Isaac Taylor Tichenor: The Creation of the Baptist New South
252
Isaac Taylor Tichenor: The Creation of the Baptist New South
252eBook
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Overview
The influential role Tichenor played in shaping both the Baptist denomination and southern culture
Isaac Taylor Tichenor worked as a Confederate chaplain, a mining executive, and as president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University). He also served as corresponding secretary for the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in Atlanta from 1882 until 1899. In these capacities Tichenor developed the New South ideas that were incorporated into every aspect of his work and ultimately influenced many areas of southern life, including business, education, religion, and culture.
In Isaac Taylor Tichenor: The Creation of the Baptist New South, Michael E. Williams Sr. provides a comprehensive analysis of Tichenor’s life, examining the overall impact of his life and work. This volume also documents the methodologies Tichenor used to rally Southern Baptist support around its struggling Home Mission Board, which defined the makeup of the Southern Baptist Convention and defended the territory of the convention.
Tichenor was highly influential in forming a uniquely southern mindset prior to and at the turn of the century. Williams contends that Tichenor’s role in shaping Southern Baptists as they became the largest denomination in the South was crucial in determining their identity both the identities of the region and the SBC.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780817392031 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alabama Press |
| Publication date: | 05/22/2018 |
| Series: | Religion and American Culture |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 252 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Emerging Denominationalist Tichenor as Pastor and Southern Baptist Leader, 1825–60
The family into which Isaac Taylor Tichenor was born in 1825 traced its roots to New England and the early years of colonial settlement in New Haven, Connecticut. Martin Tichenor took the Oath of Allegiance there in 1644. His migration to Connecticut in those years would have placed him in the first decade of settlement in that colony. One family tradition claims that Tichenor came from France and that the family originally came to France from a village in Poland named Tichen. The family drew its name from this tiny village, thus "Tichenors," or the people from Tichen. Some Tichenors claimed Dutch lineage, while other family records discount both traditions to claim that the Tichenors were of English descent, possibly from a place named "Tichen."
From Connecticut Martin Tichenor moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he was among the earliest settlers. Subsequently, he relocated his family to Morris County, New Jersey. Martin's great-grandson Daniel was born there in 1742. In 1790 Daniel exchanged his holdings in New Jersey for new lands in the Green River Valley of Kentucky. Upon moving to the region, however, he found the area unsatisfactory and was forced to purchase lands in Nelson County, about thirty miles south of the new town of Louisville. Daniel Tichenor resided there in 1792 when Kentucky became the fifteenth state of the new nation. Only a decade removed from intense conflict between settlers and Native Americans, Kentucky was still part of the frontier, and Daniel Tichenor and his family would have known the harshness and difficulty of frontier life. They also would have been very aware of the fragility of human life and of the ongoing conflict that continued just north of the Ohio River. His youngest son, James, was one of three Tichenor sons to marry sisters in the Bennett family. The Bennetts were staunch Baptists who had migrated from Virginia. No little dismay resulted when all the Tichenor children, who had been Presbyterian, converted to the Baptist denomination. It was to the union of James Tichenor and Margaret Bennett that Isaac Taylor was born. He was the fourth son and was named for his parents' Baptist pastor at the time. One nineteenth-century Kentucky Baptist historian recorded that the Tichenors' pastor, Isaac Taylor, "was probably the most popular preacher that ever labored in [that] association."
Young Isaac Taylor Tichenor began his formal education at the relatively early age of four, and his earliest remembrances came from his school experiences. Family tradition indicates that he was converted at age eleven but was not baptized until he was thirteen. He was baptized into the Bloomfield Baptist Church of Nelson County, just south of his birthplace.
The church into which Tichenor was baptized had been constituted in 1791 as Simpson's Creek Church. The congregation had a rich heritage of influence and growth. Recently, it had come through a time of division as its pastor, Jacob Creath, became an early proponent in Kentucky of the primitivist or restorationist movement known as Campbellism after its founder, Alexander Campbell. Campbell and his followers rejected mission societies, denominational colleges and institutions, and even denominations themselves as being unbiblical and sought to restore the "primitive" Christian church. Ultimately, the Campbellite movement became the basis of both the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ denominations or movements but at this time divided many Baptist churches, especially in Kentucky and Tennessee. Creath led a large part of the congregation into an eventual split, but despite this, the Bloomfield church remained strong throughout the nineteenth century. It was responsible for many converts and planted numerous congregations in the region. Those Baptists who resisted Campbellism as well as the earlier anti-missions influence of the high Calvinist Primitive Baptists such as Daniel Parker and John Taylor were frequently known in those days as missionary Baptists. Typically, those missionary Baptists aggressively supported missions in the same way that those churches that opposed mission boards and the like were aggressively anti-missions. Certainly, Tichenor's home church would have been identified as one such missionary Baptist congregation.
William Vaughan, one of the early prominent Baptist ministers of Kentucky, baptized young Isaac. Vaughan served as pastor of the Bloomfield church from 1836 to 1869. Writing in the 1880s, J. H. Spencer stated that Vaughan was "the strongest and longest link that united the pioneer preachers with those of the present generation and partook largely of the best qualities of both classes." Vaughan baptized Tichenor and a "very fleshy young woman" named Nancy Pulliam on the same day. Apparently, a poor response to his ministry at that time sorely disappointed Vaughan. The baptism of the large young woman attracted a great crowd, who paid little notice to the young teen being baptized.
It is uncertain how much Vaughan and the church at Bloomfield influenced the young Tichenor, but interestingly his conversion and baptism came in a church that had survived the anti-missions and Restorationist controversies and maintained its health and vitality. Furthermore, he was baptized by a leading Baptist minister who had blended the rough, practical nature of the frontier with the more settled environment of the midcentury Kentucky planter. It is also interesting to note that this church participated in associations known for cooperation with other associations and churches and for strong support of the missions movement. Tichenor's later life and ministry reflected these influences.
Isaac Taylor Tichenor was well educated as a child and adolescent. He attended school in Taylorsville, Kentucky, some nine miles north of Bloomfield. He excelled as a student, received training in mathematics, Latin, rhetoric, and logic, and cherished hopes of higher education. His classical education was typical of the educational processes of that day, especially for students preparing for college. When he was sixteen, however, he was stricken with a severe case of measles that also caused a serious throat infection and so weakened him that it prevented his attending college. Throat problems affected him periodically for the rest of his life. In his later years, Tichenor noted that as he got older, his speaking voice grew weaker and did not have the "firmness" of his youth. This deterioration was probably a side effect of his illness as a teenager. Tichenor's later interest in higher education may well have stemmed in part from the fact that his youthful illness denied him formal higher education. Thus, instead of attending college, he stayed in Taylorsville and by age nineteen was teaching school. He was so successful that within a year, he began teaching at Taylorsville Academy with one of his former teachers, Davis Burbank. Burbank, along with his brother Moses, probably had a greater influence on Tichenor than anyone else during these years. Tichenor's classical education, his love of learning, and his wide range of reading, acquired in part from the Burbanks, served him in many ways in the coming years. It was during these years that he was called upon to preach his first sermon, "Search the Scriptures." It is unknown exactly why the pastor chose Tichenor to do so, but the congregation's response to the sermon may be an indication. Afterward, much to Tichenor's chagrin, the pastor of the church moved that Tichenor be licensed to the ministry. This type of action was not uncommon in Baptist churches that often recognized the gifts of some young men before these young men "felt the call." Other opportunities followed, and by the end of that summer he had made such an impact in the surrounding churches that he came to be known as "the boy orator of Kentucky." He was at that time twenty-one years old.
After declining an invitation to the pastorate of the East Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky, Tichenor decided to go to Mississippi on behalf of the Indian Mission Association based in Louisville. The Indian Mission Association had been organized in October 1842 and was largely supported by Kentucky Baptists. Its primary purpose was to evangelize the Native American tribes of the Mississippi Valley. Later, this association merged with the Southern Baptist Domestic Mission Board, the forerunner of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board in which Tichenor would play such a crucial role. The Indian Mission Association sent representatives like Tichenor to various states across the South. A key task of these agents was to raise awareness of autonomous local congregations about the need to support mission endeavors and to combat antimissionism among Baptists. They also served as fundraising agents for the association. Undoubtedly, this experience later influenced Tichenor as he lobbied Baptists for a more systematic form of cooperative missions support in the South and among Baptists.
So, in the fall of 1847, Tichenor went by horseback to Mississippi. En route he stopped in Nashville for the annual meeting of the Indian Mission Association. While there he heard Joseph Islands preach. Islands was a full-blooded Creek Indian who served as a missionary among the Creek Indian nation. Tichenor was so impressed by Islands that later in life he wrote an essay entitled "Joseph Islands, Apostle to the Indians." Much of Tichenor's later interest in missions to the Native Americans probably dated from this point. He also stopped in Denmark, Tennessee, and preached twice. Supposedly, one woman was so excited by the effectiveness of his sermons that she responded by saying, "I had rather be that boy than to be Jeems [sic] K. Polk, President of the United States."
Tichenor represented the Indian Association at the November 1847 Mississippi Baptist Convention in Hernando, Mississippi. On Thursday of the convention meeting, he addressed the body in a message described as an "eloquent and feeling appeal to the friends of the Indian." Apparently, he was well received because later in the convention in the report of the Committee on Indian Missions, prominent Baptist leader William Carey Crane recommended him "and solicit[ed] for him the kind regards and the contributions of all brethren favoring this noble subject." This event opened the door for his ministry in the state and marked his first appearance in denominational matters. At the time he was not quite twenty-two years old.
After the convention he traveled for six weeks in the work of the association before coming to Columbus, Mississippi. Delayed there because of the onset of the rainy season and winter, he supplied the pulpit of the local Baptist church. Subsequently, the church called him to serve as the pastor in the spring of 1848. He effectively healed a schism and ministered there for almost two years. An equally young Presbyterian pastor befriended Tichenor and offered him the free use of his library. The library proved to be an indispensable resource, and a lifelong friendship was forged. It could well be that Tichenor's later resistance to the Landmark movement in Baptist life was developed, in part, because of this kindness shown in an ecumenical spirit by the Presbyterian minister. This type of relationship was atypical of denominational rivalries prevalent in the antebellum South and especially along the frontier, and it speaks well of both Tichenor and his unnamed Presbyterian colleague. It also demonstrates how important reading, learning, and preparation were to the young minister, particularly to one lacking formal higher education.
During his brief pastorate, the young minister continued to be involved in association and state convention matters. He attended the 1848 meeting of the Mississippi convention as a representative of the Columbus association and, while there, was appointed to a few responsibilities within the convention. He was also appointed as a delegate-at-large from Mississippi to the Southern Baptist Convention that was to be held in May 1849.
The Southern Baptist Convention had just been formed four years earlier in a meeting in Augusta, Georgia, in 1845. Its formation resulted from increasing tensions between Baptists of the North and South over the question of slavery. While contributing factors were concerns about the amount of money the Home Missions Society was spending in the South as compared to the North and questions about whether the society method was less effective in administering missions than a more structured convention method, the key issue culminating in the division was the question of slavery. When the New York-based Foreign and Home Mission societies failed to eliminate these concerns, southern Baptists, led mainly by Georgia Baptists, organized the Southern Baptist Convention, encompassing the work of a newly created Foreign Mission Board and a Domestic Mission Board. The purpose of these two agencies was to serve as an outlet, exclusively under the control of southerners, for the foreign and home mission efforts of Baptists in the South. The convention met the following year in Richmond, further solidifying Southern Baptist convictions for separation. The 1849 convention was originally scheduled for Nashville, Tennessee, but was adjourned because of the outbreak of a cholera epidemic. Tichenor attended the rescheduled meeting in Charleston, South Carolina.
The young pastor's trip to the 1849 Southern Baptist Convention must have been a highlight of his early life. It was his first trip to the eastern seaboard and his first train ride. Most importantly, it was at this meeting that Tichenor had his first contact with Southern Baptist leaders such as Basil Manly Sr., president of the University of Alabama, and Jeremiah B. Jeter, pastor of First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia. Later, Manly would succeed and precede him in pastorates in Montgomery, Alabama. He also met men such as James P. Boyce and Basil Manly Jr., both of whom became part of the founding faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and who served as his contemporaries in ministry. Another highlight was the invitation to preach in a service on Sunday afternoon. It is unknown why the convention selected him for this honor. His son-in-law recalled that "this sermon established his reputation in the Convention." It was also in this meeting that he was appointed to his first responsibilities within the SBC, serving on committees, on delegations, and on agencies. While there is no record of Tichenor's making mention of the impression his participation in this early meeting of the SBC made upon him, later commitments in life demonstrate its formative influence. The strong sectionalism pervasive in the origins of the SBC would have been a significant influence upon a young minister. Thus, he probably began to identify himself as a "southerner" if he had not already done so. Likewise, the emphasis placed upon the convention method of cooperation and missions support and the influence of staunch denominationalists like Georgia Baptist William B. Johnson and the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee, R. B. C. Howell, had a lasting effect upon his life. In fact, strong denominationalism blended with strict sectionalism became the key characteristics of his career and ministry later in life. Finally, moving among men such as the Manlys, Jeter, Boyce, and others who were or would become prominent leaders of the South's religion and culture inspired Tichenor to similar ambitions and ideas.
Apparently Tichenor made an impression in more than just denominational matters. A letter from a Matilda James of Pleasant Grove to a Mrs. Wilkinson written in June of that year reveals that young "Mattie" was aspiring to become "Sister Tichenor." She mentioned that Tichenor preached at Second Baptist Church of Charleston the Sunday afternoon of the convention and that the two of them "struck up quite a friendship." Mattie James also inserted that Tichenor was "the dearest little fellow that ever was, a perfect jewel" — obviously she was quite taken with him. The letter also reveals that at least some of the personal charisma demonstrated by Tichenor in later years was present early in his ministry. James's marital aspirations went unrealized, and there is no record of the two ever encountering one another again.
Upon his return to Columbus, Tichenor busied himself with his pastorate and in the denomination. He preached before the 1849 Mississippi Baptist Convention and represented the convention as chairman of the Indian Missions Committee. The Convention selected him chairman of its Temperance Committee. This early involvement in state and convention-wide matters was important in forming Tichenor as a loyal Southern Baptist and in preparing him for later leadership roles.
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