Southern Baptist Convention Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===American Revolution period=== Before the American Revolution, Baptist and [[Methodist]] evangelicals in the South promoted the view of the common man's equality before God, which embraced slaves and free blacks. They challenged the hierarchies of class and race and urged planters to abolish slavery. They welcomed slaves as Baptists and accepted them as preachers.{{sfn|Miller|Smith|1997}} During this time, there was a sharp division between the austerity of the plain-living Baptists, attracted initially from yeomen and common planters, and the opulence of the Anglican planters, the slave-holding elite who controlled local and colonial government in what had become a slave society by the late 18th century.{{sfn|Kolchin|1993}} The gentry interpreted Baptist church discipline as political radicalism, but it served to ameliorate disorder. The Baptists intensely monitored each other's moral conduct, watching especially for sexual transgressions, cursing, and excessive drinking; they expelled members who would not reform.{{sfn|Isaac|1974}} In Virginia and in most southern colonies before the American Revolution, the Church of England was the [[established church]] and supported by general taxes, as it was in England. It opposed the rapid spread of Baptists in the South. Particularly in Virginia, many Baptist preachers were prosecuted for "disturbing the peace" by preaching without licenses from the Anglican Church. [[Patrick Henry]] and [[James Madison]] defended Baptist preachers before the American Revolution in cases considered significant in the history of religious freedom.<ref>{{Citation | last = Ketcham | first = Ralph L | title = James Madison: A Biography | place = Charlottesville, VA | publisher = University of Virginia Press | orig-date = 1971 | format = paperback | year = 1990 | page = [https://archive.org/details/jamesmadisonbiog00ketc/page/57 57] | isbn = 978-0-8139-1265-3 | url = https://archive.org/details/jamesmadisonbiog00ketc/page/57 }}.</ref> In 1779, [[Thomas Jefferson]] wrote the [[Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom]], enacted in 1786 by the Virginia General Assembly. Madison later applied his ideas and those of the Virginia document related to religious freedom during the [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|Constitutional Convention]], when he ensured that they were incorporated into the [[United States Constitution|national constitution]]. The struggle for religious tolerance erupted and played out during the American Revolution, as the Baptists worked to disestablish the Anglican churches in the South. The Baptists protested vigorously; the resulting social disorder resulted chiefly from the ruling gentry's disregard for public need. The vitality of the religious opposition made the conflict between "evangelical" and "gentry" styles a bitter one.{{sfn|Beeman|1978}} Scholarship suggests that the evangelical movement's strength determined its ability to mobilize power outside the conventional authority structure.{{sfn|Kroll-Smith|1984}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page