0.23 5.5 civic duty  (Page 5/5)

Southern Baptists prided themselves on remaining true to primitive Christianity's emphasis on preaching the gospel instead of turning aside to social reform; nevertheless, they demonstrated a growing degree of social consciousness in the late nineteenth century. Beside the temperance campaign, Texas Baptists voiced their support of anti-gambling crusades, "blue laws" (laws regulating commerce and amusement on Sundays), anti-lynching laws, and the care of orphans and the aged. ^{Spain, p. 211.} In the early twentieth century they began two substantial hospitals and increased their commitment to orphanages and relief for aged ministers. They spoke out against the improper use of woman and child labor,

Kenneth K. Bailey, Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1964), p. 41.

against lenient divorce laws and the unequal treatment of men and women in divorce,

BS , January 5, 1905, p. 5; BS , May 21, 1903, p. 3.

and in favor of equal pay for equal work.

BS , March 14, 1918, p. 11.

Historian John Lee Eighmy pointed out, however, that Southern Baptists expressed more interest in social legislation than they manifested in developing or influencing concrete programs.

John Lee Eighmy, Churches in Cultural Captivity: A History of the Social Attitudes of Southern Baptists (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1972), pp. 110-111.

Their interests in the civil and social realm continued to correspond with the individualistic and moralistic strains of their theology. Baptist women usually restricted themselves to general moralizing rather than commenting on specific legislation or reform.

World War I generated a surge of patriotism from Texas Baptists; they saw its goals as consistent with their efforts to impose moral order on the institutions of this world. They felt that when the world had been made

"safe for democracy,"

it would be better prepared to accept Baptist principles of democracy in church government, as well.

BS , January 31, 1918, p. 18.

They rallied to capitalize on opportunities to work with the chaplaincy program and evangelize in army bases, despite their chafing at the

"regulations and restrictions"

that official process entailed.

BS , August 9, 1917, p. 1.

Women maintained their record of broad identification and little political comment (e.g., they sympathized with the "war mothers" of the world), but they rolled bandages and cooperated with organizations like the Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., and Y.W.C.A. in an unprecedented fashion.

BS , May 23, 1918, p. 23.

The end of the war left Baptists in a bouyant mood--they felt that it was going to be possible to channel the ferment and changes of the pre-war years in a progressive direction. They hoped that superior education would enlighten and fill the increased freedom that both sexes were experiencing. They planned to utilize new wealth and mobility to evangelize more widely and effectively. The enactment of prohibition reform and the triumph of democracy held, for them, the promise that more than any other time in history, the world was ripe for their message. Armed with education and the vote, women had joined the active ranks of denominational soldiers—not as generals, but several as captains and lieutenants and a multitude of foot soldiers. A few Baptists still pled nostalgically for the virtues of the simple past and some prophetically described the secular materialism of the future, but for a

"brief, shining moment"

they harmonized change and vision in a synthesis that they foresaw would bring about

"a reconstruction of the modern world on Christian principles."

BS , February 21, 1918, p. 6.

Appropriately, the Southern Baptist Convention met in Washington, D.C., in 1920, and George Truett, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, preached a historic sermon on the steps of the Capitol.

"Like Pericles summoning the Athenians to recall the source of their greatness,"

James Ralph Scales, "Religious Liberty and Public Policy," in Baptists and the American Experience , ed. James E. Wood, Jr. (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1976), p. 187.

Truett set forth Baptists' highest aspiration for an individual's response to duty, both civic and religious:

Baptists have one consistent record concerning liberty throughout all their long and eventful history. They have never been a party to oppression of conscience. They have forever been the unwavering champions of liberty, both religious and civil. Their contention now is, and has been, and, please God, must ever be, that it is the natural and fundamental and indefeasible right of every human being to worship God or not, according to the dictates of his conscience, and, as long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others, he is to be held accountable alone to God for all religious beliefs and practices. Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. . . .God wants free worshippers and no other kind.

George W. Truett, "Baptist and Religious Liberty," in God's Call to America (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1923), pp. 32-33.

For the majority of Baptists—Baptist women—many of the implications of that liberty were just beginning to dawn.