Description: Baptists lack a single central figure in their origins that Lutherans, Reformed, Presbyterians, and Methodists have with Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Wesley. Additionally, Baptists focus so heavily on the Bible for authority and key beliefs like religious liberty, social justice, missions, and preaching that sometimes Baptists and other Christians forget the significant role that people play in forging those ideas and practices. Highlighted Baptist leaders include: Thomas Helwys, John Clarke, Benjamin Keach, Anne Dutton, Shubal Stearns, Isaac Backus, Dan Taylor, Andrew Fuller, John Leland, William Carey, Lott Carey, Adoniram Judson, J. Gerhard Oncken, I. T. Tichenor, Robert Cooke Buckner, Charles H. Spurgeon, Lottie Moon, E. C. Morris, E. Y. Mullins, Walter Rauschenbusch, Helen Barrett Montgomery, George W. Truett, William Owen Carver, James Henry Rushbrooke, Nannie Helen Burroughs, B. B. McKinney, Thomas Buford Maston, Herschel H. Hobbs, Henlee Barnette, and Gardner C. Taylor.
Brief description: Michael E. Williams, Sr. is professor of History at Dallas Baptist University. He is the coeditor of TURNING POINTS IN BAPTIST HISTORY published by Mercer University Press (2008) and author of I. T. TICHENOR AND THE CREATION OF THE BAPTIST NEW SOUTH published by the University of Alabama Press (2005).