By Editor Bob Terry
Before there was such a thing as the Cooperative Program, An Association of Brethren demonstrated the value of people working together to build up the kingdom of God. Here is the story.
The Alabama Territory had been open to settlers less than a decade in 1808 and people rushed to buy land auctioned off by the government for $2 an acre. On Oct. 2 of that year John Nicholson, a Baptist minister who had recently come to the territory, organized the first Baptist church in the area — Flint River Baptist Church located on the Flint River just north of Huntsville.
So quickly did Baptists and other settlers flood into the territory after the Indian wars and the War of 1812 that one observer wrote, “Never before or since has a country been so rapidly peopled.”
By 1825 historians counted 128 Baptist churches with more than 5,000 members in what was now the state of Alabama.
Baptists were a people but they were not a denomination. Varying understandings about theology and how to do church were among the baggage Baptists carried with them as they migrated westward to Alabama. And soon a major controversy — the anti-missionary movement — engulfed all the churches.
Responding to the call
Minutes of the Alabama Baptist State Convention — organized in 1823 — show leaders making numerous calls for a Baptist newspaper that could help unite the Baptists and through which the churches could communicate with one another.
Baptist entrepreneurs responded. William Wood, of Jacksonville, started the Southwestern Baptist Pioneer, the first Baptist paper in the state, but it was short-lived because of financial reasons. Tuscaloosa businessman John Davenport proposed the Southern Religious Intelligencer but no record exists if the paper was ever published.
Mobile’s George Felix Heard was more successful. He published the Mobile Monitor in 1837 but a year later the paper was moved to Natchez, Mississippi, and shortly after Heard headed for Texas.
In Wetumpka, John Williams, a Baptist minister, tried again to found a Baptist paper — The Family Visitor. That paper also was short lived and soon Williams was pleading through the Wetumpka Argus for payment of unpaid subscriptions for his paper, which had ceased publication.
In Marion a group of businessmen and educators recognized Alabama Baptists’ desperate need for a communications channel and agreed to try again. This time the paper would not depend on an individual. This group of prominent Baptists agreed to work together to finance, edit and publish The Alabama Baptist.
On a Saturday — Feb. 4, 1843 — the first issue of The Alabama Baptist was published. Its owner, editor and publisher was “An Association of Brethren.”
Ironically, not all the “Brethren” were men. Included in the founding group was Julia T. Barron, a prominent Marion citizen who played a critical role in founding Judson Female Institute (now Judson College) in 1839.
Others in the group included Milo Jewett, president of Judson; General Edwin D. King; James H. DeVotie, pastor of Siloam Baptist Church, Marion, one of the leading congregations in the state; and others.
When the state convention met later that year the messengers adopted a resolution saying “we warmly commend the energy and liberality of the brethren who have established and sustained The Alabama Baptist.”
In an earlier report, it was noted, “Several spirited brethren in Marion agree to meet any deficiency which might arise for the want of a sufficient number of subscribers during the first year of its (The Alabama Baptist) publication.”
The report added, “These brethren will be obliged to advance each a considerable sum at the close of the present volume. Notwithstanding this, they have made arrangements to continue the paper on a play which they believe will give it permanent existence.”
Two years later the convention received a report rejoicing that the paper had “purchased a building in which to publish the paper, a new press, type and everything connected with such an establishment.”
The report said the Association of Brethren “are determined to spare no pains in rendering it (The Alabama Baptist) worthy of the confidence and support of the entire denomination in the state.” That statement proved providential for the next six years as the Association of Brethren edited the paper, promoted its circulation and provided its financial stability.
Where individual efforts had failed, The Alabama Baptist did indeed become a “permanent existence” because a group of men and women decided to work together to establish a needed ministry among Alabama Baptists.
From its founding, The Alabama Baptist was “employed by the officers of the convention as the organ through which they shall confer with the churches connected with this body.” The paper was called “an instrument of great power in promotion of the best interest of the denomination and in advancing the cause of Christ at large.”
After 76 years of private ownership, the paper was purchased by the Alabama Baptist State Convention in January 1919. Today The Alabama Baptist operates under an elected board of directors and is the largest state Baptist paper in the Southern Baptist Convention.
‘Great power in promotion’
Every week for nearly 175 years The Alabama Baptist has informed Baptists for understanding and perspective. It has inspired Baptists for growth as Christian disciples. The publication has connected Baptists in missions and ministry. The state Baptist paper has indeed been “a great power in promotion of the best interest of the denomination and in advancing the cause of Christ at large.”
And all of this happened because a group of Baptists decided to work together to bring into existence a ministry that none of them could have ever done alone.
Dear God, in our day please bless us with men and women with a passion for Your kingdom who will work together like those Baptists who formed An Association of Brethren.
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