By Bob Allen
A Georgia Baptist newspaper that lays claim to being the nation’s oldest continuously published religious periodical will no longer appear in print after Dec. 31.
Gerald Harris, 31st editor of the 193-year-old Christian Index, announced in an editorial Sept. 9 that starting next year the newspaper will go exclusively online.
Harris, a former pastor elected editor in 2003, said declining circulation and increased costs of printing and postage made the migration to electronic-only publishing inevitable. At the same time, he said making the content available free to non-subscribers could increase the newspaper’s reach.
Originally known as the Columbian Star, the Christian Index was founded in 1822 in Washington, D.C., by Luther Rice, nicknamed the “father of Baptist mission work” for his efforts to combine efforts of autonomous Baptist churches in the 19th century.
In 1831 editor W.T. Brantley changed the name to the Christian Index. Two years later Baptist minister Jesse Mercer purchased the paper and moved its office to Georgia. Mercer donated the paper to the Georgia Baptist Convention in 1840, which sold it due to financial difficulties related to the Civil War before eventually buying it back in 1920.
Editors over the years included John Jeter Hurt, who led the newspaper 19 years before moving to Texas to become editor of the Baptist Standard; Jack Harwell, who was ousted after 21 years in 1987 and moved on to edit the moderate newspaper Baptists Today; and Albert Mohler, a young seminary graduate who used the newspaper’s editorial page as a springboard to his election as president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993.
In 1972, the Christian Index’s sesquicentennial year, circulation stood at 134,000. By 1990, according to Southern Baptist Convention annuals, readership had dropped to 88,500 and was reported last year as 33,411.