Eric C. Smith

John Leland (1754-1841) was one of the most influential and entertaining religious figures in early America. As an itinerant revivalist, he demonstrated an uncanny ability to connect with a popular audience, and contributed to the rise of a "democratized" Christianity in America. A tireless activist for the rights of conscience, Leland also waged a decades-long war for disestablishment, first in Virginia and then in New England. Leland advocated for full religious freedom for all-not merely Baptists and Protestants-and reportedly negotiated a deal with James Madison to include a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Leland developed a reputation for being "mad for politics" in early America, delivering political orations, publishing tracts, and mobilizing New England's Baptists on behalf of the Jeffersonian Republicans. He crowned his political activity by famously delivering a 1,200-pound cheese to Thomas Jefferson's White House. Leland also stood among eighteenth-century Virginia's most powerful anti-slavery advocates, and convinced one wealthy planter to emancipate over 400 of his slaves. Though among the most popular Baptists in America, Leland's fierce individualism and personal eccentricity often placed him at odds with other Baptist leaders. He refused ordination, abstained from the Lord's Supper, and violently opposed the rise of Baptist denominationalism. In the first-ever biography of Leland, Eric C. Smith recounts the story of this pivotal figure from American Religious History, whose long and eventful life provides a unique window into the remarkable transformations that swept American society from 1760 to 1840.

The first book-length study of the vital role Regular Baptists played in creating the modern Southern Baptist denomination.The origins of the Southern Baptist Convention, the world’s largest Protestant denomination, is most often traced back to the colorful, revivalist Separate Baptist movement that rose out of the Great Awakening in the mid-1700s. During that same period the American South was likewise home to the often-overlooked Regular Baptists, who also experienced a remarkable revitalization and growth. Regular Baptists combined a concern for orderly doctrine and church life with the ardor of George Whitefield’s evangelical awakening. In Order and Ardor, Eric C. Smith examines the vital role of Regular Baptists through the life of Oliver Hart, pastor of First Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, a prominent patriot during the American Revolution, and one of the most important pioneers of American Baptists and American evangelicalism.In this first book-length study of Hart’s life and ministry, Smith reframes Regular Baptists as belonging to an influential revival movement that contributed significantly to creating the modern Southern Baptist denomination, challenging the widely held perception that they resisted the Great Awakening. During Hart’s thirty-year service as the pastor of First Baptist Church, the Regular Baptists incorporated evangelical and revivalist values into their existing doctrine. Hart encouraged cooperative missions and education across the South, founding the Charleston Baptist Association in 1751 and collaborating with leaders of other denominations to spread evangelical revivalism.Order and Ardor analyzes the most intense, personal experience of revival in Hart’s ministry—an awakening among the youths of his own congregation in 1754 through the emergence of a vibrant thirst for religious guidance and a concern for their own souls. This experience was a testimony to Hart’s revival piety—the push for evangelical Calvinism. It reinforced his evangelical activism, hallmarks of the Great Awakening that appear prominently in Hart’s diaries, letters, sermon manuscripts, and other remaining documents.Extensively researched and written with clarity, Order and Ardor offers an enlightened view of eighteenth-century Regular Baptists. Smith contextualizes Hart’s life and development as a man of faith, revealing the patterns and priorities of his personal spirituality and pastoral ministry that identify him as a critically important evangelical revivalist leader in the colonial South.

John A. Broadus (1827–95) was a highly influential Southern Baptist leader, preacher, scholar, and educator during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He cofounded the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which today is among the largest seminaries in the world. Broadus's enduring impact on American preaching stems in part from his 1870 homiletics manual, a widely adopted textbook that ministers continue to use today. A prominent southerner before and after the Civil War, Broadus actively shaped his region during the shift from the Old South to the New. Eric C. Smith's Between Worlds—the first scholarly biography of Broadus—joins recent historical scholarship in reevaluating Broadus's legacy.

Baptists in America began the eighteenth century a small, scattered, often harassed sect in a vast sea of religious options. By the early nineteenth century, they were a unified, powerful, and rapidly-growing denomination, poised to send missionaries to the other side of the world. One of the most influential yet neglected leaders in that transformation was Oliver Hart, longtime pastor of the Charleston Baptist Church. Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America is the first modern biography of Hart, arguably the most important evangelical leader in the pre-Revolutionary South. During his thirty years in Charleston, Hart emerged as the region's most important Baptist denominational architect. His outspoken patriotism forced him to flee Charleston when the British army invaded Charleston in 1780, but he left behind a southern Baptist people forever changed by his energetic ministry. Hart's accommodating stance toward slavery enabled him and the white Baptists who followed him to reach the center of southern society, but also eventually doomed the national Baptist denomination of Hart's dreams. More than a biography, Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America seamlessly intertwines Hart's story with that of eighteenth-century American Baptists, providing one of the most thorough accounts to date of this important and understudied religious group's development. This book makes a significant contribution to the study of Baptist life and evangelicalism in the pre-Revolutionary South and beyond.

Baptists in America began the eighteenth century a small, scattered, often harassed sect in a vast sea of religious options. By the early nineteenth century, they were a unified, powerful, and rapidly-growing denomination, poised to send missionaries to the other side of the world. One of the most influential yet neglected leaders in that transformation was Oliver Hart, longtime pastor of the Charleston Baptist Church. Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America is the first modern biography of Hart, arguably the most important evangelical leader in the pre-Revolutionary South. During his thirty years in Charleston, Hart emerged as the region's most important Baptist denominational architect. His outspoken patriotism forced him to flee Charleston when the British army invaded Charleston in 1780, but he left behind a southern Baptist people forever changed by his energetic ministry. Hart's accommodating stance toward slavery enabled him and the white Baptists who followed him to reach the center of southern society, but also eventually doomed the national Baptist denomination of Hart's dreams. More than a biography, Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America seamlessly intertwines Hart's story with that of eighteenth-century American Baptists, providing one of the most thorough accounts to date of this important and understudied religious group's development. This book makes a significant contribution to the study of Baptist life and evangelicalism in the pre-Revolutionary South and beyond.

In recent years scholars have re-evaluated the "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity, reaching new understandings of the ways shared origins gave way to two distinct and sometimes inimical religious traditions. But this has been a profoundly textual task, relying on the writings of rabbis, bishops, and other text-producing elites to map the terrain of the "parting." This book takes up the question of the divergence of Judaism and Christianity in terms of material--the stuff made, used, and left behind by the persons that lived in and between these religions as they were developing. Considering the glass, clay, stone, paint, vellum, and papyrus of ancient Jews and Christians, this book maps the "parting" in new ways, and argues for a greater role for material and materialism in our reconstructions of the past.

A generation of biblical scholars have sparked a revolution in thinking about the apostle Paul. Now, bible scholar and progressive Christian pastor Eric C. Smith is helping Christians see how that revolution makes a difference for people engaged in the work of justice and inclusion. In Paul the Progressive, Smith revisits Paul in light of modern biblical scholarship, telling the story of a Paul who challenged the norms of his day, broke down barriers of gender and ethnicity, and re-imagined God's plan for the world in terms of radical inclusion and salvation available to everyone.

In recent years scholars have re-evaluated the "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity, reaching new understandings of the ways shared origins gave way to two distinct and sometimes inimical religious traditions. But this has been a profoundly textual task, relying on the writings of rabbis, bishops, and other text-producing elites to map the terrain of the "parting." This book takes up the question of the divergence of Judaism and Christianity in terms of material--the stuff made, used, and left behind by the persons that lived in and between these religions as they were developing. Considering the glass, clay, stone, paint, vellum, and papyrus of ancient Jews and Christians, this book maps the "parting" in new ways, and argues for a greater role for material and materialism in our reconstructions of the past.