Sponsoring Castro’s Refugees

This chapter covers evangelical churches’ responses to Cuban refugees between 1959 and 1965, which constituted the first large-scale refugee resettlement initiative by a large evangelical denomination, as well as a well-established public-private partnership between the US government and evangelical churches. Evangelicals, particularly Southern Baptists, provided relief for and sponsored Cuban refugees as an outgrowth of their anticommunism as much as out of their religiously motivated missionary zeal. The Southern Baptist Convention—the nation’s largest Protestant denomination—resettled more than a thousand Cuban refugees. Southern Baptist refugee sponsors provided a roof to sleep under, furnished refugees’ new homes with blankets and kitchen appliances, secured employment for the families’ breadwinners, and enrolled Cuban children in school and the adults in English language classes. While not involved in resettlement, the Pentecostal Assemblies of God shared the Southern Baptists’ missionary zeal and catered to Cuban refugees’ material and spiritual needs.

“Promoting so laudable a Design”

The 1760s were a decade of significant institutional development for America’s Baptists, and Oliver Hart was a key figure in that advance. In the South, Hart led the Charleston Association to adopt the Charleston Confession as its doctrinal statement, setting a course for traditional Calvinism among white Southern Baptists for the next one hundred years or more. He also shaped the church government practices of Baptist churches, coauthoring the Summary of Church Discipline, which outlined the rigorous church order Baptists would become known for well into the nineteenth century. This chapter provides vivid examples of how this congregational government worked itself out in specific Baptist churches of the period. Beyond the South, Hart enthusiastically supported the Philadelphia Association project of founding Rhode Island College (later Brown University), an important signal that Baptists as a whole were becoming respectable in colonial American society. Finally, Hart’s frequent preaching excursions into the Carolina backcountry brought him into contact with the exploding Separate Baptist movement. Though they were far less sophisticated than his Charleston social circles, Hart found much to appreciate in the Separate Baptists and sought opportunities to unite them with his own Regular Baptist tribe.

“Thou Shalt Meet Thy Sexual Needs in Marriage”: Southern Baptists and Marital Sex in the Postwar Era

This article traces the changing sexual politics of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from the 1950s through the 1980s. It argues that the moderates who led the denomination in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s joined other supporters of “sexual containment” during the early Cold War to develop a theology about the salvific power of marital sex—and the personal, social, and national harm created by extramarital sex—which undergirded the sexual conservatism of the denomination's fundamentalist leadership who rose to power during the 1970s and 1980s. This analysis reframes our understanding of Southern Baptists within the broader religious right coalition as it reveals how the SBC's commitment to marital sexuality, which was forged during the early Cold War, informed its approach to later hot-button issues like abortion and homosexuality. Rather than simply reacting against the loosening sexual mores of the 1970s and 1980s or in favor of the rising visibility of other politically engaged Christians on issues of sexual morality, the SBC instead drew on longer traditions within the denomination to engage with a changing political and sexual landscape.

West of Eden with B. H. Carroll, George W. Truett, and J. Frank Norris: The lifelong feud between the First Baptist pastors of Dallas and Fort Worth

For the first half of the twentieth century, two Baptist pastors “squared off” with one another from the First Baptist Church pulpits of two rival Texas towns. In Dallas, George W. Truett led what would arguably become the flagship church of Southern Baptists. Across the Trinity River in Fort Worth, J. Frank Norris, also known as the “Texas Tornado,” packed auditoriums preaching sensational sermons. Mentoring both men was B. H. Carroll, founder of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. And like James Dean and Richard Davalos in the movie adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, East of Eden, the two men feuded with one another, in part over the right to be Carroll’s heir. This article summarizes the rivalry as it played out in the lifelong conflict between J. Frank Norris and George W. Truett, and demonstrates how both the unifying statesman and the sectarian fundamentalist sides of B. H. Carroll are apparent in the struggle.

God's words in the language of men : the professionalization of the Southern Baptist Press

Although religion is and has been an integral aspect of society, its journalism has been overlooked. Media scholars have viewed the religious press as less worthy and less professional than its commercial counterparts, despite the fact that religious media reaches millions of people. This study illuminates the professional development of the Southern Baptist press as an example of religious media's effort to provide news and information to their audiences. Journalists in religious media balance their personal faith, the specific faith traditions for which they work, and professionalism. Southern Baptist journalists exhibited the traits, practices, and beliefs that mark journalistic professionalism. This dissertation shows how the Civil Rights Movement and the SBC's further shift to the theological and political right affected Southern Baptist journalism. Southern Baptist newsworkers lived their religion through the practice of journalism in spite of the denomination's institutional barriers. Freedom of the press and autonomy became the professional values most at stake for newsworkers as denominational leaders insisted journalists should concentrate on promotion. Through the Civil Rights Movement, most journalists tried to maintain a centrist position, pushing obedience to federal law and the effect on mission efforts overseas. A few courageous journalists pushed for Southern Baptists to recognize all people as children of God. The Southern Baptist Convention's further shift to the theological and political right cost several journalists their jobs and essentially returned SBC journalism to its promotional roots.

Baptists and their polarizing ways: Transnational polarization between Southern Baptist missionaries and Brazilian Baptists

Polarization in Baptist life has a long history. Baptists have had polarized relations with other competing religious groups and with themselves. Baptist focus on freedom, dissent, conscience, local church independence, among other foundational principles, render Baptists prone to diversity and disagreement. Diversity, salted by the absolute certainties of religious belief, easily translates into polarization. Triumphalism, fundamentalism, and other types of ironic dogmatisms formed in the context of freedom have produced polarized beliefs. Those religious beliefs, however, cannot be separated from the interplay of sources of power: class, gender, and race. In the context of the United States, a discussion of Baptists cannot be separated from these power components, especially matters of race. Significantly, if not surprisingly, Baptists exported their racial, triumphalist identity and commitments abroad in their missionary endeavors. Brazilian Baptists, for example, heard the gospel from Southern Baptists, but they heard that gospel in a racialized form that was captive to Southern US racist culture. Southern Baptists shared the gospel, but they also resisted efforts by native Brazilians in The Radical Movement to indigenize their faith.