By Bob Allen
Bill Sumners, an archivist who for more than 30 years has overseen one of the most respected historical collections by a religious denomination, will retire next July as director of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives.
Sumners was hired in 1988 as the first full-time archivist for the collection then held by Southern Baptist Historical Commission, a Southern Baptist Convention agency chartered in 1951 and dissolved in a denominational restructuring called “Covenant for a New Century” approved by the SBC in 1995 and 1996.
The newly formed Council of Seminary Presidents, also assigned the Seminary Extension program, kept him on as executive director of the SBHLA collection in 1997.
Albert Mohler president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, described Sumners as “a key figure in bridging the Southern Baptist past to its present and future.”
Mohler, who also serves as president of the Council of Seminary Presidents, will receive nominations for Sumners’ successor. Qualifications include a graduate degree in librarianship, Baptist history or archival studies, with a preference for certified archivists, Mohler said in a press release.
Established in 1938 as part of the Southern Baptist Historical Society, the SBHLA is a central depository of books, Baptist associations’ and state conventions’ annuals, Baptist newspapers, histories of Baptist churches, archival records and many other Baptist history resources located in Nashville, Tenn.
In 1953, the contents of the Historical Society library were integrated with the Dargan Library of the SBC Sunday School Board, now named LifeWay Christian Resources.
The library was managed jointly by the Sunday School Board and the Historical Commission, an agency assigned to “maintain an accessible up-to-date library for the systematic preservation of all historical and archival material” and to “maintain the official convention archive.”
With the Dargan-Carver Library space long inadequate and presenting severe environmental concerns, the collection was moved in 1985 to the fourth floor of the Southern Baptist Convention Building, occupying more than 10,000 square feet of floor space laid out by Lynn May, executive director of the Historical Commission from 1971 until 1995 who died in 1996.
The Southern Baptist Historical Society, founded with leadership from W. O. Carver, a professor of missions at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1898 until 1943, served as a supportive group for the SBC Historical Commission until the agency was dissolved.
The society determined in 1995 to continue as an independent Baptist history organization renamed in 2001 as the Baptist History and Heritage Society.
Sumners, a Samford University graduate who worked as assistant archivist at Auburn University before serving as archivist of the Dargan-Carver Library from 1983 until 1988, expressed appreciation to the Council of Seminary Presidents.
“You have let us do our work and championed our vital role in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Sumners said in a Sept. 21 letter to the seminary presidents.”
He particularly thanked Mohler for his foresight in the denominational restructuring to place the historical library and archives under the management of the seminary presidents.
“I am uncertain of our existence without his keen wisdom back in 1995,” Sumners said.