JACKSON, Tenn. — A longtime leader among Southern Baptists in Tennessee is dead at the age of 97. R. Paul Caudill, former pastor of the First Baptist Church of Memphis died May 28 at a nursing home in Jackson, Tenn.
Caudill served the Memphis congregation from 1944 until his retirement in 1975, when he was given the title of pastor emeritus. Caudill also retained that title at Trap Hill Baptist Church in Trap Hill, N.C., and the First Chinese Baptist Church of Memphis, which began as a mission of the Anglo congregation under his ministry.
During his tenure in Memphis, Caudill served as president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention 1957–58, as a member of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee from 1944 to 1952 and as head of relief for the Baptist World Alliance, 1947–1960.
Prior to coming to Memphis, Caudill served for seven years as pastor of the historic First Baptist Church of Augusta, Ga., where the Southern Baptist Convention was founded in 1845.
The author of more than 25 books, Caudill was born in Dockery, N.C., in 1904.
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