Bluefield College celebrated its history Oct. 4 with an annual Baptist Heritage Day ceremony on campus featuring a keynote address from an authority on history, Fred Anderson, executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society.
For the seventh consecutive year, Bluefield College students set aside time in the midst of their busy academic schedules to celebrate the school's heritage. The occasion is designed “to help students, faculty, staff and the community remember that Bluefield College is a Baptist college,” and as a Baptist-affiliated institution there are “certain ideals the college cherishes and celebrates.”
Each year during the celebration the college presents a guest lecturer to speak to students, faculty, staff and friends. The lecturers are typically state or nationally known guests who speak about the principles that are important to Baptists.
This year, Fred Anderson, who also is the executive director of the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies and a member of the Heritage Commission of the Baptist World Alliance, spoke about the pioneers of the Virginia Baptist church.
In his remarks, he shared the story of John Mason Pilcher, the first Virginia Baptist state missionary who traveled some 1.4 million miles across the Commonwealth sharing the Baptist faith. In fact, Anderson titled his speech to the Heritage Day crowd, “Out of the Saddlebag: A Lesson on Baptist Principles,” and to demonstrate his message he brought along the original saddlebag used by Pilcher to carry Bibles on his trips.
Anderson, who is credited for the development of the technique of historical character portrayals as a medium to teach Baptist history, shared details about the creation of the first Baptist church in Virginia in the late 1790s and the development of the first Baptist churches in southwest Virginia, beginning with Princeton Missionary Baptist Church, Bundy's Chapel, Pocahontas Baptist Church, Tazewell Baptist Church, and Bluefield (W.V.) Baptist Church.
“The pioneers, like John Mason Pilcher, helped establish these churches,” Anderson said. “They loaded their saddlebags with Baptist documents and traveled the entire state sharing Baptist principles. It was these principles that created the foundation of the Baptist church.”
Anderson, clerk for the Baptist General Association of Virginia, spoke about some of the principles dear to Baptists, including a firm belief in the Bible as God's word, the organization of churches into democratic congregations, the belief in a personal relationship with God without the need for an intercessory, and religious liberty provided through the separation of church and state.
“We live in a world of religious warfare,” Anderson said, “and the one freedom that has made America different from the world is religious freedom. It is a trophy won by Virginia Baptists in the 1800s.”
The author of nine Baptist history books and the writer of hundreds of heritage columns for the Religious Herald, Anderson also shared a story about the excitement of his toddler grandson's first visit to his workplace, the Virginia Baptist Historical Society. When he asked his grandson why he was so excited about visiting the Society, the little boy responded that it was because he loved God and he loved to hear more about God's story.
“All this time I thought I was telling and writing stories about Baptists,” Anderson said in regard to his grandson's reference to God's story. “But, my grandson is right. The stories I tell are God's stories–stories about how God is doing his work through a group of people called Baptists.” The pioneers of the Baptist faith, Anderson concluded, brought more than just the gospel to southwest Virginia and other parts of the state. They brought saddlebags full of values and principles important to the people. As a result, he said, we should feel some obligation to help preserve these time-honored principles.
“What do we owe the pioneers of Virginia?” he asked. “Respect and remembrance and reassurance that we will safeguard and pass these principles on to the next generation.”