The first Baptist association organized in Texas
was the Union Baptist
Association, founded by three churches at Travis in Austin County October
8-10, 1840. Somewhat mixed and troublesome was its beginning – with a
Campbellite extreme on one end and “anti-missionism” on the other.[iii] However,
it soon raised the standard for auxiliary-type mission work through mission
boards or missionary societies.[iv]
On its heels, Daniel
Parker led in founding the second association on October 17, 1840, at
Hopewell Church, near Douglass, Texas, gathering four churches into the Union
Association. Its flavor was certainly church-based, positively predestinarian,
and fully fractious – in the sense of Parker’s sometimes “my way or the highway”
temperament. Five churches from Harrison, Nacogdoches, and Sabine counties
formed the Sabine Association at the old Union
Church in Nacogdoches County in November of 1843.[v] Like
the first Union Association, Sabine’s founding was somewhat mixed, but in its
lifetime established the middle ground in favor of church-based evangelistic
work – opposing the methods of the missionary societies. Many churches and
associations that owe their origins to the Sabine Baptist Association are
churches that are neither Primitive Baptist nor Southern Baptist, holding a
middle position in favor of church-based “missions” while rejecting a
predestinarian soteriology.
Z. N. Morrell described early leader Isaac
H. Reed in this fashion: “With Elder Reed I was personally
acquainted, and labored with him in the western district of Tennessee…Elder
Reed, the pastor of this little flock, although full of the mission spirit, was
opposed to boards and missionary societies…”[vi]
Associations
derived from the Sabine Association:
Eastern Missionary Baptist Association
was organized at Border Church, Harrison County, in December 1847 by 4
churches: Macedonia, Henderson, Eight-mile, and Border. Lemuel Herrin was the
moderator and J. B. Webster the clerk. Three of these churches had been
disfellowshipped in the 1847 Sabine Association. Henderson was represented at
the Sabine Association in 1847 by delegates H. M. Smith and G. Bocksdale,[vii]
but was not one of the excluded churches. Z. N. Morrell (pp. 263-64) quotes the
Eastern Association minutes referring to the Sabine Association refusing “to
sanction the doctrines of...The Strength of Christian Charity” circular and
declaring “a non-concurrence with its principles.” This was a rejection of the
mission society principles favored by some members. Eastern does not mention the issue
of the exclusion of preacher David Lewis, at least in the portion that Morrell
quotes.[viii]
The name was changed to Soda
Lake Baptist Association at the 2nd session.
Eastern Texas Association of United Baptists
was organized November 1849[ix]
at Union Church, Nacogdoches County, by 12 churches: Smith County, Ebenezer,
Tyler, Harris Creek; Cherokee County, Salem, Key’s Creek, Rocky Springs,
Palestine; Shelby County, Macedonia, Zion, Corinth, Horeb; Nacogdoches County,
Union. Robert Turner was moderator
(Morrell, p. 309). In 1852 the name was changed to Central
Baptist Association. That year B. E. Lucas was moderator and B. F.
Burroughs, clerk (Morrell, p. 309). Union, Keys Creek, Rocky Springs,
Palestine, Zion, had been in the Sabine Association. Ebenezer and Salem may
have been the churches by those names that joined the Sabine Association in
1849.
Free Will Missionary Baptist Association
may have been organized in 1850, at least Fuller implies that in his History of Texas Baptists.[x]
This association is mentioned in Morrell’s Flowers
and Fruits (pp. 192-193), but the date of organization is not given. He
only mentions the minutes of October 1850 without stating when they organized.
Perhaps Fuller had access to other information not given by Morrell, though
Morrell’s book is the chief source of information about this body. In 1850 they
met at Ayish Bayou Church in San Augustine County, with four churches – Ayish
Bayou, Bethel, Milam and Sardis. G W. Slaughter was moderator. This association
favored freewill, apostasy, open communion, missionary boards, and pulpit
affiliation.[xi] The Free Will Missionary
Baptist Association probably died out after a few years. Several key leaders abandoned
their movement for the pro-missionary pro-Southern Baptist Convention side of
Texas Baptists.[xii] This association was
clearly and vocally Free Will Baptist in the generic sense, with doctrine that
is in agreement with the broader movement – but it is likely that they never
had any direct or official connection with either the Randall or Palmer
branches of the Free Will Baptists.
As can be seen, two of the associations were set
up in opposition to the Sabine Association – one while it still existed – by
churches that had been excluded from Sabine. A third, the Eastern Texas
Association of United Baptists, was formed by several churches that were part
of the formal vote to dissolve the association.[xiii]
This association can probably best be considered the successor to the Sabine
Association.[xiv] This association still
exists today as Central Missionary Baptist Association. Churches meet in Sabine
and San Augustine counties, and choose to affiliate with
either the Baptist
Missionary Association of Texas or the Missionary
Baptist Association of Texas, maintaining their distance from the
Southern Baptist Convention.
[i] When it met at Mount Olive
Church, Cherokee County, October 6-8, 1849.
[ii]
At least those records known to survive thus far.
[iii] I
am not a fan of the term “anti-missionary,” but through a long period of use,
we are pretty much stuck with it. To most, it conjures up “opposed to preaching
the gospel.” The name Daniel Parker is almost synonymous with “anti-missionary”
and “anti-missions.” However, as a preacher he “compassed land and sea” to personally
organize churches in at least three states.
[iv] The
missionary element included Campbellite sympathizer and excluded Baptist Thomas
Washington Cox, a pastor at all three forming churches. After an
abortive attempt to form an association in June, the missionary element, sans
“anti-missionaries,” met in October and constituted the Union Baptist
Association. Within the next three years, all three founding churches split
over the Campbellite dogma of Thomas W. Cox. Paul Powell’s Back to Bedrock contains
the minutes of the
first session of the Union Baptist Association, pages 182-197.
[v] Mt.
Zion, Union (Nacogdoches County), Border, Bethel (Harrison County), and Bethel
(Sabine County) organized the Sabine Baptist Association. Bethel was at Reeds
Settlement, which was then still part of Harrison County. Border was somewhere
in the Jonesville area of Harrison County. Mt. Zion was evidently around
Douglass, Texas, and Bethel in Sabine County was probably at or near the
present New Hope Baptist Church and Cemetery near Milam.
[vi] Flowers and Fruits from the Wilderness,
Morrell, pp. 185, 187
[vii]
Likely, “Barksdale.”
[viii]
Border Church in Harrison County received as a member David Lewis, a minister
and an excluded member of Mount Zion Church. He was excluded on charges made
against him by the Union Church, Nacogdoches County, based on his tenure as
pastor of Union (though the exact problem is not clear).
[ix] It
may be that a convention to organize an association was held in 1849, and the
first association met in 1850. Further research is needed. At their November
1849 Conference, Union Church appointed H. Rogers “to write the church letter
to the Babtist convention to be held at this place coming on the friday before
the 2nd Lords day in Nov. 1849.” (Minutes, p. 30) The dating of the association
minutes, however, suggest a beginning in 1850. The 1851 minutes refer to the
meeting as “the Second Annual Session…” (Tennessee Baptist,
May 1, 1852, p. 3)
[x] “As
a result of this anti-mission disturbance, there was also organized the Free
Will Missionary Baptist Association. This body was organized at Ayish Bayou
church, in San Augustine county. This church united with Bethel, Milano [Milam,
rlv] and Sardis in sending messengers to the organization, and G. W. Slaughter
was made Moderator. These brethren in shunning one extreme swung as far to the
other. In avoiding the fatalism of the predestinarians, they were stranded on a
rock of absolute free will, that scarcely left any place for the sovereign
grace of God—They emphasized free salvation and freedom of the will to such an
extent that they practiced open communion, and rejected the doctrine of final
perseverance of the saints.” Fuller, p. 146
[xi]
See 1847 Sabine Association minutes, p. ; Morrell, p. 193; Fuller, p. 146
[xii]
Writing a September 12, 1856 letter to the Texas
Baptist, one of the prime movers, Peter Eldredge, said he felt his errors “about
five years back.” This would have been within a year following Morrell’s
reference to the association in 1850.
[xiii]
Later historians have misinterpreted Z. N. Morrell’s assessment of the
dissolution of the Sabine Association. Morrell wrote, “These opposing elements,
both alike at war with truth, finally resulted in the dissolution of the Sabine
Association, at its sixth or seventh session, held with Mount Olivet church,
Cherokee County. The anti-missionary and free-will elements, went off into small
and separate organizations. The mission element rallied under the auspices of
the Soda Lake Association…” (Flowers and
Fruits, pp. 189-190) While not far from the truth, it leaves room for
mistakes. For example, Carroll and Fuller mistook Morrell and assumed the
Sabine ceased to exist in 1847, when the “missionary churches” left (Carroll,
p. 118; Fuller,
p. 132). B. F. Riley gives the organization of the Eastern Texas
Missionary Baptist Association, “In consequence of the dissolution of the
Sabine Association” (History of the Baptists of Texas, p.
69). Carroll goes so far to say “On [the question of missions] Sabine
Association in 1847 went to pieces…” (emp. mine, rlv]. On the other hand, in Jesse Witt’s report of attending the
1848 session of the Sabine Association, he stated there were still “anti-missionary”
and “missionary” sentiments in the association (in other words, even after the
forming of Eastern Missionary/Soda Lake; see The Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, Volumes 3-4, p. 187). If
by the so-called “anti-missionary element” Morrell meant those who opposed
missionary societies, they did go off into a separate organization, but not a
small one. Even after the “missionaries” were excluded in 1847 and the “free-willers”
in 1848, the Sabine Association still had about eleven churches, at least at
the end of the 1848 session. Four more churches (Concord, Salem, Ebenezer and
Antioch) joined the association by petitionary letter in 1849. However, the
association voted to dissolve: “The 1st item of which was the request from the
Mt. Zion Church requesting the association to disolve After considerable labour
& debate on the the subject the association disolved.” (October 6-8, 1849,
p. 2, handwritten minutes). The dissolution was a deliberate internal action,
for whatever reason, and not an extinguishment caused by the association’s “bleeding”
churches. After dissolving in October, delegates gathered at the Union Church
in November to consider reorganization.
[xiv] Minutes
of the 2nd annual Eastern Texas Association of United Baptists are found in the
The Tennessee Baptist (Nashville,
Tennessee), Saturday, May 1, 1852, page 3.
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