Baptist Birthday

When the Baptist denomination celebrates four hundred years of existence, it’s a big deal at the world’s largest Baptist university. Because 1609—when Separatists fled England to establish a church in Amsterdam—is generally accepted as the beginning date of the Baptist faith, Baylor decided to celebrate all year long.

Dr. Karla Leeper, chief of staff to Baylor’s president, headed a committee for Baylor’s Baptist 400 Celebration and said the group wanted the commemoration to have a broad reach on campus. So they decided to infuse Baptist history into a number of events rather than planning just one, she said.

“We wanted to weave it into the normal course of the campus,” Leeper said. “Baptist life at Baylor is vibrant, and it’s in the fabric of what the institution is. So that’s the approach that we took.”

All year long, events—from concerts to conferences—have focused on Baptist heritage and beliefs. The committee even managed to get students—and future students—into the act. A big concert in April coincided with Baylor’s Premiere Weekend for high school juniors and emphasized Baylor’s Baptist heritage. Students also learned about Baptist heritage from Chapel speakers and through this fall’s Missions Week, which focused on Baptist missionaries.

Perhaps the most visible sign of the Baptist 400 Celebration on campus is a series of exhibits sponsored by Baylor’s libraries, with several still available for viewing. The Texas Collection, located in Carroll Library, displayed general Baptist materials, paintings related to Texas Baptist history, and postcards of Baptist churches.

Moody Memorial Library has filled the Allbritton Foyer with Baptist history all year long, beginning with “One Hundred Years of Baylor Nursing,” which ran through mid-June. That was followed by an exhibit on Texas Baptist churches. Running through the fall are two exhibits on Baptist missionaries. “The Baptist Missionaries” features such early missionaries as William Carey, the first Baptist missionary; Ann and Adoniram Judson, the first American Baptist missionaries; and Baylor graduates William “Buck” and Anne Bagby, the first Texas Baptist missionaries.

Another exhibit highlights the six Baptist missionaries who have received Baylor’s Distinguished Alumni Award. The five living recipients provided personal Bibles, photographs, clothing, and other artifacts for the display, said Kathy Robinson Hillman ’73, associate professor and director of special collections for the library.

The biggest campus event associated with the Baptist 400 Celebration was the Pruit Symposium on October 1-2. It featured “very significant people to speak about Baptist tradition, especially in the American context,” according to co-chair Dr. Bill Bellinger, professor and chair of religion. Nancy Ammerman, professor of sociology of religion and author of Baptist Battles, and Neville Callum, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, were among the headliners.

Bellinger said that it’s important for Baylor to celebrate this milestone. “There is a strong biblical emphasis that we only really find hope for the future in some sense of remembering our tradition,” he said. “These four hundred years of Baptist tradition are a part of our identity. Certainly, in 1609 it was part of the movement to make faith very much something that an individual and a community could claim as their own and not simply the inherited faith passed down through the established church.

“That is why Baptists emphasize religious liberty,” he said. “That’s why Baptists emphasize every local church finding its own ministry under the lordship of Christ, and it’s why we emphasize congregationalism and the priesthood of believers. It was the birthing of a tradition that has had a pretty significant impact on the world.”