Columbia's First Baptist Church marks 200 years by facing beauty and sin in its history

Two hundred years ago, on Nov. 22, 1823, 11 people gathered at the home of Charles and Hannah (Jewell) Hardin Sr. to organize the city's first church.

At the time, it was known as the Columbia Church. As the years progressed, it would become known as First Baptist Church. The church will celebrate its 200th year with a special service at 11:15 a.m. Nov. 12. A luncheon follows at the Kimball Ballroom on the Stephens College campus. RSVPs were needed.

Nov. 22 is the day before Thanksgiving this year.

While there were other Baptist churches formed in Boone County — Bethel Church in 1817, Little Bonne Femme Baptist Church in 1819 — before Missouri's formation as a state in 1821 and the founding of Columbia that same year, First Baptist was the first in the city.

The person compiling the church history is Ken Hammann, who throughout the year has published articles on the church's history in the church newsletter, The Spire. He took on this role from Joanie and Richard Sorrels, who were the first people who had an interest in preserving and archiving the church's history, Hammann said.

"Doing the history is in respect of Joanie and thanking the church for welcoming my family without question 37 years ago. That was one of the things that greatly impressed me. All you need to do is come, and if you want to get involved we’ll happily involve you," he said.

Along with special services all throughout the last year and other special projects and events, Hammann is compiling and editing a 700-page book on the church's history, which is available for order, with an expected delivery date in mid-January.

"Our history is a lot, and it was spread out in ring binders, file folders, file cabinets. It is a compilation of our history. We have two formal written histories. That's 400-plus pages. The rest is chronologies and acknowledgements largely outlined in (what I have written)," Hammann said.

Christmas ornaments commemorating the anniversary are to be available in November. The church also will create a time capsule which will have a special sealing service in January or February.

Progressive ideals

When an outsider hears the word Baptist, it is easy to assume the church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, and therefore more conservative in its traditions and practices.

First Baptist, however, is dually aligned with the Cooperative Baptist and American Baptist denomination, and thus is a progressive congregation.

The church, in fact, seven years ago went through a process to be a welcoming and affirming church for the LGBTQ community.

While the church lauds its progressiveness, including welcoming senior pastor Carol McEntyre in 2012, which meant the church would be asked to leave the Mid-Missouri Baptist Association over her hiring, it also is taking time to recognize its connections to enslavement of the county's Black population 200 years ago.

"We have been on this journey of becoming more aware and we just knew as we started planning the anniversary, we couldn’t only look at the beautiful parts of our history, but we had to look at, I would say, the sinful parts of our history," McEntyre said.

Connections to slavery and putting a focus on racial justice

Six of the 11 people who met at Hardin's home were enslavers. Throughout Hammann's history articles provided to the Tribune, it notes the church's founding was based on a "distorted view of the gospel of Jesus Christ and (the church is) working to acknowledge, confess and become actively anti-racist in our faith."

Among those enslaver founders was William C. Jewell, namesake of William Jewell College in Liberty. He emancipated a portion of those he enslaved prior to his death. Following his death in 1852, during the construction of his namesake college, only one of the two remaining people he had enslaved were freed.

The church held a special truth telling, lament and commitment service Oct. 22 to read the 53 names of those enslaved by church members. These names were found both in church records — including in the journal that records the founding of the church — and slave census records from the time.

The church recognizes that this only is a small portion of those enslaved by its members. Records from church minutes date from 1823 to 1844, Hammann said. Church-specific records are unavailable for 1845-1865. In the 1860 census, nearly 45% of all Columbia residents were enslaved.

"We are trying to honor them and lament our involvement in this evil practice and commit that we are going to continue the work of racial justice moving forward. It’s a lifelong commitment," McEntyre said about the special service. " ... (Lament is) a spiritual practice of moving toward pain instead of away from it and expressing your depth of sorrow before God about it."

McEntyre was the main impetus behind the church putting a major focus on racial justice and recognizing the church's overall — not just at First Baptist — legacy in perpetuating white supremacy.

She delivered a sermon Aug. 13, 2017, which was the day after the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"I just got up and said, 'You know, there were white supremacists in the street. We have to be engaged in racial justice work in the world and try and bring about equality for all people,'" she said.

So, that started a process in the church of book studies, pilgrimages to civil rights sites, diversifying the music library with composers of color and ensuring black-owned businesses are utilized.

Having a racial justice team at the church did not turn people off and has brought more people to the church because of the work it has done and speakers it has featured, McEntyre said.

'No stained-glass ceiling'

While the church laments it connections to slavery, it still has other aspects from its history that are worthy of celebration, such as always having women in some form of leadership position since the church's founding.

"Our inclusion of women is phenomenal. We were kind of ahead of our time in the inclusion of women," McEntyre said. "... We ordained the first woman to the gospel ministry. We had a woman who chaired the capital campaign for when we built the sanctuary in the 1950s. We like to say there is no stained-glass ceiling here."

Three of church's founders were women: the already mentioned Hannah Hardin, Harriett Goodloe and Mary Jewell. In the first 100-plus years women were in more traditional roles, but even in that early history their leadership progressively increased and moved to the forefront, Hammann wrote in one of his history articles.

The women of the church in 1876 recognized a call to action when nearly all the male church leadership resigned, including the pastor. While all of these later were rescinded, the role of women in church decision-making and fundraising would expand.

There is both inclusion and support of women in the church's history.

Church member James L. Stephens and a contribution of $20,000 in 1870 (nearly $500,000 in today's dollars) to a then-struggling Baptist women's college would lead to its transformation. That higher education facility still is known as Stephens College. His son, E.W. Stephens, another significant Columbia figure, would go on to be dubbed the "best-known Baptist layman." Six of the church's pastors also were Stephens College presidents.

Even though it took 152 years, the board of deacons first welcomed women to its ranks in 1975. The church, in the last 46 years, has ordained three women into the ministry: Moray Loring Kiehl in 1977, Ashley Peake in 1989 and Brittany McDonald Null in 2020, who also now is an associate pastor at the church.

Other notable church connections to Missouri history

• William Jewell was part of the committee that bid for the University of Missouri's construction in Boone County, putting up $1,800 of his own money, roughly $60,200 in today's dollars, according to inflation calculator Official Data.

• William Jewell founds African colonization society in 1843. It failed after two years. It sought to repatriate formerly enslaved people to Africa, even if they were born and raised in the United States.

• Charles Hardin Jr., son of one of the First Baptist founders, was Missouri governor from January 1875 to February 1877.

Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Columbia's First Baptist Church celebrates 200th anniversary