe County, Ga., 1897, MU.
37. Church Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 8 July 1896; Church
Book, Athens First Baptist Church, 1 April 1877; Church Book, Atlanta Sec-
ond Baptist Church, 9 December 1881.
38. See Walter B. Posey, Religious Strife on the Southern Frontier (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1965); Jesse Mercer, "Religious Controversy,"
The Christian Index, 13 July 1837, 445.
39. J. J. O'Connell, Catholicity in the Carolinas and Georgia: Leaves of Its History
(New York: D. &• J. Sadlier, 1879), 494-495, 499; James Jenkins, Experience,
Labours, and Sufferings of Rev. James Jenkins, of the South Carolina Conference (n.p.,
1842), 84, 99-100, 108, 135, 154-155, 166-167; William Carey Crane, "Uni-
versalism," The Christian Index, 5 April 1838, 199; James Holmes, "Dr. Bullie's"
Notes: Reminiscences of Early Georgia and of Philadelphia and New Haven in the 1800s,
ed. Eugene Presley (Atlanta: Cherokee, 1976), 164-166.
40. J. M. Pendleton, Church Manual, Designed for the Use of Baptist Churches
(Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society [1867]), 21.
41. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 13 April 1822.
42. Melancthon "Exclusion," 309-310.
Chapter 7
1. Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association, 1851, 4-5; ibid., 1852, 4-6.
2. Conference minutes of Tirzah Baptist Church, Flint River Baptist Asso-
ciation, quoted in "Rev. Willis Jarrill," The Christian Index, 7 July 1853, 106.
3. Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association, 1852, 9-10. The minutes listed
82 delegates this year (p. 23). Jarrill subsequently denied answering the ques-
tions negatively ("Willis Jarrill," The Christian Index, 3 March 1853, 34).
4. "Report of the Committee Appointed on the Resolutions Withdrawing
from Teman Church, and Portions of Tirzah and Holly Grove Churches," in
Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association, 1853, 13-17; also published in "Report
of the Committee," The Christian Index, 27 October 1853, 170. See also W. H. C.
[William H. Clarke], "Flint River Association," The Christian Index, 20 October
1853, 166; Moderator, "Reply to W. H. C.," The Christian Index, 24 November
1853, 186.
5. Some Baptists argued that only the joint authority of church and minis-
ters was sufficient to ordain ministers. See Jesse Mercer, "Circular Letter,"
Georgia Baptist Association, 1821, in Mercer, History of the Georgia Baptist Asso-
ciation (Washington, Ga., 1838), 249-250; Mercer, The Christian Index, 6 July
1837, 417^119.
17 0 Notes to Pages 100-103
6. Church Book, Bethesda Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 20 June

1818, MU.
7. Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, LaGrange, Ga., 9 August
1834, 11 October 1834, MU.
8. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 8 Novem-
ber 1845, 7 February 1846, MU; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church,
13 May 1865.
9. Joseph Baker, "Notices of Publications," The Christian Index, 3 May 1844,
3; See Church Book, Sharon Primitive Baptist Church, Monroe County, Ga.,
13 September 1887, MU.
10. Jesse Mercer, The Christian Index, 9 June 1835; Jesse Mercer, The Chris-
tian Index, 28 October 1834. See Hugh Wamble, "The Concept and Practice of
Christian Fellowship: The Connectional and Interdenominational Aspects
Thereof, among Seventeenth Century English Baptists" (Th.D. dissertation.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1955), 301-307; and Walter Shurden,
"Associationalism among Baptists in America, 1707-1814" (Th.D. dissertation,
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1967), 1-13.
11. Georgia Baptist Association, "Abstract and Decorum," in Jesse Mercer,
History of the Georgia Baptist Association, 33; manuscript minutes, Tugalo Baptist
Association, 1818, 4, MU; Minutes, Washington Baptist Association, 1836, 4.
See also manuscript minutes, Echaconnee Primitive Baptist Association, 1829,
5, MU.
12. Minutes, Hightower Baptist Association, 1848, 4; ibid., 1850, 2; ibid.,
1882, 5, 7 (the association asserted that the minister's baptisms were valid,
"whether he was a bad man or a good man"); Minutes, Ocmulgee Baptist As-
sociation, 1830,4 (Cyrus White, who published a treatise advancing Arminian
views of the atonement, was an ordained preacher in this church); Minutes,
Middle Baptist Association, 1893, 8.
13. Manuscript minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association, 1843, 213, MU; ibid.,
1844, 220; Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association, 1850, 4.
14. Chattahoochee [Joseph S. Baker], "Church Polity," The Christian Index,
5 August 1842, 493.
15. David Shaver, "Independency," The Christian Index, 9 May 1872, 74;
Chattahoochee [Baker], "Church Polity," The Christian Index, 5 August 1842,
492. H. H. Tucker made the same point: "We believe in the doctrine of reli-
gious liberty; we hold that the so-called Second Baptist church of St. Louis is
an independent body, subject to no ecclesiastical tribunal; and that if it should
practice infant baptism, or the baptism of bells in the name of the Trinity, or if
it should deny the Trinity altogether,... no one has the right to molest them
or to interfere with them in any way whatever. But we claim the same liberty
for ourselves that we accord to others. If we say we have no fellowship with
that church, we have a right to do so" ("The St. Louis Church," The Christian
Index, 9 October 1879, 4).
16. See John T. McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1954), 263-265.
17. See Frederick L. Wiley, Life and Influence of the Rev. Benjamin Randall:
Founder of the Free Baptist Denomination (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publi-
cation Society, 1915), 63-77; Robert Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Philadel-
phia: Judson Press, 1950), 273-278; Frank Mead, Handbook of Denominations

in the United States, seventh edition (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980), 49.
18. J. M. Stillwell, "Social Circle, Stone Mountain, Indian Creek," The Chris-
tian Index, 27 November 1873, 2. See Minutes, Georgia Baptist Convention,
1846, 27; "Statistical Table of the Denomination in Georgia," inMinutes, Georgia
Baptist Convention, 1870. In Virginia, where Arminian Baptists were the stron-
gest, a large minority of the Separate Baptists there in the eighteenth century,
Arminianism waned markedly at the end of the century, due to effective polem-
ics by Calvinists and to the fall of two of the Arminian leaders. See Robert B.
Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (1810; reprint,
Richmond, Va.: Pitt & Dickinson, 1894), 83-84, 99-101, 107-110. Around
1790, Jeremiah Walker, a popular Baptist preacher in Virginia, established an
evanescent Arminian Baptist contingent in Georgia.
19. Joseph Baker, "Brother Costello's Reply," The Christian Index, 27 May
1847, 174.
20. Church Book, Hopeful Baptist Church, Burke County, Ga., March 1819
(recorded prior to 1815 minutes), MU.
21. Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, Greensboro, Ga., 9 June
1821, GDAH. See William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge,
Pa.: Judson, 1969), 144-149, 235-240, 348-349; letter to Rev. John Asplund,
30 November 1793, Polhill Family Papers, SETS.
22. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 10 June
1785, MU; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 12 April 1828. The
phrases "everlasting love of God" and "covenant of grace," which recur fre-
quently in Baptist creeds, refer to specific Calvinist doctrines: the first to God's
eternal purpose to save the elect and the second to the covenant made before
creation between the Father and the Son to redeem the elect. Particular
redemption was another expression for the doctrine of the limited extent of
the atonement—Christ died to redeem the elect and the elect only.
23. Minutes, Centennial Baptist Association, 1884, 3; manuscript minutes,
Sarepta Baptist Association, n.d., 8; Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association,
1824, 4. See Jesse Mercer, History, 29-30; manuscript minutes, Sarepta Bap-
tist Association, n.d., 8-9 (apparently transcribed in 1817 from the 1799 min-
utes); Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist Association, 1828, 6; Minutes, Bethel Baptist
Association, 1838, 8; manuscript minutes, Echaconnee Primitive Baptist Asso-
ciation, 1829, 2; manuscript minutes, Savannah River Baptist Association
(South Carolina and Georgia), 1802, MU.
24. W. H. Stokes, "Our Old Confession of Faith," The Christian Index, 7
November 1839, 710; Jesse Mercer, "Unanimity of Sentiment among the Bap-
tists," The Christian Index, 16 December 1834, 3.
25. Samuel Boykin and Sylvanus Landrum, "Salutatory," The Christian Index,
6 July 1859, 2; T. P. Bell, "To the Baptists of Georgia," The Christian Index, 30
January 1896, 4. See, for example, Jesse Mercer, "Doctrines of Grace Stated
and Proved," The Christian Index, 14 June 1838, 374; "Predestination," The
Christian Index, 4 November 1852, 177; C., "We Believe in Eternal Election,"
The Christian Index, 27 January 1858, 1; Edwin S. Atkinson, "The Nature of the
Atonement," The Christian Index, 4 July 1895, 2; S. G. Hillyer, "The Doctrines
of Grace," The Christian Index, 20 July 1899, 1.
26. "Minutes" (ministers' and deacons' meeting), in The Christian Index, 6

August 1841, 508; "Minutes" (ministers' and deacons' meeting of the third
district of the Ebenezer Baptist Association), in The Christian Index, 17 Septem-
ber 1841, 606.
27. Minutes, Hightower Baptist Association, 1852, 6. Imputation and deprav-
ity were ideas central to Calvinism.
28. Minutes, Central Baptist Association, 1842, 3; manuscript minutes,
Chattahoochee Baptist Association, 1871, 76, MU; manuscript minutes, Sarepta
Baptist Association, 1830, 123.
29. Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association, 1829, 2; manuscript minutes,
Tugalo Baptist Association, 1824, 23; Minutes, Western Baptist Association,
1833, 5-6; manuscript minutes, Tugalo Baptist Association, 1831, 52; I. R.
Branham, "More Samples," The Christian Index, 1 October 1891, 8.
30. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, Savannah, Ga., 2 May
1812, MU; letter of dismission, Hopewell Baptist Church, location unknown,
in Church Book, Long Run Baptist Church, Jefferson County, Ky., flyleaf of
1804-1817 volume, SETS; Salt River Baptist Church, Anderson County, Ky.,
1805, in ibid.
31. Jesse Mercer, "To Correspondents and Patrons," The Christian Index, 9
January 1840, 19; Joseph Baker, "Rev. C. A. Parker's Reply," The Christian Index,
2 February 1844, 3. See Mercer, "Queries Answered," The Christian Index, 28
February 1839, 133; Baker, The Christian Index, 10 March 1843, 151-152;
Joseph Baker, "Remarks on the Preceding," The Christian Index, 28 July 1843,
470. Mercer rejected fellowship with any church that denied unconditional
election, if after receiving instruction it refused to reform ("An Article of Faith,"
The Christian Index, 15 September 1836, 561).
32. See Joseph Baker's articles in The Christian Index: "Associational Record,"
9 June 1843, 363; "Associational Record," 16 June 1843, 376; "Associational
Record," 1 December 1843, 762. Cyrus White and Barnabas Strickland, lead-
ers of Georgia's Arminian Baptists, argued against effectual calling (Robert
Fleming, "Effectual Calling," The Christian Index, 20 May 1834, 79; Barnabas
Strickland, The Christian Index, 23 September 1834, 3). White argued also for a
general, nonsubstitutionary atonement and free will (Jesse Mercer, Ten Let-
ters, Addressed to the Rev. Cyrus White, in Reference to his Scriptural View of the Atone-
ment [Washington, Ga.: News Office, 1830], 1-2, 36-38). See the confession
of faith of the Sharon Baptist Church, a member of the United Baptist Asso-
ciation (Arminian): Sharon Baptist Church, "Confession of Faith," The Chris-
tian Index, 13 May 1834, 75.
33. Joseph Baker, "Discussions about Creeds, &c.," The Christian Index, 22 April
1847, 135. John W. Wilson explained the two views of salvation from the Cal-
vinist perspective: "Arminians maintain the doctrine of a conditional election,
and that faith is the condition. Predestinarians hold forth the doctrine of uncon-
ditional election, and that faith is the evidence" ("Election—Arminian and Pre-
destinarian Views of It," The Christian Index, 28 January 1847, 33).
34. J. S. Lawton, "Differences of Opinion," The Christian Index, 12 February
1874, 4.
35. An Old Man, "Mercer's Memoirs, &c.," The Christian Index, 11 November
1847, 362; William H. Holcombe, The Christian Index, 21 January 1836, 21;
Watcher, "The Efficacy of Divine Grace, No. 1," The Christian Index, 26 May 1858,
1; David Butler, "Preaching the Doctrines," The Christian Index, 22 November

1877, 4. Jesse Mercer criticized one Baptist church for leaning toward
Methodism: They upbraided their pastor's preaching for having "too much elec-
tion in it, the doctrine was too strong" (Mercer, "From Correspondents," The
Christian Index, 7 November 1839, 710). David Shaver noted some slippage of
Baptist commitment to Calvinism ("Calvinism," The Christian Index, 26 October
1871, 166).
36. Sharon Baptist Church, "Confession of Faith," The Christian Index, 13
May 1834, 75. See John M. Costello, The Christian Index, 27 May 1847, 169.
37. Mary Fitzgerald, quoted in P. H. Mell Jr., Life of Patrick Hues Mell (1895;
reprint, Harrisonburg, Va.: Gano, 1991), 58-59; R. W. F., "What I Saw and
Heard on the Line of the Georgia Railroad," The Christian Index, 16 February
1871, 26.
38. J. H. Campbell, "Rev. Alford Buckner," The Christian Index, 13 September
1855, 147; Mercer, History, 24-28; Sylvanus Landrum, "New Sunbury Associa-
tion," The Christian Index, 28 October 1880, 2; Minutes, Middle Baptist Associa-
tion, 1854; ibid., 1855, 7; ibid., 1856, 8-9; manuscript minutes, Chattahoochee
Baptist Association, 1843,141; Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association, 1847,4. The
Middle Association was an exception: By 1870 the articles of faith had been
amended to the ambiguous "Election and Predestination as taught in the Bible."
39. H. H. Tucker, "Methodist Success," The Christian Index, 4 June 1885, 8;
Jesse Mercer, "Doctrines of Grace," The Christian Index, 29 March 1838, 132;
church letter, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, in Mercer, History, 141, 140-141,142;
David Shaver, "Unsound Doctrine and Scepticism," The Christian Index, 9 Janu-
ary 1868, 6; Silas, "Church Discipline," The Christian Index, 14 July 1853, 110.
See also David Shaver, "Calvinism," The Christian Index, 26 October 1871, 166;
Shaver, "'Calvinism' and Policy," The Christian Index, 10 September 1868, 142;
David E. Butler, "Preaching the Doctrines," The Christian Index, 22 November
1877, 4; A. B. Vaughan Jr., "The Doctrine of Election," The Christian Index, 23
May 1895, 1.
40. G. T. Wilburn, "Texas Baptists," The Christian Index, 2 April 1874, 2; "The
Religious Press," The Christian Index, 27 March 1890, 1.
41. Minutes, New Sunbury Baptist Association, 1900, 8.
42. For a different view, see Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of Chris-
tianity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 97-101.
43. Elias Hibbard, The Christian Index, 22 July 1834, 113; Elias Hibbard, The
Christian Index, 3 December 1833, 82; Isaac C. Perkins, "State of Mississippi,"
The Christian Index, 13 May 1834, 74-75; Joseph Baker, "Confessions or Dec-
larations of Faith," The Christian Index, 7 June 1844, 2.
44. Joseph Baker, "Confessions of Faith, &c.," The Christian Index, 16 Feb-
ruary 1844, 3. See M., who similarly wrote that although churches did not
require candidates to subscribe to their creeds, "no candidate will apply for
admission that has any special objection to them" (The Christian Index, 4 April
1850, 54). See also Baker, "The Rights of the Churches," The Christian Index, 6
March 1861, 1.
45. Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, Newnan, Ga., 26 August
1837, 26 June 1847, MU. Newnan also "received sister Nancy Dixon upon a
certificate of her Christian character and an acknowledgement of our Faith"
(27 May 1843).
46. Minutes, Tallapoosa Baptist Association, 1854, 1; ibid., 1853, 2; Minutes,

Stone Mountain Baptist Association, 1908, 48; Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist
Association, 1831, 2; Minutes, Western Baptist Association, 1833, 2. See also
Minutes, Western Baptist Association, 1843, 3; Minutes, Hephzibah Baptist
Association, 1842, 2; Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1794, 6; Manuscript
Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association, 1807, 31; Minutes, Stone Mountain Baptist
Association, 1900, 6. The Stone Mountain Association resolved that "we rec-
ommend to all our churches, severally, to adopt the Constitution of the Rock
[Stone] Mountain Association in substance, as their Constitutions" (Minutes,
1848, 3).
47. H. H. Tucker, "New Association," The Christian Index, 26 February 1880,
4; C. D. Campbell, "The Gillsville Association," The Christian Index, 25 March
1880, 4. See also Peace, "Gillsville Association," The Christian Index, 18 March
1880, 2; Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 360-367.
48. Minutes, Georgia Baptist Convention, 1846, 4; James McDonald, "Of
Creeds, Florida Correspondents, and the N.H. Confession," The Christian Index,
21 January 1847, 27.
49. James McDonald, The Christian Index, 11 March 1847, 81; Baker, "Florida
Association—New Hampshire Confession of Faith," The Christian Index, 25
September 1846, 3; Minutes, Florida Baptist Association, 1847, 2; John M.
Costello, The Christian Index, 27 May 1847, 169. In 1847, the West Florida
Association constituted and adopted a standard southern creed, that of the
Georgia Association (D. P. Everett, "Association Constituted," The Christian
Index, 9 December 1847, 394). See also Joseph Baker, "Discussions about
Creeds, &c," The Christian Index, 22 April 1847, 135.
50. Francis Wayland, Notes on the Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches
(New York: Sheldon, Blakeman, &• Co., 1857), 13; Henry Keeling, "Editorial
Note," The Baptist Preacher n.s. 9 (1850): 217; A. S. Worrell, Review of Corrective
Church Discipline (Nashville: Southwestern, 1860), 207, footnote.
51. Jesse Mercer, "Principle More Than Words," The Christian Index, 14 July
1836, 117.
52. See Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 97-101; Robert G. Torbet, A His-
tory of the Baptists (Philadelphia: Judson, 1950), 24-25; Leon McBeth, The Bap-
tist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman, 1987), 686-687; Walter Shurden, "John E.
Steely ... On Being Baptist," Perspective in Religious Studies 20 (1993): 434-435.
53. Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1808, 2; ibid., 1810, 2; Jesse Mercer,
"Unanimity of Sentiment among the Baptists," The Christian Index, 16 Decem-
ber 1834, 3.
54. Jesse Mercer, "Unanimity," 3; William W. Gardner, "An Essay on Creeds
as Used by the Baptists," in Church Fellowship (Charleston, S.C.: Southern Baptist
Publication Society, 1858), 46-55.
55. W. H. Stokes, "Implicit Faith," The Christian Index, 1 April 1842, 202;
Wm. J. H—d [Hard], "To the Georgia Baptists—Greeting," The Christian Index,
18 January 1838, 24.
56. E. R. Carswell, "Circular Letter—Shall Our Churches Live?" Minutes,
Hephzibah Baptist Association, 1873, 8; Asa Chandler, "Circular Letter," Min-
utes, Sarepta Baptist Association, 1849, 15. Erastianism is the view that the state
rightly exercises authority over church matters.
57. W. H. Stokes, "Bond of Union," The Christian Index, 13 May 1842, 298;
Stokes, "Implicit Faith," The Christian Index, 1 April 1842, 202.
58. W. H. Stokes, The Christian Index, 29 July 1842, 473; Stokes, "Our Old
Confession of Faith," The Christian Index, 7 November 1839, 710.
59. James Armstrong, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Savannah River Baptist
Association, 1811,5 (Armstrong wrote the circular, but the association ordered
it revised at points with the help of W. B. Johnson and C. O. Screven); Joseph
Baker, "Confessions or Declarations of Faith," The Christian Index, 3 May 1844,
2; M., The Christian Index, 4 April 1850, 54.
60. "Abstract and Decorum" of the Georgia Baptist Association, in Mercer,
History, 29; Church Book, Little Ogeechee Baptist Church, Screven County,
Ga., June 1823, MU.
61. W. H. Stokes, "Our Old Confession of Faith," The Christian Index, 7
November 1839, 710; Minutes, Tallapoosa Baptist Association, 1868, 5; Posey
Maddox, "Marietta Baptist Church," The Christian Index, 4 January 1855, 2.
62. Conference minutes of Tirzah Baptist Church, in "Rev. Willis Jarrell,"
The Christian Index, 7 July 1853, 106; Moderator, "Reply to W. H. C.," The Chris-
tian Index, 24 November 1853, 186.
63. Eli Ball, "The Substance of Two Addresses Delivered at the Flint River
Association on Creeds,"Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association, 1852,10,18-22.
64. J. C. McMichael, The Christian Index, 26 January 1893,4; James Willson,
The Christian Index, 16 February 1837, 102; Jesse Mercer, The Christian Index,
16 February 1837, 103; James Wilson, The Christian Index, 23 November 1837,
752.
65. Testis [Adiel Sherwood], "Reminiscences of Georgia, No. 6: Uniformity
in Discipline," The Christian Index, 25 July 1860, 2; David Shaver, "Glimpses of
the Times," The Christian Index, 28 February 1867, 38; Shaver, "Creeds," The
Christian Index, 2 December 1869, 186; Shaver, "Credophobia," The Christian
Index, 9 June 1870, 90; Shaver, "Enemies of Creeds Returning to Them," The
Christian Index, 30 April 1868, 70; Shaver, "No Longer Necessary (?),"The Chris-
tian Index, 27 January 1870, 14. S. G. Hillyer rebutted the notion that "Chris-
tianity is not a creed, but a life," arguing that "Christianity is in the highest
sense a creed" and that Christianity is a life "only because it is a creed,—some-
thing to be believed" ("Christianity Is Not a Creed; But a Life," The Christian
Index, 5 May 1892, 1).
66. Asa Chandler, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association,
1849, 15-16.
67. T. P. Bell and I. J. Van Ness, "Two Sorts of Creeds," The Christian Index,
3 February 1898, 6.
68. Asa Chandler, "Circular Letter," Minutes, Sarepta Baptist Association,
1849, 15.
Chapter 8
1. J. A. Bell, "State of Religion," Minutes, Western Baptist Association, 1910,
27; J. F. Jackson, "State of Religion," Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist Association,
1915, n.p.
2. These figures are based on an examination of the published annual min-
utes of sixty associations in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maine, Massa-
chusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, and Vermont.
3. Six circulars of the Georgia Baptist Association urged faithfulness in exer-
cising church discipline 1803-1816 (1803, 1806, 1807, 1809, 1814, 1816). See
also Reedy River Association (South Carolina), "Circular Letter," The Christian
Index, 1 December 1835, 1; W. H. Stokes, "Church Discipline," The Christian
Index, 29 October 1840, 692.
4. A Missionary, "Faults of the Baptists," The Christian Index, 19 July 1849,
228; Observer, "Faults of the Baptists," The Christian Index, 2 August 1849, 244;
(Delegates from several churches in the Western Baptist Association), "Preamble
and Resolutions," The Christian Index, 28 August 1851, 138; A. L. Moncrief, "A
Disorderly Church," The Christian Index, 12 June 1861,1; Joseph Baker, "Games
of Hazard, &c.," The Christian Index, 16 October 1846, 2.
5. H. B. McCallum, "Indifference," The Christian Index, 11 July 1878, 1;
Samuel Henderson, "Church Discipline," The Christian Index, 16 October 1879,
1; B. (Huntsville), "Lax Discipline—Some of Its Causes," The Christian Index,
28 August 1873, 3; Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist Association, 1878, 9; Minutes,
Georgia Baptist Association, 1873, 7; J. A. Stradley, quoted in David Shaver,
"Church Growth," The Christian Index, 20 November 1873,4. See also, Minutes,
Bethel Baptist Association, 1878, 9.
6. Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, Athens, Ga., 3 June 1894,
MU; E. W. Warren, letter to committee on discipline of LaGrange First Baptist
Church, in Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, LaGrange, Ga., 28
September 1890, MU. See also F. M. Law, "Church Discipline," The Christian
Index, 19 January 1893, 2; J. C. Solomon, "Church Discipline for 1894," The
Christian Index, 8 February 1894, 2.
7. Edward Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 9, 19-20, 20-22. See also C. Vann
Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1971), 107-141.
8. Quoted in Ayers, Promise, 21. Not all southerners welcomed the New
South. See Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in the Blood: The Religion of the Lost
Cause, 1865-1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), 79-99.
9. W. W. Barnes, The Southern Baptist Convention, 1845-1953 (Nashville:
Broadman, 1954), 306-307; Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of
America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick,
N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 146-147.
10. "Preamble and Resolutions," The Christian Index, 28 August 1851, 138;
E. V. Baldy, "Salvation Army," The Christian Index, 27 March 1890, 2. See also
Minutes, Western Baptist Association, 1851, 7; "Prompt Discipline," The Chris-
tian Index, 12 August 1852, 129; "Report on the State of Religion," Minutes,
Hephzibah Baptist Association, 1851, 7; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist
Church, 28 September 1890; Persis, "Christ's Church Discipline," The Christian
Index, 21 December 1876,2; Finke and Stark, The Churching of America, 163-166.
11. David Butler, "The Method of Receiving Candidates for Baptism," The
Christian Index, 6 June 1878, 4; Stokes, "Church Discipline," The Christian Index,
29 October 1840, 692; Benjamin Roberts, "Circular Letter,"Minutes, Washing-
ton Baptist Association, 1829, 5; J. C. Solomon, "Church Discipline for 1894,"
The Christian Index, 8 February 1894, 2. See B. H. Whilden, "State of Religion,"

Minutes, Rehoboth Baptist Association, 1870, 17.
12. Church Book, Penfield Baptist Church, Greene County, Ga., 7 October
1854, MU; Basil Manly Jr., Letter to Rev. M. B. Wharton, 1 February 1873,
Manly Collection, SETS. See Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 12
December 1863, 12 March 1864.
13. Benjamin Roberts, "Circular Letter,"Minutes, Washington Baptist Asso-
ciation, 1829, 17; Stokes, "Church Discipline," The Christian Index, 29 October
1840, 692; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, Hancock County, Ga., 4
January 1845, 1 and 28 February 1845, 3, 30, and 31 May 1845, 3 July 1845,
MU.
14. Layman, The Christian Index, 27 September 1844, 1.
15. "Prompt Discipline," The Christian Index, 12 August 1852, 129; Samuel
Henderson, "Beloved for the Father's Sake," The Christian Index, 6 August 1885,
2; Julia Sherwood, Memoir of Adiel Sherwood (Philadelphia: Grant & Faires,
1884), 128-129.
16. B., "Lax Discipline—Some of Its Causes," The Christian Index, 28 August
1873, 3; A. L. Moncrief, "A Disorderly Church," The Christian Index, 12 June
1861, 1.
17. L., "Conference Meetings," The Christian Index, 28 September 1871, 149.
18. Jesse Mercer, quoted in G. E. Thomas, "Rev. Jesse Mercer and His Eccle-
siastical Court," The Christian Index, 13 July 1863, 4; Zurich statute quoted in
Steven E. Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1975), 33.
19. See Joseph E. Marks, America Learns to Dance: A Historical Study of Dance
Education in America before 1900 (New York: Dance Horizons, 1957), 17-18,
45-60, 94-95; Frances, "Is the Tuition of a Dancing Master Necessary?" The
Christian Index, 20 April 1837, 254.
20. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 9 May
1794, MU; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, Savannah, 24 Feb-
ruary 1835, MU; Minutes, Washington Baptist Association, 1837, 4.
21. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 10 August 1799; Church Book,
Kiokee Baptist Church, Columbia County, Ga., 20 November 1824, MU;
Church Book, Long Creek Baptist Church, Warren County, Ga., 16 January
1790, MU; Minutes, Ocmulgee Baptist Association, 1818, 4. See Church Book,
Long Creek Baptist Church, 23 April 1836; Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist
Church, 10 May 1806; Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist Association, 1816, 4-5.
22. Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright (1856; reprint, New
York: Abingdon Press, 1956), 61; manuscript minutes, Hope well Presbytery,
8 September 1808, Presbyterian Historical Society, Montreal, N.C.; Sally Elmore
Taylor, "Memoir 1910," Southern Historical Collection, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, typescript, quoted in Mary Fulton Green, "A Profile of
Columbia in 1850," South Carolina Historical Magazine 70 (1969): 118; Eliza
Frances Andrews, The War-time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865, ed. Spen-
cer Bidwell King (Macon, Ga.: Arcadian, 1960), 382.
23. George Whitefield, George Whitefield's Journals (1741; reprint, Carlisle,
Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1960), 444; Nelson Mount, Letter to William Sidney
Mount, 1837, Mount Family Correspondence, Library of the Museums at Stony
Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y., quoted in Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life,
1790-1840 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 243; Dorothy Shorter, The Chris-
tian Index, 9 December 1834, 3.
24. Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, Newnan, Ga., 24 July 1858,
MU. When Thomas Mullin was tried for "playing at fives at the court house,"
he confessed that the charge was true and "that he then thought no harm of
it but now thinks it was harm" (Church Book, Poplar Springs Baptist Church,
Stephens County, Ga., 27 June 1818, MU). When Brother Holtzclaw confessed
to playing cards with no betting, he admitted that he was "now satisfied as to
the impropriety of such an amusement" (Church Book, Penfield Baptist
Church, 12 November 1853, MU). See also Church Book, Poplar Springs Bap-
tist Church, 27 February 1819.
25. V. S., "Greensboro' vs. the Theatre: The Devil Foiled for Once," The Chris-
tian Index, 13 July 1837,439; Bar-Samuel [Robert Fleming], "Worthy of Notice,"
The Christian Index, 2 July 1841, 427.
26. Quoted in Thomas Gary Johnson, The Life and Letters of Benjamin Morgan
Palmer (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987 [1906]), 93-96. See Session
Records, Indiantown Presbyterian Church, South Carolina, 28 April 1834,
quoted in Margaret Burr DesChamps, "The Presbyterian Church in the South
Atlantic States, 1801-1861" (Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1952), 120.
27. Moses M. Henkle, Primary Platform of Methodism; Or, Exposition of the Gen-
eral Rules (Louisville, Ky.: Southern Methodist Book Concern, 1853), 10.
28. L. L. V., "Drunkenness Increasing," The Christian Index, 30 August 1866,
137.
29. Minutes, Ebenezer Baptist Association, 1868, 6; Church Book, Penfield
Baptist Church, 8 June 1866.
30. For a discussion of Southern Baptists and civil religion, see Rufus Spain,
At Ease in Zion: A Social History of Southern Baptists, 1865-1900 (Nashville:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1967); John Eighmy, Churches in Cultural Captiv-
ity: A History of the Social Attitudes of Southern Baptists (Knoxville: University of
Tennessee Press, 1972).
31. Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 8 May 1857; Church Book,
Penfield Baptist Church, 12 March 1859.
32. Church Book, Beaverdam Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 17 March
1866, MU; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 25 January 1878,27 October
1894, April 1871, May 1871, 27 July 1878, 23 August 1878.
33. Dancing offenses include dancing; hosting, attending, or patronizing a
dance or ball; abetting dancing; fiddling for dancing; and patronizing a danc-
ing school. Simple dancing was the most common charge, accounting for 82%
of all dancing offenses. From 1785 to 1860, 49.5 percent of those accused of
dancing offenses were excluded; from 1861 to 1880, 23.8 percent.
34. Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 8 February 1857; Church
Book, Washington First Baptist Church, Washington, Ga., 2 January 1864, MU;
Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, 2 July 1864; Church Book, Atlanta
First Baptist Church, Atlanta, 3 March 1866, GDAH; Church Book, Newnan
First Baptist Church, 25 July 1869; Minutes, Middle Baptist Association, 1860,
5; Minutes, Hightower Baptist Association, 1930, 8; ibid., 1931, 6.
35. Minutes, Rehoboth Baptist Association, 1851, 3; Church Book, LaGrange
First Baptist Church, 11 April 1874; Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist
Church, Greensboro, Ga., 2 July 1870, GDAH; Church Book, Poplar Springs
Baptist Church, 23 July 1814; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 21
July 1860, 26 September 1846; Church Book, Kiokee Baptist Church, 9 June
1894, 7 July 1894.
36. Church Book, Crawfordville Baptist Church, Taliaferro County, Ga., 7
May 1898, 11 June 1898, MU; Minutes, Middle Baptist Association, 1878, 3;
Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 24 July 1880; Church Book, Antioch
Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., 10 November 1883, 8 December 1883,
GDAH; Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 24 August 1877; Minutes,
Hightower Baptist Association, 1860, 5. A. S. Wheeler confessed attending a
dancing party, but "did not know it to be a dance" (Church Book, Powelton
Baptist Church, 25 January 1878). See also Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist
Church, 10 February 1883; Ted Ownby, Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and
Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-
lina Press, 1990), 120.
37. Church Book, Little Ogeechee Baptist Church, Screven County, Ga., May
1838, MU; G. E. Thomas, "Jesse Mercer and His Ecclesiastical Court," The Chris-
tian Index, 13 July 1863,4; Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1865, 6; Church
Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 28 September 1890; Church Book,
Barnesville Baptist Church, Lamar County, Ga., 21 February 1892, MU; Church
Book, Washington First Baptist Church, 4 November 1886.
38. Church Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, 6 January 1871,
10 February 1871, GDAH.
39. Church Book, Crawford Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, Ga., 23
December 1876, 26 July 1885, MU; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church,
27 December 1856, 24 January 1857, 21 February 1857, 27 March 1858, 24
April 1858, 25 July 1869, 15 March 1885.
40. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 23 October 1878; Church Book,
LaGrange First Baptist Church, 3 April 1895. The LaGrange church was deeply
divided over disciplinary action against amusements and endured a good deal
of conflict over it. The most important resolution against "dancing, card play-
ing, and attending theatres" passed on 11 April 1874.
41. Church Book, Powelton Baptist Church, 26 May 1877; Minutes, Geor-
gia Baptist Association, 1865, 6; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church,
12 December 1863, 12 March 1864, 13 May 1864.
42. Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 10 February 1883; Church
Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 1 October 1877. Antebellum average
annual dancing-related trials per 10,000 church members was 8.4; the 1890s
rate was 5.4. Antebellum average annual dancing-related exclusions per 10,000
members was 4.2; 1890s rate was 1.2.
43. Ayers, Promise, 55-65.
44. Ibid., 72-80; Finke and Stark, Churching, 203-207.
45. Mercer, "Baptist Church in Mobile," The Christian Index, 12 March 1840,
164.
46. See E. Brooks Holifield, The Gentlemen Theologians: American Theology in
Southern Culture, 1795-1860 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1978),
15-23. Antebellum urban Southern Baptist preachers were paid $1,000 to
$1,500; rural preachers earned about $100 or $200 (Anne Loveland, Southern
Evangelicals and the Social Order, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Uni-
versity Press, 1980), 58; Finke and Stark, Churching, 81-82). The national
average wealth of a free white male in 1860 was $2,580; the average wealth
of urban Southern Baptist clergy in 1860 was $9,778 (E. Brooks Holifield, "The
Penurious Preacher? Nineteenth-Century Clerical Wealth: North and South,"
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58 [1990]: 23-24).
47. Letter to J. L. Reynolds, 21 August 1849, in Basil Manly Sr., "A Letter
of the Late Dr. Manly," The Christian Index, 18 March 1869, 41; Jesse Mercer,
in a speech delivered before the 1841 Triennial Baptist Convention, quoted in
Charles Button Mallary, Memoirs of Elder Jesse Mercer (New York: John Gray,
1844), 213; Nathan, "Georgia Baptist Convention (Colored)," The Christian
Index, 21 June 1877, 3.
48. Minutes, Western Baptist Association, 1868, 10.
49. S. G. H. [S. G. Hillyer], "The Responsibility of City Churches," The Chris-
tian Index, 1 April 1869, 49.
50. Of 482 urban church trials 1861-1900 (excluding 95 trials of unknown
or indefinite charges), fully 272 involved offenses against the church. Of these
272, 153 cases involved members who joined the Methodists, Presbyterians,
Episcopalians, Campbellites, or an unspecified denomination. Twenty-one
others joined the Roman Catholic or Christian Science Church.
51. F. M. Law, "Church Discipline," The Christian Index, 19 January 1893,
2; J. B. Gambrell, "Southern and Northern Baptists," The Christian Index, 11
May 1893, 1.
52. S. G. H. [S. G. Hillyer], "The Responsibility of City Churches," The Chris-
tian Index, 1 April 1869, 49.
53. M., "Baptist Harmony—Amusements," The Christian Index, 28 August
1884, 3.
54. Rural and village churches from 1861 to 1900 had 203 cases involving
worldly amusements of 1,101 cases (excluding 174 cases of indeterminate
charges); urban and town churches had 24 of 482 (excluding 95 cases of inde-
terminate charges). Urban and town churches from 1785 to 1860 had 8.82
trials for dancing per 10,000 members annually and 3.78 exclusions per 10,000;
from 1861 to 1900, they had 3.83 trials and 1.41 exclusions. Rural and village
churches from 1861 to 1900 had 31.3 trials for dancing annually per 10,000
members and 7.36 exclusions per 10,000; urban churches (excluding town
churches) had 1.37 trials and 0.64 exclusions.
55. See E. Brooks Holifield, "Toward a History of American Congregations,"
in James W. Lewis and James P. Wind, eds., American Congregations (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994), 1:23-53.
56. Church Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 23 January 1872.
57. Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 13 January 1873; Church
Book, Athens First Baptist Church, 3 August 1867; Minutes, Georgia Baptist
Association, 1872, 6.
58. Church Book, Barnesville Baptist Church, 28 August 1887; Church
Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 21 April 1897. See also the notice of the
resignation of Newnan pastor F. M. Daniel, "who has zealously, faithfully and
efficiently served" (26 September 1869).
59. For examples of interior refinements, see Church Book, Newnan First
Baptist Church, 26 February 1853; Church Book, Long Creek Baptist Church,
23 October 1858; Church Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 11 Novem-
Notes to Page 132 181
ber 1865; Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, 3 September 1882;
Church Book, Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 9 December 1899.
For examples of the introduction of organs, see Church Book, Savannah
First Baptist Church, 29 November 1855; Church Book, Macon First Baptist
Church, Macon, Ga., 3 August 1860, MU; Church Book, LaGrange First Bap-
tist Church, 8 October 1864; Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church,
1 June 1867; Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 22 March 1868;
Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 14 July 1869; Church Book, Little
Ogeechee Baptist Church, September 1869, 10 July 1880; Church Book, Wash-
ington First Baptist Church, 30 April 1870; Church Book, Crawford Baptist
Church, 22 March 1873; Church Book, Antioch Baptist Church, 3 December
1887; Church Book, Mount Vernon Baptist Church, Butts County, Ga., 4
November 1893, MU.
For examples of adoption of professional musicians and choirs, see Church
Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 29 November 1855, 30 October 1889,
29 November 1893, 31 October 1894; Church Book, Macon First Baptist
Church, 19 October 1884, 3 August 1888, 3 October 1900; Church Book,
Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 11 March 1881, 8 December 1882, 7 July 1886;
Church Book, Athens First Baptist Church, 3 March 1889.
Savannah First Baptist Church set the 1868 salary of Sylvanus Landrum at
$3,000, as did Macon First for E. W. Warren in 1869, as did Atlanta First for
Landrum in 1870, and as did Atlanta Second for Henry McDonald in 1881
(Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 4 November 1867; Church
Book, Macon First Baptist Church, 1 October 1869; Church Book, Atlanta First
Baptist Church, 1 September 1870; Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 9 Decem-
ber 1881). Town churches generally paid their pastors between $1,000 and
$2,000: Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist, 6 March 1881 ($970); 30 Janu-
ary 1887 ($1,284); 1 October 1895 ($1,429); Church Book, Newnan First
Baptist Church, 27 October 1860 ($1,000) 26 September 1866 ($800); Church
Book, Washington First Baptist Church, 1 January 1866 ($1,500); 4 April 1874
($1,200); Church Book, Greensboro First Baptist Church, 12 November 1870
($1,000).
60. Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 31 October 1888, 2 April
1890, 1 June 1887, 30 October 1889.
61. H. H. Tucker, "An Interesting Service," The Christian Index, 15 January
1885, 8; Church Book, Barnesville Baptist Church, 22 January 1882.
62. Urban churches sometimes employed pew rents, at times simultaneously
with the envelope system. Savannah First Baptist Church probably rented pews
almost from the start and continued them into the twentieth century (Church
Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 17 January 1812, 9 March 1824, 3 Feb-
ruary 1909). Atlanta First Church adopted pew rents prior to 1872, retaining
the practice at least until 1897 (Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 29
February 1872, 2 December 1896). Atlanta Second Church adopted pew rents
in 1865 (Church Book, Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 13 September 1865).
Macon First Baptist Church adopted pew rents in 1866, abandoned them in
1868, renewed them in 1872, and abandoned them again in 1874 (Church
Book, Macon First Baptist Church, 17 April 1866, 2 October 1868, 5 September
1872, 27 September 1874). One finance committee recommended an assess-
ment of church members at 1 percent on property and 5 percent on income
above a certain amount (Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 1 May
1869). Atlanta First Church assessed $1 annual dues and paid a "collector"
(Church Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 8 May 1888). See also Church
Book, Crawford Baptist Church, 18 August 1894, 16 March 1895, 17 October
1896, 18 March 1899.
63. William Henry Strickland, "Circular Letter," The Christian Index, 3 Novem-
ber 1870, 169.
64. Church Book, Macon First Baptist Church, 4 April 1877; David E. But-
ler, "Plan of Church at Work," The Christian Index, 4 October 1877, 4; Butler,
"Church Work," The Christian Index, 21 February 1878, 4; W. J. Dotson, "The
Importance of Exercising Church Discipline," The Christian Index, 14 July 1887,
2. See Church Book, Newnan First Baptist Church, 22 January 1879; Church
Book, Atlanta First Baptist Church, 1 March 1883; Church Book, Atlanta Sec-
ond Baptist Church, 9 November 1883; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist
Church, 31 August 1892; Church Book, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Wilkes
County, Ga., 21 July 1894, MU; Church Book, Beaverdam Baptist Church, 3
August 1894.
65. X., "Church Work—The Right Theory," The Christian Index, 26 July
1877, 8.
66. Minutes, Hightower Baptist Association, 1915, 8; Minutes, Flint River
Baptist Association, 1901, 15.
67. J. B. Gambrell, "Our Supreme Problem," The Christian Index, 22 Febru-
ary 1894, 2. Ted Ownby argued a similar point: "As churches were losing
interest in disciplining the behavior of their members, they were trying to
reform the behavior of all Southerners" (Subduing Satan, 207).
68. "An Eastern Texas Wedding," The Christian Index, 9 January 1851, 6;
H. C. C, "Progressive Christianity," The Christian Index, 3 September 1891, 1;
Provence, "Creeds," The Christian Index, 13 March 1884, 2. See also Student,
"Dancing Christians," The Christian Index, 6 December 1849, 386; W. H. Stokes,
"Getting Religion," The Christian Index, 16 September 1842, 585; J. B. Gambrell,
"Our Supreme Problem," The Christian Index, 22 February 1894, 2.
69. Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association, 1900, 13; Minutes, Georgia Bap-
tist Association, 1897, 9; Minutes, Middle Baptist Association, 1914, 17. See
also Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1896, 11; Minutes, Middle Baptist
Association, 1909, 16; Minutes, Flint River Baptist Association, 1898, 15-16.
70. Minutes, Georgia Baptist Convention, 1870, 8, 24-25; ibid., 1880,40-43;
ibid., 1895, 44, 51-52; Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 26
December 1886.
71. Church Book, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 28 September 1890; Mm -
utes, Ebenezer Baptist Association, 1868, 6; Minutes, Georgia Baptist Associa-
tion, 1897, 10. See Minutes, Central Baptist Association, 1893, 6.
72. "Historical Sketch of the Baptist Church at Sardis," in Church Book,
Sardis Baptist Church, Wilkes County, Ga., 1888 (at the front of the third
church book), MU; Church Book, Savannah First Baptist Church, 30 October
1871.
73. J. H. Fortson, "State of Religion," inMinutes, Georgia Baptist Association,
1896, 11; [Basil Manly Sr.], "Circular Letter," The Christian Index, 24 March 1843,
179 (Joseph Baker ascribes authorship to Manly on p. 188). See Fortson, "State
of Religion,"Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1891, 9; J. W. Ellington, "State
of Religion,"Minutes, Georgia Baptist Association, 1892, 8; "Church Discipline,"

The Christian Index, 10 December 1841, 789-790.
74. J. C. McMichael, "Wayside Jottings," The Christian Index, 15 February
1894, 4; McMichael, "Church Discipline," The Christian Index, 13 September
1894, 4.
75. J. B. Parrott, "Have Baptist Churches Too Many Organizations?" The
Christian Index, 13 December 1894, 1; W. J. Dotson, "The Importance of Exer-
cising Church Discipline," The Christian Index, 14 July 1887, 2.
76. M. J. Webb, "Discipline," The Christian Index, 11 April 1889, 5; David
Shaver, "The Right and Duty of Excommunication," The Christian Index, 27
January 1870, 14; B., "Lax Discipline—Some of Its Causes," The Christian Index,
28 August 1873, 3.
77. B., "Lax Discipline—Some of Its Causes," The Christian Index, 28 August
1873, 3; Wharton, "The Lives of Our Fathers—The Inspiration of Their Sons,"
in Centennial Year Book of Georgia Baptists, ed. M. B. Wharton (Atlanta: Jas. P.
Harrison, 1884), 56.
78. J. L. D. Hillyer, "Distinctive Principles of Baptists," The Christian Index,
26 January 1893, 2; B., "Lax Discipline—Some of Its Causes," The Christian
Index, 28 August 1873, 3.
79. Church Book, Washington First Baptist Church, 3 October 1897.
Conclusion
1. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt, 1920), 48.
2. Basil Manly Sr., letter, 9 September 1856, quoted in Joseph Walker, "Dr.
Manly of Charleston, on Pedobaptist Immersions," The Christian Index, 24 June
1857, 99.
Index
Abrams, Joseph, 72 Allen, Thomas, 71

abuse, 39 Anabaptists, 42
accusation, 21, 37-38 Andrews, Eliza, 122
and gender, 38 Anglican Church. See Church of
and race, 38 England
acknowledgment of guilt, 40^41 annihilationism, 90
acquittals, 22 anticreedalism. See confessions of
and egalitarianism, 62 faith: opposition to
frequency of, 39 antinomianism, 77, 114
rates of, compared by race, 65 Antioch Baptist Church, 107, 110
activism, 133-134, 136 anxious bench, 34
admission to church membership, 19 appeals, of church verdicts, 24
admonition. See rebuke Arianism, 114
adultery, 37, 59, 66, 81-82, 120, 140 Arminianism, 59, 77, 91, 96, 101,
aid, to poor of church, 44, 62-63, 103, 105-109, 114
132 and church discipline, 87
alcohol-related offenses, 100 and heresy, 90
excommunication rates for, history of, 102-103
compared by gender, 55-56 and New Hampshire Confession,
excommunication rates for, 110
compared by race, 66 and ordination, 78
See also drunkenness and Separate Baptists, 87
alien immersion, 6, 89, 101 Arminius, Jacob, 102
and individualism, 140 Armstrong, James, 112
and urban churches, 129 Asplund, John, 14, 15
185
186 Index
associations Baptists
and black representation, 64-65 aspirations for respectability, 50-
and church discipline, 32-33 51
and confessions of faith, 109-110 southern gentry's views of, 13,
origins of, 100-101 44, 50
atheism, 90, 114 views of cities, 128-129
Athens First Baptist Church, 16, 75, Baptists, African-American. See
94, 110, 125, 131 black Baptists
Atlanta First Baptist Church, 21, 24, Baptists, English, 6-7, 100-101
57, 125, 132 Baptists, Freewill. See Freewill
Atlanta Second Baptist Church, 90, Baptists
94, 126, 131, 132 Baptists, General. See General
atonement, doctrine of, 6-7, 78-79, Baptists
85-87, 103-107 Baptists, Georgia
Augusta First Baptist Church, 112 demographics, 8, 36, 67
Augusta Theological Institute, 73 Baptists, northern, 72, 74, 95, 108,
authority, associational, 98-99, 101 117
authority, ecclesiastical, 11-12, 21, Baptists, Particular. See Particular
37, 39, 48 Baptists
and admission of members, 19- Baptists, Primitive. See Primitive
20 Baptists
and biblical interpretation, 109 Baptists, Separate. See Separate
in black Baptist churches, 69, 80- Baptists
83 Baptists, United States
and democracy, 5, 29 demographics, 8, 14, 36, 118
and doctrine, 87-88 origins, 7
and freedom, 4 Baptist successionism, 75-76, 142n9
and fundamentalist-moderate Baptist usages, 88
controversy (Southern Baptist Barnesville Baptist Church, 132
Convention), 3-4 baseball, 125
and individualism, 137 Battle Hill Baptist Church, 109
autonomy, church, 20, 29, 32-33, Beecher, Henry Ward, 85
88, 102 Bell, J. A., 116
and associations, 101-102 Bell, T. P., 105
autonomy, individual, 14-15, 33, Benevolence Baptist Church, 24, 94
111 benevolent societies, 32-33, 57, 61
Bethel Baptist Church, 36
backgammon, 125 Bethesda Baptist Church, 15-16, 24,
Backus, Isaac, 32 54, 74, 86
Bairds Baptist Church, 100 Bethlehem Baptist Church, 98-99
Baker, Joseph, 34-35, 100, 103, Beza, Theodore, 102
106-107, 109, 110, 117 biblical interpretation, freedom of,
Baldy, E. V., 118 112
Ball, Eli, 114 billiards, 82, 122, 125
balls, 121-122, 125-126 black Baptists
baptism, 15-16, 106 and Baptist identity, 75
Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, and Calvinism, 76-80
70 and church discipline, 80-83
baptistries, indoor, 16 and individualism, 68
Index 187
persecution of, 72, 76 Cartwright, Peter, 121

relationship to white Baptists, 63- Central Baptist Association, 105
64, 69-70, 72, 74 Chandler, Asa, 112
white Baptist views of, 60-61, 72- Chattahoochee Baptist Association,
76 92, 105
black Baptists, Georgia chess, 125
demographics, 67 choirs, 132
blacks Christian Church (Campbellite), 96
excommunication rates of, 60 Christian Science, 90, 95
role in church discipline, 38, 54 church, offenses against
role in social hierarchy, 60 black and white churches
standing in civil courts, 38 compared, 82
See also slaves excommunication rates for,
blasphemy, 81 compared by gender, 55
Boothe, Charles O., 77 excommunication rates for,
Botsford, William, 7 compared by race, 66
Boykin, Samuel, 90, 105 trial rates for, compared by
Bracy, D. C., 79 gender, 59
Branham, I. R., 89 church censures, 30
Brantly, Benjamin, 43, 45 and publishing, 42-43
Brantly, William T., 57 rebuke, 11, 22, 31, 41
Broad Run Baptist Church, 87 suspension, 40, 47-48, 148nl2
Brown, Joseph E., 126 See also excommunication
Browne, Robert, 85 church conferences, 18-21
Bryan, Andrew, 63, 72, 76 for black membership, 53, 64
Bull Run Baptist Church, 46 in urban churches, 132
Burgess, P. F., 73 church covenants, 20-21, 80, 86
Butler, David E., 71, 85, 89, 119 church discipline
black and white practice
Callaway, Enoch, 86 compared, 81-83
Callaway, J. S., 74 decline of, 9, 20, 35, 117-119,
Calvin, John, 13, 102 135-136
Calvinism, 6-9, 17, 19-20, 34, 59, and efficiency, 135
90, 95, 105, 109-110 and exclusivism, 5
and black Baptists, 76-80 formative vs. corrective, 135-136
and church discipline, 17, 87, 102 and gender, 54-56, 59
and confessions of faith, 103-105, as mark of true churches, 13,
115 142n4
history of, 102-103 Methodist, 23, 42, 121-123
neglect of, 77, 85, 107 neglect of, 35-36, 117, 132
opposition to, 98-99 northern Baptist, 6, 117
Campbell, Alexander, 28, 72, 93, obstacles to, 22, 48-49, 119-120
96, 112 Presbyterian, 22-23, 42, 122-123
Campbell, C. D., 110 resistance to, 42, 46-49, 123-
camp meetings, 34, 95 124
card playing, 24, 82, 122, 125-127, and revival, 8, 27-28, 33-36
130 role of, 8, 17-18, 30-31
Carey, William, 57, 86-87 and social control, 9
Carter, E. R., 71 church growth, 35
188 Index
church membership, 17, 29, 44-45, Crawfordville Baptist Church, 94,

109 133
rates of, 67 creeds. See confessions of faith
withdrawal from, and cursing, 48
ecclesiastical authority, 47-48
Church of England, 28, 32, 63 Dagg, John F., 65
church records, black Baptist, 68 Dagg, John L., 33, 57
church seating, 63 dancing, 27, 31, 40, 54, 81, 100,
church trials, 11-12, 21, 23-25 135, 137
open to public, 14, 42 in American culture, 121
circus, 82-83, 122, 124-125 Baptist views of, 26, 121-127,
cities, 128 130
civil law suits, 22, 48 and black Baptists, 82-83
civil religion, 123, 133 and conversion, 16
Civil War, 64, 123 and decline of church discipline,
close communion, 6, 89, 105, 129 121-127, 129, 131
committees, church, 133 evangelical opposition to, 121-
common fame, accusation by, 38 123
Compere, Lee, 109 excommunication rates for, 56,
confessing sin, 21, 40, 81 124, 127
confessions of faith, 20, 108-113, hosting a dance, 26
115 trial rates for, 124
assent required, 92 and urban churches, 130-131
in black associations, 77-78 and youth, 125-126
and Calvinism, 103-105, 113 dancing games, 125
and individual freedom, 111 dancing schools, 121-122, 125
opposition to, 98-99, 111, 113- Davis, Jonathan, 16
115 Dawson, John E., 16, 77
and theological controversy, 86 deacons, 19, 22, 64, 81, 86
congregation, 14-15 decorums, church, 20, 22-23, 58
Congregationalists, 5, 28, 61, 63 defections, from Baptist churches,
conscience, liberty of, 33, 47-48, 87, 91-97
108 Deism, 87, 90
contempt, of church, 11-12, 43, democracy, church
81 and biblical interpretation, 29
controversies, 7, 88, 95, 98-99 and confessions of faith, 111
conversion and ecclesiastical authority, 5-6,
and church membership, 5, 19- 137, 139
20, 29, 92-93, 111 depravity, doctrine of, 76-79, 86-
and exclusivism, 5 87, 103-106, 110
conversion narrative, 19-20, 62 desertion, 38, 43
cooperation Dewey, John, 140
Baptist, 99-100 Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 77
evangelical, 95 dice, casting, 82
councils, interchurch, 24, 99-100, discipline, interchurch, 100-102
120 disestablishment, 32
County Line Baptist Church, 100 disobedience, 24
Crane, William C., 57, 95 doctrine, role of, 84-88, 168n26
Crawford Baptist Church, 126 Dover Baptist Association, 51
Index 189
drunkenness, 38-39, 42, 44, 53-54, falsehood, 87

59,81, 120, 123, 129, 135 familiar address, and church
trial rates for, compared by membership, 44-45
gender, 59 family, 55
due process, 24—25 family worship, 62
dues, church, 132 fiddling, 26-27, 82, 121, 125
Fifth Street Baptist Church, 68
Easter, 76 fighting, 40, 41, 81, 129
Ebenezer Baptist Association, 92, finances, church, 19, 57, 131-133
109-110, 116, 123, 135 Finney, Charles G., 34
ecclesiology. Baptist, 28-30 First London Confession, 104
education, of blacks, 72-75 Fleming, Robert, 56-57
Edwards, Jonathan, 86 Flint River Baptist Association, 98-
Edwards, Morgan, 7 99, 113
efficiency, church, 131-134 Florida Baptist Association, 110
and church discipline, 134-138 Ford, J. W., 134
and toleration, 137 Foreign Mission Baptist Convention,
egalitarianism, 9, 50, 61-63 75
elders, Baptist, 155n4 forgiveness, 22, 39-40
election, doctrine of, 17, 77-79, 91, fornication, 18, 23, 81, 119
103-108, 110, 113, 172n33 Fortson, J. H., 135
envelope system, 132-133 fortune telling, 24
Episcopal Church, 22, 28, 94, 112, Franklin Covenant Baptist Church,
122, 128 65
erasure, from membership roll, 91- fraud, 46, 132
95 Frazier, Garrison, 71
evangelism, 4, 35, 88, 133 Freedmen's Bureau, 71, 74
evidence, 23 freedom, church, 32-33, 88,
exclusion. See excommunication 102
exclusivism, Baptist, 6, 84, 89, 129- freedom, individual, 6, 21, 33,
130 46, 68, 102, 137
and confessions of faith, 113, 115 and biblical interpretation, 87-88,
and fundamentalist-moderate 109
controversy (Southern Baptist and confessions of faith, 108
Convention), 3-4 and ecclesiastical authority, 4,
persistence of, 137-138 46
exclusivism, evangelical, 5 Freewill Baptists, 80, 90, 103, 106,
excommunication, 12, 18, 21-22, 110
30-31, 40-45, 48, 102, 132, Friendship Baptist Church, 71
136 Fuller, Andrew, 86-87, 102
history of, 12-13, 42 fundamentalist-moderate
ritual of, 12, 42-44 controversy (Southern Baptist
excommunication, rates of, 22-23 Convention), 3-4, 137-138
chronological comparisons, 117
compared by gender, 54-56 gambling, 13, 31, 39, 122, 129
compared by race, 66, 68 Gambrell, J. B., 130, 133
urban and rural compared, 129-130 Gano, John, 7
exhortation, gift of, 86 gender. See men; women
expulsion. See excommunication General Baptists, 6-7, 87, 90, 103
190 Index
Georgia Baptist Association, 7, 14, horse racing, 122-123, 125

30, 57,65, 101, 104, 108, 111, hyper-Calvinism, 87, 107
114, 127, 131, 135
Georgia Baptist Convention, 26, 110 idolatry, 30
Gill, John, 77, 85-86, 102 individualism, 3-4, 21, 33, 137
Gillfield African Church, 68 inerrancy, 3—4
Gillsville Baptist Association, 110 infant baptism, 5-6, 20, 29, 89, 95-
Goshen Colored Baptist Church, 73- 96, 111
74 investigating committees, 21-22, 48,
gospel steps, 24-25, 30 100, 120
Grady, Henry, 118 Ivey, F. H., 75
Graves, J. R., 8
Grayson, William, 13 Jarrill, Willis, 98-99, 113-115
Great Awakening, 5, 7, 33-34, 122 Jenkins, James, 95
Greensboro First Baptist Church, 45, Johnson, Andrew, 74
53, 61, 90, 104, 125 Johnson, E. P., 79
Green Street Baptist Church, 68 Johnson, W. B., 26, 43, 46-47
Jones, Charles Colcock, 61
Hall, J. H., 132 Jordan, F. B., 79
Hard, William J., 112 Judson, Adoniram, 57, 153n29
Harmony Baptist Church, 71 jurisdiction, church, 24, 46
Harris, J. H., 85
Keach, Elias, 104
Hartford Baptist Church, 109-110
Keeling, Henry, 111
Hawthorne, J. B., 57, 59
Kilpatrick, J. H., 35
helps. See councils, interchurch;
Kiokee Baptist Church, 54
presbyteries, Baptist
Kirkpatrick, J. L., 77
Henderson, Samuel, 85, 120 Klugh, D. S., 79
Henkle, Moses, 123
Hephzibah Baptist Association, 24, LaGrange First Baptist Church, 54,
52, 65 93, 100, 118, 124, 126, 127,
heresy, 30, 87, 90-91, 93-94, 97, 133, 134, 135
99, 113-114, 119, 123 Landmarkism, 7-8, 95, 142n9
Hightower Baptist Association, 91, Landrum, Sylvanus, 31, 35, 51, 105
92, 101, 105, 125 Law, F. M., 129
Hillyer, J. L. D., 137 Law, Josiah, 61
Hillyer, S. G., 55, 62, 129, 130 Law, Samuel, 85, 88
Holcombe, Henry, 11, 12, 16, 47, Lawton, J. S., 107
51-52 Leland, John, 33
Holcombe, William, 107 Liele, George, 63, 77
Holiness movement, 82, 118-119 Little Ogeechee Baptist Church, 54
Holly Grove Baptist Church, 99 Long Run Baptist Church, 87
Holmes, A. T., 55, 71 Lord's Supper, 15, 44
Home Mission Board, Southern Love, E. K., 70, 71, 75, 162n9
Baptist, 73 Luther, Martin, 13
homicide, 24, 30, 47, 122 Lyell, Charles, 77
homosexuality, 140 lynching, 70
honor, southern ideal of, 37, 48-49
Hopeful Baptist Church, 40, 104 Macon First Baptist Church, 73, 133
Hornsby, T. J., 80 majority, democratic, 30
Index 191
Mallary, C. D., 16 missions, 4, 27, 32, 34, 45, 57, 101,

Manly, Basil, Jr., 18, 70, 119 132-134
Manly, Basil, Sr., 57, 128, 135, 140 modernism, 116, 137
Marietta First Baptist Church, 113 Moncrief, A. L., 120
Marshall, Andrew, 63, 72, 76, 77 Morehouse College, 73
Marshall, Daniel, 7, 34 Mormonism, 90, 95
Mars Hill Baptist Church, 120 Mount Olive Baptist Church, 39,
Martin, Thomas D., 91 101
Masonry, 46 Mount Zion Baptist Church, 100
masters, 61-62 musical instruments, 57, 93, 132
McDonald, James, 110
McMichael, J. C., 89, 136 Nails Creek Baptist Church, 101
McTyeire, H. N., 55 National Baptist Convention, 75
Mell, P. H., 107-108 New Hampshire Confession, 110
men Newnan First Baptist Church, 43,
Baptist views of, 58-59 90, 92-94, 109, 122, 125, 126,
excommunication rates of, 54-56 132, 133
trial rates of, 59 New Orleans First Presbyterian
Mercer, Jesse, 14, 19-20, 26-27, 57, Church, 42
60, 128 New South, 116, 118, 127-128
and Arminian Baptists, 106 Newton, John, 102
and associational authority, 33 novel reading, 56-57
on Baptist ecclesiology, 28-29
and Calvinism, 105, 108 Ocmulgee Baptist Association, 101
on church discipline, 23, 31, 34- O'Connell, J. J., 95
36 offenses
on confessions of faith, 111, 114 abuse, 39
on dancing, 26, 121 adultery, 37, 59, 66, 81-82, 120,
on individual freedom, 33 140
on moral philosophy, 59 blasphemy, 81
on need for purity, 31 classes of, 30
on orthodoxy, 85 contempt of church, 11-12, 43,
on role of women, 56 81
on social equality of races, 162n6 cursing, 48
theological views of, 85-86 desertion, 38, 43
on unity, 32, 88 disobedience, 24
on women voting, 51, 58 drunkenness, 38-39, 42, 44, 53-
Mercer, Silas, 32, 108 54, 59, 81, 120, 123, 129, 135
Methodists, 5, 8, 13-14, 20, 56, 58, falsehood, 87
67, 69, 77, 89, 107-108, 111- fiddling, 26-27, 82, 121, 125
112, 119, 121-123 fighting, 40-41, 81, 129
and Baptist cooperation, 95 fornication, 18, 23, 81, 119
Baptist defections to, 92-94, 96 fortune telling, 24
doctrine of, 96, 103 fraud, 46, 132
growth of, 118 gambling, 13, 31, 39, 122, 129
and heresy, 90, 94 heresy, 30, 87, 90-91, 93-94, 97,
Middle Baptist Association, 101, 134 99, 113-114, 119, 123
Missionary Baptist Convention homicide, 24, 30, 47, 122
(Georgia), 76 homosexuality, 140
192 Index
offenses (continued) Powelton Baptist Church, 19, 24,

idolatry, 30 26, 46, 52, 86-87, 90, 94, 120-
Masonry, 46 121, 124-126
profanity, 12 preaching
resisting authority, 41, 48 and church purity, 17
running away, 24, 38, 44 and orthodoxy, 86
Sabbath breaking, 13, 27, 53 by slaves, 40-41
slander, 24, 43, 46, 120 predestination, doctrine of, 17, 76-
spying, 37 79, 102, 106-108, 113-114
swearing, 12-13 Presbyterians, 5, 8, 13-14, 20, 28,
theft, 24, 30, 40, 48, 66, 82 42, 56, 61, 69, 111-112, 122-
See also dancing; sexual offenses; 123, 128, 140
worldly amusements and Baptist cooperation, 95
open communion, 80, 92, 102 Baptist defections to, 93-94
opera, 82-83, 123, 130 doctrine of, 96
ordination, 78-79 and heresy, 90
organs, 57, 93, 132 presbyteries, Baptist, 15, 86, 99-100
orthodoxy, 29, 78-79, 84-87, 133 priesthood of believers, 4
and exclusivism, 5, 89 Primitive Baptists, 7, 32-33
and fundamentalist-moderate black, 77-78
controversy (Southern Baptist primitivism, 28
Convention), 3-4 private offenses, 24, 30, 41
Owen, John, 85 profanity, 12, 123, 132
progress, ideal of, 133-134
Paine, Robert, 42 prohibition, 71
Paley, William, 59 property offenses
Palmer, Benjamin Morgan, 42, 122- excommunication rates for,
123 compared by gender, 56
Parrott, J. B., 136 excommunication rates for,
Particular Baptists, 6-7, 100-101, compared by race, 66, 82
104 trial rates for, compared by
penance, medieval practice of, 13 gender, 59
Pendleton, James M., 95 protracted meetings, 34. See also
Penfield Baptist Church, 22, 43, 90, revivals
100, 123-124 Provence, S. M., 134
Ferryman, James, 18 public offenses, 30, 41
perseverance, doctrine of, 17, 77, Puritans, 13, 20-21, 28, 63, 139
79, 90, 96, 103-104, 110 purity, church
pew rents, 132 changing role of, 131
Philadelphia Baptist Association, 7, and church discipline, 23-24, 31
14, 101, 104 and exclusivism, 17
Phillips Mill Baptist Church, 86, 90, purity, doctrinal, 90-91, 93
92, 121
pietism, 139 Quarles, Frank, 128
pleas, 39
Pope, W. H., 61 race issue, 80
Poplar Springs Baptist Church, 22- raffles, 130
23 Randall, Benjamin, 103, 110
populism, 6, 33-34, 39, 112, 115 rebuke, 22, 30-31, 41
Index 193
Reconstruction, 69-71 Savannah Second Baptist Church,

refinement, 27, 93, 132 52-53
regeneration. See conversion schisms, 86-87, 100, 115
Regular Baptists, 7, 29, 103 Screven, Benjamin, 48
Rehoboth Baptist Association, 107, Second London Confession, 5, 104-
125 105, 110-112, 115
Rehoboth Baptist Church, 43 segregation, racial, 69
religious liberty, 6, 32-33, 68, 87- self-accusation, 21, 38-39
88, 102 self-vindication, 41
Renfroe, J. J. D., 73 Separate Baptists, 7, 87
repentance, 40 separation from the world, 10, 13-
resisting authority, 41, 48 14, 17, 21, 31, 36, 123, 129-
respectability, Baptist aspirations 130
for, 13-14, 128 sexual offenses, 30
restoration, 45-46 excommunication rates for,
rates of, 65 compared by gender, 56
Restorationism, 28 excommunication rates for,
retrials, 24 compared by race, 66, 81
revivals, 33-34 trial rates for, compared by
and baptism, 16 gender, 59
and church discipline, 27-28, 31, trials rates for, compared by race,
33-36 81
and worldly amusements, 122 shaming rituals, 41
Rhodes, Thomas, 100 Sharon Baptist Church, 107
Rice, Luther, 57 Shaver, David, 102, 114
Richland Baptist Church, 48 Sherman, William T., 71
Richmond First African Baptist Sherwood, Adiel, 29, 62, 91, 96,
Church, 72 114, 120
Ripley, Henry J., 17 shooting matches, 125
Rippon, John, 77 singing, 15, 44, 62, 86
Robert, Joseph T., 73 singing societies, 15
Roberts, Benjamin, 31, 119 slander, 24, 43, 46, 120
Rocky Ford Baptist Church, 101 slave laws, 63-64
Roman Catholicism, 76, 90, 95, 99, slaves
110 evangelism of, 60-61
running away, 24, 38, 44 moral duties of, 60
Ryland, Robert, 72 testimony of, in church trials,
24
Sabbath breaking, 13, 27, 53 voting privileges of, 51, 53-54
salaries, ministerial, 45, 132, 134, social equality
179n46 black Baptist views of, 76,
Salvation Army, 119 162n9
Sardis Baptist Church, 135 white Baptist views of, 61, 69-
Sarepta Baptist Association, 52, 101 71, 162n6
Savannah First African Baptist social hierarchy, 9, 31, 50, 55
Church, 63, 70-71, 77 social reform, 10
Savannah First Baptist Church, 11, soul liberty, doctrine of, 3-4, 137
43, 46-47, 52-53, 58, 92-93, Southern Baptist Convention, 3,
106, 121, 127, 131-132, 135 26, 58, 61, 73
194 Index
speech offenses toleration

excommunication rates for, of doctrinal differences, 94, 106-
compared by race, 66 107
trial rates for, compared by and ecclesiastical authority, 137-
gender, 59 138
Spiritualism, 90 and fundamentalist-moderate
Springfield African Baptist Church, controversy (Southern Baptist
16, 63, 68, 80-82 Convention), 3-4, 137
spying, 37 Toplady, Augustus, 85
Stanton, Edwin M., 71 Torbet, Robert G., 4
Stearns, Shubal, 7, 34 Toulmin, Harry, 76
Stocks, Thomas, 57 trials, church
Stokes, William H., 15-16, 19, 112- rates of, compared by gender, 65-
113 66
Stone, J. Barton, 28 rates of, compared by race, 65-66,
Stone Mountain Baptist Association, 68
35, 109, 133 rates of, urban and rural
Stout, T. H., 36 compared, 129-130
Stradley, J. A., 117 Triennial Convention, 27, 32, 57-58
strife, religious, 5, 88, 95 Tucker, H. H., 56, 70, 89-90, 132
Sturgis, C. F., 60 Tugalo Baptist Association, 23, 106
submission to church, 17, 20, 39- Turretin, Francis, 102
41, 45-46, 48-49, 69, 81
subscription, of church unanimity, in voting, 30, 47
contributions, 132 union, of Protestant churches, 89-
suffering, and black Baptist identity, 90
76 Unitarianism, 114
Sunbury Baptist Association, 53, 61, United Baptist Association, 105,
65, 95, 108 107
Sunbury Baptist Church, 61 unity, ideal of, 30, 32, 88
swearing, 12-13 and confessions of faith, 109, 113
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 91 Universalism, 87, 90, 95, 114
Swedenborgianism, 90-91, 95 University of Georgia, 121
Synod of Dort, 103 urbanization, 118, 127-131
Tallapoosa Baptist Association, 109, violence, 37, 47, 66, 69-70

113 excommunication rates for,
league, E. B., 70 compared by gender, 56
Teman Baptist Church, 99 excommunication rates for,
temperance societies, 32, 56-57, compared by race, 66
61 as response to church discipline,
theater, 82, 122-126, 130 42, 48-49
theft, 24, 30, 40, 48, 66, 82 trial rates for, compared by
theology, Baptist, 3, 5, 76-78, 102- gender, 59
106 violins, 125. See also fiddling
Tilman, W. H., 76 voluntary societies. See benevolent
Tirzah Baptist Church, 99 societies
tobacco, use of, 56, 59 voting practices, egalitarian aspects
Toer, J. W., 71 of, 51
Index 195
Waddell, Moses, 121 education of, and southern

Walker, Jeremiah, 108 evangelicalism, 56
Warren, E. W., 73 excommunication rates of, 54-56
Warren, Willis, 72 keeping silence, 38
Washington Baptist Association, 45, membership rates of, 54
101, 121 ordination of, 140
Washington First Baptist Church, role in church discipline, 38, 54,
60-61, 125 58-59
Watterson, Henry, 118 trial rates of, 59
Wayland, Francis, 110 voting privileges of, 51-53
wealth, 120, 130, 136 worldly amusements, 16, 121-127,
Webb, M. J., 136 130
Webb, Richard, 92 backgammon, 125
Wesley, Charles, 103 balls, 121-122, 125-126
Wesley, John, 103 baseball, 125
Western Baptist Association, 52, billiards, 82, 122, 125
110, 116, 129 card playing, 24, 82, 122, 125-
Westminster Confession of Faith, 127, 130
104 chess, 125
Wharton, M. B., 136 circus, 82-83, 122, 124-125
Whilden, B. H., 17 dice, casting, 82
White, Cyrus, 103 excommunication rates for,
White, William J., 71, 76 compared by race, 66, 82
Whitefield, George, 122 horse racing, 122-123, 125
white preaching, to blacks, 71, 73- novel reading, 56-57
74 opera, 82-83, 123, 130
Williams, Roger, 7 shooting matches, 125
Williams, Thomas, 46-48 theater, 82, 122-126, 130
Willingham, R. J., 132 trial rates for, compared by
Willson, James, 114 gender, 59
withdrawing, from Baptist church, See also dancing
92-93 Worrell, A. S., 51, 111
witnesses, 23 Wyer, H. O., 31
women Wynne, J. A., 52
Baptist views of, 56-59
and benevolent societies, 57-58 youth, and worldly amusements,
demands of piety for, 56-57 125-126

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Democratic Religion

THE PRISM OF PIETY RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY

FEMALE PIETY IN PURITAN CONJURING CULTURE

EPISCOPAL WOMEN STANDING AGAINST THE

Freedom, Authority, and

Oxford New York

Copyright © 1997 by Gregory A. Wills

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

I came to this study unexpectedly. In 1992,1 agreed to write a brief article

I am deeply grateful to the many persons whose generosity made pos-

Louisville, Kentucky G.A.W.

Introduction: Religious Authority and the Democratic Impulse 3

In the late twentieth century, the Southern Baptist Convention, the

church. Because Baptists saw the church as a voluntary democracy, they

Among all the denominations, Baptists won the reputation of the

versy over Landmarkism disrupted the churches. The Landmarkists

protected the doctrines of Calvinism with an intensity that some twen-

In 1806, William Barnes, estranged from some of the members of the

Separation from the World

cast unrepentant sinners out of the church and in Paul's command to

After the Civil War, evangelicals were more at home in society. As

These gathered communities made a great deal of their exclusivism,

Church, for example, received three converts, who "Submitted to the

Mere members of the congregation could not vote in the election of

Christians, when rebuked for a fault actually committed, will immedi-

The Conference Meeting

acted as moderator, unless absent, in which case the church elected a

The Ritual of Baptist Discipline

"covenant services." American Puritans and Baptists uniformly em-

brought before the Church in future shall be presented in writing and

Trials of Church Members

slaves from testifying in civil courts against whites. In church courts,

In 1817, an eyewitness recalled, "brother Lancaster," a member of

that I ever heard without exception." He was a zealous evangelist and

gation was paramount; discipline was an affair of the entire church,

Southern Baptist churches also followed the divine law embodied in

sight of the membership, "to keep up a Godly discipline." In practice,

tor Benjamin Roberts asserted, "must be faithfully kept up for God's

Purity, Unity, and Freedom

be followed by winnowings and sittings. I hope there will be found after

Discipline and Revival

when the preaching of such itinerants as Shubal Stearns and Daniel

and proper exercise of it, no church or association can expect to be

ligent in discipline "tolerates or connives at the sinful conduct of her

Accusation and Confession

Common fame frequently served as the accuser: "It being reported

Forgiving the Penitent

sider pleas of innocence fairly, but members accused of offenses rarely

Church clerks generally did not record details of inadequate repen-

Distaste for the word excommunication was probably a harbinger of de-

in the printed minutes of association meetings. Churches published

me as a brother any longer." He would have to lose his kinship with

ever, churches required a personal appearance. They could better test

threats of violence appeared in more than nine thousand disciplinary

proliferation of Baptist academies and colleges, from which flowed edu-

ing in cases touching fellowship." The clerk recorded no details of the

Women and Democratic Religion

65 percent of female; for sexual offenses, 81 percent of male defendants

principal of the Female Seminary in Newnan, upbraided frivolous

served as officers of the convention's boards, and other southerners