Women in Baptist life of the South — reflecting southern life at large — play a support role to the male gender. Whereas Baptist women preachers and deaconneses in the mid-18th century were not uncommon in some southern colonies, such roles for females have long since been abandoned in Baptist life. In the present war,…
The war years heighten a growing concern among many Baptists: alcohol. While most Baptist churches yet use wine (often homegrown) in communion, and few Baptists advocate total abstinence, more Baptist leaders voice disapproval of the widespread use of hard liquor, while local Baptist congregations wage a war upon drunkenness, expelling many male members for overconsumption.…
The Baptist press of the Confederacy is aflutter at the possibility of England declaring war on the United States, a prospect brought about by a blundering U.S. naval action. Known as the Trent Affair, named after the British ship on which the action transpired, the incident centers on the United States’ arrest of Confederate commissioners,…