ATLANTA — Charles Deweese is retiring in October at age 65 after 10 years as executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society. Deweese, who was treated for lymphoma in 2007 and 2008, said his health is excellent and is not the reason he is stepping down. He said body scans last fall and in January and April have all come back clear. Deweese called working at the Baptist History and Heritage Society, formerly an auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention Historical Commission before that agency was dissolved in a denominational restructuring in 1995, “the culminating work of my life.”
Organized in 1938, the society became an independent Baptist history organization called the Southern Baptist Historical Society after dissolution of the Historical Commission. In 2001, Deweese led the organization to change the name to Baptist History and Heritage Society to encourage broader than Southern Baptist participation. Today the society has nearly 700 members in the United States and 30 international members in 16 countries.
In 2008, Deweese led the society to begin an endowment campaign celebrating Baptists’ 400th anniversary in 2009. In 2007, the society moved its offices from Brentwood, Tenn., to Atlanta, where it shares a building at Mercer University with other organizations. Before becoming the society’s executive director-treasurer in June 1999 and executive director in May 2008, Deweese, who has a doctorate from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., worked at the Historical Commission from 1973 until 1994 and for Providence House Publishers in Franklin, Tenn., from 1995 until 1998.
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