Heritage Column for September 15, 2005
By Fred Anderson
History is full of persons whom you might have known if you had lived during their time.
Dear Readers, if you had lived a century ago and had been active in Virginia Baptist life, you at least would have heard about Thomas S. Dunaway of Fredericksburg. You might have heard him preach. You certainly would have associated him with Fredericksburg since he had served there from the close of “the War” to the beginning of the 20th century. Dunaway came to the pastorate of the Fredericksburg Baptist Church in 1866 and it is called his first and only pastorate.
Never mind that Dunaway preached at several churches in his home territory, the lower Northern Neck, for six years prior to the Fredericksburg pastorate. He shared his time with three churches in the Neck, but the service was given without compensation. Never mind that, in his retirement years, he serve a church in Richmond for a very brief pastorate. He told the people of the new Barton Heights Baptist Church in Richmond that he would “fill the pulpit as long as they filled the pews.” He stayed eight months! Obviously they did not fill the pews. The Neck and the Richmond church never get counted in his ministerial career so the statement remains in history that Dunaway's only pastorate was the Fredericksburg Church.
Another way that you might have known him was through his leadership in his district association and the General Association. He never missed a meeting of the Goshen Association of which Fredericksburg was a member and he was a fixture at the meetings of the General Association. He served as its president from 1893-96.
If you had seen Dunaway, you would have remembered him. He was tall with snow-white hair and wore a long white beard that practically went to his waist. His appearance always made him look so much older than his actual age. When he was 40, someone asked his age. “Guess,” he replied. “I should think 60,” said the inquirer. “You have missed it by 20 years,” said Dunaway. “Well,” retorted the inquirer, “I should never have taken you to be 80!”
In 1892, he delivered a sermon at the centennial celebration of the Goshen Association. He chose as his text the familiar verse from Joshua: “What mean ye by these stones?” He attempted to touch many of the keystones of Baptist heritage and principles.
“First, [the Baptists] acknowledge no other rule of faith and practice than the Bible. They do not admit that the decisions of ecclesiastical courts, the confessions of faith, the decrees of councils, the teaching of the so-called fathers or traditions, have any binding force or authority on the churches. They seek no channel of authority through lines of ecclesiastical succession. When the Romish hierarchy has presented the decrees of a so-called infallible church as authority, the Baptists have always contended for the only authority of God's infallible word. They have rejected every religious institution, ordinance, doctrine or practice, however plausible or popular, which, in their judgment, has not the clear sanction of God's word.
“The Baptists stand for only a regenerated membership in the church of Christ, and that a church formed after the New Testament model is a body of baptized believers. We hold that the local church is an independent body, separate and distinct from every other church; that she is to interpret for herself the Holy Scriptures; do her work in her own way, and that she is accountable to no power save that of Christ, who is the one Head and Lawgiver of the church. They know no such organization as the Baptist Church ruling or legislating for the local churches.
“While, in the view of some, this may be considered an element of denominational weakness, yet experience and observation have shown it a source of strength. [Baptists] speak a common language and work harmoniously to a common end. Under the power of the truth and the Spirit, they are one in Christ Jesus.
“The Baptists, in the constitution and government of the local churches, teach the individual responsibility of every member, who is a priest to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. This principle of Baptist theology and polity is well adapted to deepen the currents of religious life and feeling-to foster the sentiment of religious thought and action-to raise the entire membership to higher planes of religious thought and action. … Every member of the church, by reason of his or her priestly character, is summoned to the altar and the mercy seat. By virtue of this universal priesthood the entire church is ordained and consecrated to evangelical and missionary work.”
In truth, there is no one who knows the old preacher. He has been dead for 90 years. But through the lens of history and through the pages of print, we can see and hear him for ourselves. And he speaks even for our generation. Dunaway is among those personalities featured in a new history of Fredericksburg Baptist Church entitled Out of Our Hearts. Written by this columnist, the new book will be available in mid-October.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society.