When Baptist Preachers Make the New York Times…

— Saturday, December 6th, 2008 —

…it’s rarely for something entirely good. That was, its seems, true also a hundred years ago. Scott Lamb here at Southern Seminary just sent me an archived article from the New York Times from 1900.

The Times took interest in the “fashionable Third Avenue” neighborhood of downtown Louisville being upset about Walnut Street Baptist Church’s building program, which was right up to the sidewalk, blocking the “beautiful view” of the homeowners there.

One homeowner complained to Walnut Street pastor T.T. Eaton about the project, saying it would depreciate his property. Eaton reportedly told the man that that was fine, because the church intended to buy his property “when it got cheap.”

How’s that for missional?

For my thoughts on the rascally, complicated Eaton, see this from an address at Union University’s Baptist Identity conference in 2007. The paper can also be accessed in Microsoft Word format in the papers section of this site.

Tags: , ,

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 12:50 pm and is filedunder Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

No Responses to “When Baptist Preachers Make the New York Times…”

  1. Barry Fields December 6th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    Dr. Moore,

    Thought this article was really interesting. My pastor from my home church, Richard Oldham (Glendale Baptist in Bowling Green), grew up at Walnut Street from the 30s to the 50s. Dr. Finley F. Gibson was the pastor there at the time, and he led my pastor to the Lord. I told him about this article. He gave me the name of Dr. Eaton before I even had a chance to read it to him! He really liked the article. Thanks so much for posting it.

    - Barry Fields

  2. Jim Hamilton December 6th, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    What a great line!

    Is there an mp3 of that address online somewhere?

    Thanks!

    Jim

  3. Scott Lamb December 6th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    Jim,
    Here is the audio at Union’s site:
    http://www.uu.edu/audio/Detail.cfm?ID=296

  4. Russell D. Moore December 6th, 2008 at 4:48 pm

    Barry, I think the world of your pastor, and his ministry. I didn’t know about his Walnut Street connection. Walnut Street is one of the great, historic “six degrees of separation” type churches in the SBC.

  5. Barry Fields December 6th, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    Yeah, in fact, he often went by himself to Walnut Street as a boy and would sit next to W.O. Carver and his wife during the worship service. I think they were in charge of making sure he didn’t act up! Bro. Richard was baptized and called to preach there, as well. He celebrated his 50th anniversary the summer before last, and we wrote a brief biography of his life if you’re interested:

    http://barryfields.blogspot.com

    It’s the third post down from the top of the page

  6. Chris Poe December 9th, 2008 at 1:30 am

    Thanks for the link to the Eaton article. Great thoughts about the “rascally, complicated Eaton” as well as Baptist identity.