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Sunday, 30 August 2009 06:00 |
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Baptists and Social Ministries— Nannie Helen Burroughs
Jesus in Matthew 25 proclaimed the righteousness of those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit prisoners. Many Baptists in America in the early twentieth-century took his words to heart in an era of urban poverty, widespread lack of education, child labor, and racial prejudice.
 Many northern Baptists in the early and mid-nineteenth century advocated for abolitionism, forming an early foundation for what would become broadly known as social ministry. Empowering women, social ministry in Baptist life found primary expression in the temperance movement in the late nineteenth century. Initially focusing on family problems brought about by alcohol abuse, many Baptist women by the turn of the century were activists for broad-based family-focused social ministries. Few Baptist women achieved more in terms of social ministries than Nannie Helen Burroughs, an entrepreneurial religious leader and educator.
Born in Virginia in 1879 to former slaves, Burroughs’s father died when she was five, and her mother subsequently moved the family to Washington D.C. in hopes of obtaining a better education for her daughter. Heeding her mother’s advice, |
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Last Updated on Sunday, 28 March 2010 16:39 |
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