Crises and Advance: How SBC Leaders Maintained Baptist Trust in the Crises of the 1920s and 1930s -- By: L. David Mills

Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 16:2 (Spring 1999)
Article: Crises and Advance: How SBC Leaders Maintained Baptist Trust in the Crises of the 1920s and 1930s
Author: L. David Mills


Crises and Advance:
How SBC Leaders Maintained Baptist Trust
in the Crises of the 1920s and 1930s

L. David Mills

Ph.D. Student
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina 27587

Introduction: A History of Vision, Debt, and Recovery

The decades between 1890 and 1920 elevated the United States of America to the crest of a wave of optimism. The Spanish-American War was won by the USA. As a result, America raised its flag over the Caribbean Islands and the Philippines. Many American pioneers traveled to and settled in the western territories and states. Reconstruction in the South was complete, and Southerners were ready to reclaim their place at the table of economic fortune. The post-Civil War generation matured and forgot, to a degree at least, sectional hostilities in order to lead the New South into prosperity. Entrepreneurs envisioned expanding their corporations beyond regions into nations. America’s share of victory in World War I established it as a major player in international relations.1

This optimism was not lost on Southern Baptists. Many of their visions paralleled those of the greater American populace. This era (1890–1920) found Southern Baptists convinced that it was their “manifest destiny”2 to bring both the world and America to Christ through the ministries of their churches and mission boards. This conviction led them to consider in their 1919 annual SBC meeting what became known as the “Seventy-Five Million Campaign,”3 a denomination-wide campaign to raise $75 million for SBC institutions, boards, and agencies. Although the goal was to lead Southern Baptists to pledge $75 million and pay it over a period of five years, pledges totaled more than $92 million by the end of 1920.4 Southern Baptist leaders in the institutions, agencies, and boards were so sure that the national economy would remain stable and that Baptists would fulfill their pledges, that they made plans and financial commitments before pledges were received. I. E. Gates wrote in the Texas Baptist newspaper, The Baptist Standard, “We are going to be done with little plans and little faith.”5 Gates wrote these words about twenty years too soon.

In 1920, crop prices dropped dramatically, and farmers in the South went bankrupt. Because 21,000 of the 24,000 Southern Baptist churches were in

rural areas in the South at the time, many farmers ...

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