Jim Slatton had a catchy title in mind for his biography of William Heth Whitsitt. He wanted to call it An Inconvenient Truth, but Al Gore coined it first for his book. It would have been apropos. After all, in the 1880s Whitsitt published the truth about Baptist history: that it cannot be proven that Baptists practiced believer’s baptism by immersion prior to 1641. And for that statement Whitsitt, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1895-99, practically was branded a heretic and effectively hounded from office by the Southern Baptist Convention fundamentalists of his day, a party known as the Landmarkers. He unwittingly became a martyr once he applied scientific methods of research and simply revealed the truth.
Fred Anderson
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The Landmarkers wanted a clear line of unbroken succession — “a trail of blood” — from the ancient days of the apostles. Their preposterous claim gave Baptists an air of legitimacy in an age of fierce denominational competition. They felt that Baptist churches were the only descendants of the first church. It all seems rather silly in a supposedly post-denominational age; but in the late 19th century, Whitsitt’s findings were considered “fightin’ words” to succession believers.
Whitsitt and his beloved wife, Florence, were aware of the consequences. For several years they endured a Baptist war replete with intrigue, insults and innuendo. It made good fodder for the some 100 Baptist newspapers in America and the editors kept flaming the fires. The annual meetings of the SBC were stormy. Whitsitt’s chief opponent was his own pastor, T.T. Eaton, and his chief defender was the masterful Virginia Baptist leader, W.E. Hatcher. It all was high drama and forever after the whirlwind was known as “the Whitsitt Controversy.”
The storm subsided when Whitsitt resigned the presidency. He came to Richmond College, the Virginia Baptist school, and taught philosophy. In January 1911, he died and was buried in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery within a few feet of Jefferson Davis. The next year, Hatcher died and was buried in the lot next to Whitsitt.
But the Whitsitt Controversy, the man’s good deeds and his interpretation of historical truth were never buried. A century later, his findings are accepted by most historians and taught in the seminaries. During the late unpleasant controversy among Southern Baptists, the Whitsitt Historical Society was founded and each year presents a courage award to some modern-day Baptist hero or heroine. The first Whitsitt Courage Award was given posthumously to the great man himself.
Through the years there have been some scholarly dissertations on Whitsitt, but a popular biography has been wanting. After five years of research and writing, James H. Slatton, a Virginia Baptist minister, has produced what the publisher, Mercer Press, chose to title W.H. Whitsitt: The Man and the Controversy. It is a must read for every contemporary Baptist who cares about the quest for truth.
Slatton worked on the book as scholar-in-residence at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, which owns Whitsitt’s private and never-before-used diary of 16 volumes. The Whitsitt family had given the diary to the Society with the understanding that Slatton had first use of the materials. In his diary, Whitsitt had confided his innermost thoughts about his colleagues at the seminary; and he painted poignant word pictures of life in the 19th century. Slatton also used a huge body of material at the Library of Virginia.
Once retired from the pastorate of River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond, Slatton was free to devote his time, energies and considerable literary talents to the biography. He clearly enjoyed his project. “It was like time travel,” he recently reflected. “I stepped back into the 19th century.” The man and the manners may have been 19th century but Slatton soon began to see parallels with 20th and even 21st-century Baptists; and he found that in many ways the recent controversy was a continuation of the same mindsets which fueled the Whitsitt Controversy.
“The crisis,” says Slatton, “was reconciling the new learning with the old faith. It was a world of new discoveries and knowledge — Darwin, evolution, science; and the question was ‘how does faith deal with the modern world of science?’ They were struggling with it in the 19th century and we are still struggling with it today.”
Slatton at work on the Whitsett biography.
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“We see this man — Whitsitt — struggling in his own life with a simple faith. Yet he became a man beyond his times. His opinions were out of step with the denomination and the times. He was able to look at religion in a very modern way.” Slatton asserts that Whitsitt was “a marked man among Baptists” because he had studied in Germany, in the universities of Leipzig and Berlin. It must be acknowledged that he had received “a proper education” at the University of Virginia.
The new biography should be appealing even for those who have little interest in Baptist history. Whitsitt lived a full life. He reminds this columnist of the fictious Forrest Gump, who kept running into famous people. He served with Nathan Bedford Forrest, was with Jefferson Davis as the president fled, met the eminent Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and even shook hands with Richard Wagner. He tramped across Europe. He knew all the Baptist giants in America of the 19th century.
Jim Slatton has known his own share of Baptist personalities and a fair slice of controversy to boot. A native Texan, he was born debating. He won a national championship in high school debating and was a varsity debater for Baylor University. Although he had a debating scholarship, he found that student preaching — with its love offerings — paid his way through college. In the summers he came to Virginia as part of the wave of Baptist student preachers. One summer at Ocean View Baptist Church in Norfolk he met a young musician, Lee Thornton, and encouraged her to attend Baylor. Jim and Lee were married in 1956. They enjoyed two Virginia pastorates, First Baptist in Altavista and River Road. At the height of “the controversy” of the 20th century, he also had a moment of intense attention at the SBC meeting in Dallas in 1985. From the platform, before a crowd of 45,000 messengers, he courageously offered a plan which, if adopted, might have forestalled division in the SBC. It is no wonder that Jim Slatton identified with W.H. Whitsitt. It is no wonder that he reveled in time travel.
Copies of the book may be ordered from the Virginia Baptist Historical Society by calling (804) 289-8434.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.