Only two years into his big city pastorate at First Baptist Church of Richmond, Jeremiah Bell Jeter at age 36 engineered a major change. It was a threatening change not only to members of his congregation but also to fellow…
Spreading love
In 1942 Alma Cree finished business school in Henderson, N.C, and did the unthinkable. She had grown up hearing about the Foreign Mission Board and imagined that it would be “a good place to work.” She wrote a blind letter…
Beginnings and endings
Noah Calton Baldwin was the grand old man among the Baptists of Southwest Virginia. For nearly 60 years, he was a central figure in the religious life of the frontier from Marion to Abingdon. He was the father of the…
Finding a home
Shiloh Baptist Church, along the King's Highway in King George County, Va., has been home for many people in the course of its 150 years. It was created to give people a home during one of the great divisions among…
In the schoolhouse or the church house?
Fifty years ago most children received some exposure to the Judeo-Christian faith tradition in the tax-supported public schools. My faintest recollection is that my school had opening exercises with the pledge to the flag, some Bible verses and a prayer….
South of the border
Several Virginia Baptists — including this columnist — found their way south of the border to Mexico City for the recent gathering of the Baptist World Alliance. In a sense, I once again was following in the footsteps of my…
A miracle in Franklin County!
On Sunday, June 4, the members and friends of the Franklin Heights Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, Virginia, entered their new sanctuary for the first time. It was a moment which was long anticipated. When 6-year-old Cassidy James Anderson entered…
At the front door
Hazel Mallory died Saturday, June 24, from cancer. Her funeral was on Wednesday, June 28, at Hatcher Memorial Baptist Church in Richmond. For 31 years Hazel Mallory sat at the front door of Virginia Baptist life. As the administrative assistant…
Surprise ending!
Virginia Sanders sleeps beneath a painting of her long-time home on Sabot Street in Richmond's West End. The painting and plenty of memories remind her of the days when she was a busy homemaker with a professor-husband and four active…