Isaac Taylor Tichenor: The Creation of the Baptist New South.

Isaac Taylor Tichenor: The Creation of the Baptist New South. Michael E. Williams Sr. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005. 240 pp.

The title of this book points to the importance of I. T. Tichenor for understanding the development of Southern Baptist identity at the end of the nineteenth century. Tichenor, the corresponding secretary of the Home Mission Board (HMB) from 1882 to 1899, contributed to the New South movement, which pushed the agrarian South to "modernize" by promoting industrialized business growth.

Prior to his stint with the HMB, Tichenor had been a coal mining executive and a college president (of what is now Auburn University). He is best known, however, as the Baptist leader who cemented a denominational identity for Southern Baptists. A zealous defender of southern sectionalism, he insisted that Baptists in the South cease their reliance upon Northern Baptist agencies. His sound business practices "saved" a struggling mission board, and he helped craft a denominational consciousness that made Baptists in the South proud to be separate. For Tichenor, to be Baptist and to be Southern were the same thing.

Author Michael E. Williams, Sr., does an excellent job of providing a "comprehensive analysis" of Tichenor's life. Coverage of Tichenor's career as a Confederate "fighting chaplain" (he killed at least two Union soldiers) reveals the sectionalism that undergirded his Baptist work. When Williams is unable to fill in the gaps of the historical record--it is uncertain why Tichenor resigned his chaplaincy post--cautious but viable theories are offered to the reader. The look at Tichenor's career at "Auburn" is also helpful. In fact, the major strength of Williams's study is the grounding of the Baptist story in the wider context of Southern history.

Baptist readers will learn much from the extensive treatment of Tichenor's ministry at the HMB. Excellent coverage is given to topics such as the board's work in Cuba, the corralling of Texas Baptists into the Southern Baptist Convention, and the setting of territorial boundaries by challenging Northern Baptist work in the Midwest.

Williams's treatment of Tichenor is sympathetic. The HMB leader is clearly considered THE pivotal character in Baptist life in the postbellum period. Still, Williams criticizes Tichenor on several fronts: his attraction to New South materialism, his imperialistic mission methods that reflected the wider Protestant exportation of American culture, and his educational work with African Americans and Appalachian whites that often functioned as "social control" in order to maintain the dominance of Anglo-Saxon superiority in Southern culture.

Although Williams does not discuss Tichenor's church affiliation during his HMB tenure, he was a member of Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, the wealthiest church in Georgia at that time. The church was filled with influential political/business leaders and HMB workers. Three persons identified by Williams as Tichenor's colleagues were church members (including pastor Henry McDonald). The close relationship between Second Baptist and the HMB provides additional support for Williams's thesis concerning the Baptist New South.

Future biographies of Baptist leaders should follow the example of this excellent work by Michael Williams that sets the Baptist story in the broader cultural environment.--Reviewed by Doug Weaver, assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies, department of religion, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.