Today a new Baptist congregation is founded in the South. Unlike most in the immediate post-war years of the South, it is a white congregation.
At the First Baptist Church, then located on the northeast corner of Second Street and Adams Street in Memphis, Tennessee, the Central Baptist Church is established. It is composed of members of First Baptist Church and the remnants of the members of Beal Street Baptist Church, which was located in the south part of the town.
Until the construction of a temporary facility (The Tabernacle) prior to purchasing land and building its church further south on Second Street, Central Baptist Church worshiped at the Second and Adams location of First Baptist Church for some time on an alternating basis with the older congregation. First Baptist Church even gave the departing church, numbering 118 members, a donation with which to begin their ministry.
Due to financial difficulties in the post-war era, the congregation does not complete a permanent building until 1885.
First Baptist Church had lost its building during the Union occupation of Memphis when it was commandeered as the city’s gangrene hospital for treating “hospital gangrene” which manifested itself in the other hospitals at the time treating the war wounded, and they required isolation from the general population. Recorded testimony indicates that the split was caused, as one might assume, by those who were loyal to the Southern cause and its pastor (Dr. Samuel Howard Ford) and those who were loyal to the Union cause and its pastor (Rev. Allen Burr Miller). From all accounts there really were no hard feelings between the two groups as might be apparent in a church split. Until an ultra-Fundamentalist turn by Central in the mid-20th century, the two churches remained connected to one another in ministry and doctrine.
Until the 1990s, First Baptist was dually aligned with the SBC and the CBF until the SBC made that impossible. At that point, First Baptist left the body in which members had served with honored distinction since the SBC was founded in 1845
Sources: Commercial and Statistical Review of the City of Memphis, Memphis: Reilly and Thomas, 1883, p. 62 (link); and “Interior, Central Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee – 1909 Postcard” (link); with appreciation to Skip Howard, Church Archivist, First Baptist Church of Memphis, for providing much of the information in this article, including the “Celebrating 186 Years” image
