In the summer of 1877, “the June meeting” or annual meeting of the General Association was held in Danville. Jeremiah Bell Jeter, one of the grand old men of the Association, was present and actively engaged in the meeting.
Jeter had been at the first “June meeting” 54 summers earlier in 1823. He was only 20 years of age at the first meeting; and soon afterwards, he was appointed one of the first state missionaries. He literally had given his life and his career to Baptists and chiefly to Virginia Baptists. He was fortunate to have served as pastor of several choice churches both in the country and in the city.
Fred Anderson
Jeter had witnessed and participated as a leader in all the great events: the founding of the state Association, the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention, the launching of the Foreign Mission Board, the development of a Baptist college in Richmond. Although never afforded the benefits of higher education, he was among the founders of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. For a man who admitted that he had “glided into the ministry,” he had a safe and successful landing on his feet.
Every discerning Baptist across the South and beyond knew the name of Jeter. They read his editorials in the Religious Herald, which had a wide circulation beyond its home state. Many had a mental image of the man. They had watched as his tall lanky frame made its way across a platform to occupy the pulpit desk. They recognized his distinctive voice and not because it was altogether pleasing. But they loved him anyway.
The Danville meeting was just prior to his 75th birthday. He had a right to be talking about memories. At the evening meeting of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, of which he was president, Jeter gave an address on “Early Recollections of the Baptists of Virginia.” It was only the first anniversary of the Historical Society yet the house was packed.
Jeter also delivered the annual sermon. It was a long yet masterfully crafted message on “The Obligations of Baptists to Their Distinctive Principles.” He found a text in Jude: “Ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
He expended most of his sermon on the principles — naming them, expounding upon them, explaining them. In his conclusion, he summarized the past and looked far into the future.
“Let us be encouraged by a survey of the past,” he urged.
Jeremiah Jeter
“ ‘The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we should be glad.' ” He admitted that the early years had slow progress for Virginia Baptists. He cited the facts. In the 1770s there were only 7,500 Baptists in some 85 widely scattered churches. The Baptist ministry in Virginia only listed about 50 preachers, “most of them but imperfectly equipped for their warfare.” As for the church members, Jeter called them “generally poor, comparatively illiterate and of limited social influence.”
It was the time of challenging the Established Church, which was as much about class divisions as it was about religious liberty. The motley group of 18th-century Baptists managed to topple a church/state establishment; and they did it in part by meeting violence with non-violence. They did this long before Ghandi and King articulated the technique.
Jeter brought his hearers up to their time in history. In the 1870s, there were 1,177 churches with a membership of over 176,000, “of whom 100,929” were blacks. “To these must be added the Baptists of West Virginia, until recently a part of our State, numbering 24,187, making a grand total of 200,473.” There were 771 ordained ministers, “many of whom are able preachers of the word.” He ticked off the bragging rights of Virginia Baptists: mission boards, Sunday schools, “our college,” the Religious Herald, the seminary. He cautioned from too much pride. “As a denomination, our wealth is not equal to our numbers, and our liberality is far from being commensurate with our wealth.”
Finally, he got to the future. He tried to imagine the General Association of the 1970s, a century removed from his audience. “Great changes will have taken place. New faces and new fashions will meet our eyes, and unfamiliar voices will salute our ears; but the gospel — our distinctive principles — will be unchanged; and may we not hope that there will be such reports of the growth, prosperity, and multiplication of churches, the success of missionary labor, the efficiency of Sunday schools, the overflowing of contributions for religious purposes as would put all our dwarfish efforts and successes of the present day in the cause of Christ to the blush?”
He warned that it may not be thus if the generations which follow were unworthy of their spiritual ancestors. “Prosperity has its dangers for churches as well as adversity. Worldliness, formality and fashion are more to be dreaded than persecution, with its fines, prisons and tortures.”
Yet, the old man was optimistic. He observed that the churches were “sound in the faith, its ministers zealous in the maintenance of truth and in extending the kingdom of Christ.” Discord had waned. Many of the Baptist principles had gained “public confidence and trust.”
Jeter was on target in his assessment of the Virginia Baptists a century removed. In the 1970s there were about 1,450 churches with 570,000 members, not counting the large numbers in the state's black Baptist organizations. Giving topped $80 million to all causes and $8 million to the Cooperative Program. It was the last decade before the rupture into divisions. Some 35 years later, the General Association has about the same number of churches and 100,000 less church members. Total giving is somewhere around $270 million with maybe $14 million for Cooperative Missions. It is time once again for imagining the future.
Fred Anderson may be contacted at [email protected].