Benajah Harvey Carroll
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Benajah Harvey Carroll (December 27, 1843-November 11, 1914) was a Baptist pastor, theologian, teacher, and author.
Benajah Harvey was born near Carrollton, Mississippi on December 27, 1843, one of twelve children to Benajah and Mary Eliza (Mallard) Carroll. His father was a Baptist minister. He moved with his parents to Burleson County, Texas in 1858.
Carroll served in the army of the Confederate States of America 1862 to 1864. In 1865 he converted to Christianity at the age of 22. In 1866 he married Ellen Virginia Bell. After her death, he married Hallie Harrison in 1899.
Carroll was a denominational leader both in the Baptist General Convention of Texas (of which he was a leading founder) and the Southern Baptist Convention. Much of his rise to prominence developed through proving himself a formidable foe in controversy - including debates with Texas politicians, standing for board policies and convention authority in the Hayden controversy in the Baptist General Convention, and opposing the president of Southern Seminary during the Whitsitt controversy at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. While Carroll had Landmark tendencies, he was not the champion of the Landmark Movement some have made him to be. Of the four major controversies involving Landmark ideas, Carroll sided against the Landmarkers in three of the four. Only in the Whitsitt controversy did Carroll side with Landmarkers and, for Carroll, that controversy was about trustee authority, not Landmark beliefs. He led in founding the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas in 1908. He served as president of the seminary until his death.
Carroll's younger brother, James Milton, was also an important Baptist leader in Texas.
Carroll published 33 volumes of works, and is best known for his commentary, An Interpretation of the English Bible. Benajah Harvey Carroll died November 11, 1914, and is buried at the Oakwood Cemetery in Waco, Texas.
[edit] Quotations
"Keep the Seminary lashed to the Cross. If heresy ever comes in the teaching, take it to the faculty. If they will not hear you and take prompt action, take it to the trustees of the Seminary. If they will not hear you, take it to the Convention that appoints the Board of Trustees, and if they will not hear you, take it to the great common people of our churches. You will not fail to get a hearing then." --deathbed commission to Lee Scarborough, his successor as president of Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary.
"These modern devotees of higher criticism must wait each week for the mail from Germany to know what to believe or preach, to find out how much, if any of their Bibles remains." -- Theological Seminaries and Wild Gourds
"The modern cry 'less creed and more liberty'is the degerneration from the vertebrate to the jelly fish, and means less unity and less morality, and it means more heresy."-- An Interpretation of the English Bible
"It is a positive and hurtful sin to magnify liberty at the expense of doctrine." -- Ibid.
[edit] References
- Fighting the Good Fight: The Life and Work of B. H. Carroll, Alan J. Lefever, Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1994
- A Texas Baptist Power Struggle: The Hayden Controversy, Joseph E. Early, Jr., University of North Texas Press, 2005; ISBN 1-57441-195-0
- Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, Vol. 1, Broadman Press, 1958
[edit] See also
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