By the war years, white Baptists’ profession of belief in a literal Bible has become the norm throughout the South. As such, critics of a literal biblical interpretation, whether they be Christian or not, are often refuted and scoffed at by Southern Baptist divines. Many such critics are abolitionists, while others are learned individuals who…
Thomas Carleton Cheney (1831-1900) is a native of New Hampshire and a member of the First Free Baptist Church of Manchester, New Hampshire. At the age of 28, Cheney enlisted in 1861 as a private in the First New Hampshire Voluntary Light Battery. During the war, the Baptist layman has fought in almost every major…
Southern Baptist periodicals waste few opportunities to criticize abolitionist efforts to provide education and social relief services for former slaves. Blacks, after all, are an inferior race incapable of intelligence. Their God-willed lot in life is bondage in the service of whites. Today’s Kentucky Baptist Western Recorder succinctly sums up the sneering contempt that most…