Baptists in America

Columbia Contemporary American Religion

by Bill J. Leonard

Baptists are a study in contrasts. From Little Dove Old Regular Baptist Church, up a hollow in the Appalachian Mountains, with its 25-member congregation, to the 18,000-strong Saddleback Valley Church in Orange County, California, where hymns appear on wide-screen projectors; from Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms, and Tim LaHaye to Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, and Maya Angelou, Baptist churches and their members have encompassed a range of theological interpretations and held a variety of social and political viewpoints. At first glance, Baptist theology seems classically Protestant in its emphasis on the Trinity, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the authority of Scripture, salvation by faith alone, and baptism by immersion. Yet the interpretation and implementation of these beliefs have made Baptists one of the most fragmented denominations in the United States. Not surprisingly, they are often characterized as a people who "multiply by dividing."

Baptists in America introduces readers to this fascinating and diverse denomination, offering a historical and sociological portrait of a group numbering some thirty million members. Bill J. Leonard traces the history of Baptists, beginning with their origins in seventeenth-century Holland and England. He examines the development of Baptist beliefs and practices, offering an overview of the various denominations and fellowships within Baptism. Leonard also considers the disputes surrounding the question of biblical authority, the ordinances (baptism and the Lord's Supper), congregational forms of church governance, and religious liberty.

The social and political divisions among Baptists are often as dramatic, if not more so, than the theological divides. Leonard examines the role of Baptists in the Fundamentalist and Social Gospel movements of the early twentieth century. The Civil Rights movement began in African American Baptist churches. More recently, Baptists have been key figures in the growth of the Religious Right, criticizing the depravity of American popular culture, supporting school prayer, and championing other conservative social causes. Leonard also explores the social and religious issues currently dividing Baptists, including race, the ordination of women, the separation of church and state, and sexuality. In the final chapter Leonard discusses the future of Baptist identity in America.

Genres: Spirituality

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 2005

Reviews

[Kari]

Read for class

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars because I learned a lot about Baptist history and diversity I didn't know. For example, my paternal grandfather was a Free Will Baptist preacher based in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I had NO idea that the Free Will Baptists were probably the first to ordain women in the United States. Wish I'd known that much earlier in life. Also, there are an astounding variety of Baptists (I thought I knew what that meant, but again, I really had no idea)--and much of the diversity originally emerged in the Carolinas and in Southern and Central Appalachia. So, having grown up in this area, I come by my polyglot Baptist heritage quite honestly.

And did you know that there were "home missionaries" sent to the Appalachian region by Baptist groups in other regions in order to "modernize" the mountain people, because "'to modernize was to uplift, to uplift was to Christianize, to Christianize was Americanize...It had to do with dominion over mountain people and their land, driven by the engines of capitalism, of money, not simply the desire to help lost cousins regain their footing in the world today'" (p. 38). Yikes.

This is not to mention the (icky) rhetoric of foreign missions that undoubtably colored the missions that resulted in my Pilipino family trading one colonial religious identity for another (Catholic for Baptist), probably two or three generations back, and helping to secure the unlikely international pairing that made it possible for me to be born.

Gives me a lot to think about in terms of the complex, specifically Baptist relationship to dominant and marginalized culture(s), and Baptist identities as both tools of cultural conquest and as self-conscious cultural resistance. Layers upon layers.

[K Kriesel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This entire series from Columbia University Press has been incredible, and the main reason I took so long getting around to its book about Baptists was because I knew it would just make me mad.

Upon moving from the MidWest to the South, the time to tackle Baptists In America approached. Surrounded by Baptist institutions for the first time, I needed to finally learn more about them.

Sadly, the writing of Baptists In America is too loose. After only so many statements beginning with "some Baptists believe", the phrase began to lose meaning. The book isn't organized in a condusive way and continuing to read it became so much of a struggle that I wasn't absorbing any of the information.