In Memory of Albert Wardin

In July of 2016, I posted 3 tributes for 3 historians. At the time, one of the three was still living, Albert Wardin.

Albert William Wardin Jr. died November 14, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee, at 94 years of age. He was born in Portland, Oregon March 11, 1928, the son of Albert W. Wardin, Sr., and Anna Klemm. He spent a career in religious education at Western Baptist Seminary, Judson Baptist College, and Belmont College. He married Dorothy Lucile Peak in 1969.

Albert W. Wardin was an experienced and important Baptist historian, and a prolific writer in the field. Of all the Baptist historians I knew, he had the best understanding of the different groups of Baptists in the U.S.A, who they were, where they came from, and how they were related. He contributed several books in this field alone, and others in the broader field of Baptist history.

From the 1960s into the 2000s, Wardin produced many articles and books, including:

• A History of Judson Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee, 1911-1986 (1986)
• A Sixty-Fifth Anniversary History of the Oregon North American Baptist Association (1961)
• Baptists Around The World: a Comprehensive Handbook (1995)
• Baptist Atlas (1980)
• Baptists in Oregon (1969)
• Belmont Mansion: the Home of Joseph and Adelicia Acklen (1981)
• Conservative Baptists of Oregon: a Twenty-Fifth Anniversary History (1973)
• Evangelical Sectarianism in the Russian Empire and the USSR: a Bibliographic Guide (1995)
• God’s Chosen Path: the Life of H. Franklin Paschall (2001)
• Gottfried F. Alf: Pioneer of the Baptist Movement in Poland (2003)
• On the Edge: Baptists and Other Free Church Evangelicals in Tsarist Russia, 1855-1917 (2013)
• Tennessee Baptists: a Comprehensive History, 1779-1999 (1999)
• The Heritage of the Wardin Family of Oregon (1986)

Dr. Wardin was a very gracious and helpful teacher who shared his knowledge with those who were interested. Beginning in the mid-1980s we corresponded by mail (the old-fashioned “snail mail”) and talked on the phone, as he tried to lead me along to understanding the taxonomy of the Baptists in the United States. I owe most of what I know about the subject to him.

Romans 13:7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due...