It all began with a book.
The author wasn’t a Baptist. And he didn’t live to see how God would use the book. That’s how God works sometimes.
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was America’s first, and arguably our greatest, homegrown theologian. He is most famous for his theological treatises and his role in the First Great Awakening, but Edwards also longed to see the gospel proclaimed to the ends of the earth. In 1746, Edwards wrote An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer, For the Revival and Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth. In those days, a book’s title often told you everything you needed to know.
In An Humble Attempt, Edwards argued for all believers to engage in monthly “concerts of prayer” for worldwide revival and the conversion of the unreached peoples of the earth. Edwards believed the salvation of the nations was one of the final signs that the millennium would soon begin. His prayer was that the transatlantic revivals that had occurred off and on for a generation would “go viral” and cover the entire earth.
An Humble Attempt isn’t much remembered today, except among historians. Even in its own day, the book was never as well-known as Edwards’s missions classic, The Diary of David Brainerd. But in God’s providence, the book had a huge kingdom impact. In fact, one could argue Edwards should be considered the “grandfather” of the modern missions movement in the English-speaking world because of how the Lord used An Humble Attempt in the generation following Edwards’s death.
Enter the English Baptists • • •
When the Evangelical Awakening began in Britain in the 1730s, few Dissenters paid much attention. Most of the “Methodists” (as all British evangelicals were called at the time) were revived believers in the Church of England who were influenced by the Wesley brothers, George Whitfield, and some of their contemporaries. Dissenters included traditions that refused to conform to the Book of Common Prayer and worshiped outside the official established church. English Baptists were Dissenters.
The Particular Baptists were especially reticent toward the Evangelical Awakening. As Calvinists, they disagreed with the Arminian theology of the Wesley brothers. Many of the Particular Baptists, especially in and around London, were also influenced by hyper-Calvinism, an aberrant form of Reformed theology that downplayed the importance of urgent evangelism. It was not until the next generation when revival finally came to British Nonconformists in the form of a Baptist Missionary Awakening.
It started in 1784, when an English Particular Baptist pastor named John Sutcliff (1752–1814) came across a copy of An Humble Attempt in a box of books given to him by a pastor friend. After reading the book, Sutcliff began to circulate An Humble Attempt among his fellow Baptist pastors. Inspired by Edwards, Sutcliff called upon the pastors of the Northamptonshire Baptist Association to set apart the first Monday evening of every month to pray for unreached peoples and the coming kingdom. The concerts of prayer became popular among the younger pastors in the association and continued well into the 1790s.
Several of the pastors who answered Sutcliff’s prayer call became early leaders in the Missionary Awakening. Robert Hall Sr. (1728–1791) and especially Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) wrote influential treatises that challenged hyper-Calvinism and commended an evangelical form of Calvinism that sounded more like Jonathan Edwards. John Ryland Jr. (1753–1825) became the principle of Bristol Baptist Academy, and many of Ryland’s students became strong supporters of missionary advance.
Most famously, a shoe cobbler turned pastor named William Carey (1761–1834) authored a short manifesto titled An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792). Carey argued that the Great Commission is a binding command on every Christian in every generation. In 1792, this group of friends formed the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS). Fuller served as secretary of the BMS for over 20 years, while Carey became its most famous missionary.
From this small missions-minded “band of brothers,” the Missionary Awakening spread to other believers. Over the next decade or so, most of the Particular Baptists who had been influenced by hyper-Calvinism rejected these views and owned the Great Commission as their own.
The more revival-friendly, missions-minded Calvinism of Fuller and Carey became commonplace among most Particular Baptists. For their part, many Arminian Baptists also participated in the Missionary Awakening. A group of evangelical General Baptists, led by a former Wesleyan named Dan Taylor (1738–1816), formed their own mission society in 1816.
The Missionary Awakening soon spread beyond the Baptist fold. In 1795, missions-minded Anglicans and Nonconformists came together to form the non-denominational London Missionary Society. Evangelical Anglicans such as John Newton (1725–1807), Charles Simeon (1759–1836), and William Wilberforce (1759–1833) also formed the Church Missionary Society in 1799.
By the early 1800s, the Missionary Awakening was crossing the Atlantic, back to the land of Jonathan Edwards.
The first known foreign missionary in American history was a Baptist. In fact, he became a missionary almost a decade before William Carey left England for India.
George Leile (ca. 1750–1820) was an enslaved preacher in the Colony of Georgia. He was the founding pastor of First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., which claims to be the oldest black Baptist church in existence today. Leile’s master, a Baptist deacon and a loyalist, granted him his freedom shortly before the American Revolution began.
After his former master was killed in battle while serving as a British officer, Leile feared he would be re-enslaved, so he fled Savannah for Jamaica in 1783. Leile started the first Baptist church in Jamaica in 1792, the same year the English Particular Baptists formed the Baptist Missionary Society.
Leile was more a missionary by circumstance than he was calling. But shortly after America gained her independence, others began to sense a call to missions. Between 1800 and 1810, numerous local missionary societies were formed in the Northeast. Many of these societies either supported the various British mission societies or focused on evangelizing Native Americans.
The Judsons Embrace Baptist Convictions • • •
In 1810, Congregationalists in New England formed a foreign mission society. Among the first group of missionaries were a husband and wife, Adoniram (1788–1850) and Ann Hasseltine Judson (1789–1826), and their friend Luther Rice (1783–1836). These were the first known Americans who chose to leave for another country for the express purpose of preaching the gospel.
While enroute to India, the Judsons and Rice came to Baptist convictions through their study of the New Testament. They subsequently resigned their appointments from the Congregationalist mission society. The Judsons became pioneer missionaries in Burma, while Rice returned to America to convince Baptists to support their work.
In 1814, through Rice’s influence, Baptists in America formed the Triennial Convention, which was both a foreign missions society and an early prototype for a Baptist denomination. Like Carey before them, the Judsons inspired countless believers — including many non-Baptists — to answer the missionary call.
For his part, Rice became a tireless promoter of foreign missions. Today, Rice is buried in the cemetery of the Pine Pleasant Baptist Church in Saluda County, S.C., where he was raising support for missions when he died.
A Great Commission Legacy • • •
Today, South Carolina Baptists, as well as the larger Southern Baptist tradition, remain united by a shared commitment to cooperative mission.
When we partner together with like-minded churches to proclaim the gospel among the unreached and plant churches among the underserved, we stand on the shoulders of those Great Commission Baptists who came before us such as Carey, Leile, and the Judsons. Like them, may we be faithful in our own time to proclaim and advance the kingdom throughout our state, in every part of our nation, and to the ends of the earth.
— Nathan Finn is professor of faith and culture and >executive director of the Institute for Transformational Leadership at NGU. He is also the recording secretary of the SBC.