For white citizens, New Year’s Day in Augusta, Georgia is filled with hope for the coming months. Augusta, a large and important city in the state, is also the birthplace of the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC had been founded in 1845 in the city’s First Baptist Church, at a south-wide convention called by leading…
Even as U.S. President Abraham Lincoln seeks to understand God’s purpose in the war, his present faith journey hearkening back to his Baptist roots, white Baptists of the South join white southerners at large in mocking Lincoln in ways vivid and cruel. The Athens Georgia Southern Watchman newspaper, read by many Baptists of the city…
Henry Holcombe Tucker, Mercer University professor and pastor at Bethesda Baptist Church in Greene County, approaches his congregation with a “if it comes to this” notification as the church meets in monthly conference. From the church’s minutes, as recorded by Clerk William A. Overton, a former Mercer student: The Pastor called the Conference, to which…