SanghaToday Blog

Kansas City in its early days was the arena of fierce competition between the largest religion groups - Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists - in order to gain domination. Jews, Episcopalians and Catholics were among the other smaller groups whose political, economic and social presence was also visible. Being too centralized, Presbyterians, lacked pastors and ministers for their churches, and attracting educated members was one of the solutions. They were also the first ones to use Kansas City Translation Services companies in order to attract members from foreign communities. Methodists, whose first congregation was established in 1808, gained early advantage in members because they proclaimed that any sinner could claim God’s grace. Baptists also established their first church in 1808 but they were torn by internal disagreements about Calvinism, with some of them open to the prospect of free will, while others being democratic and hyper-Calvinist. Sunday schools, ministerial titles and salaried clergy and all other forms of denominational education were rejected by the latter Baptists, which Presbyterians did not do. Most Baptist churches paid ministers nothing at all or if they got some money it was to cover their basic living expenses. An average of 100,000 people were members of the major churches by the time the Civil War started. These were the Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists.

The division of the Christian denominations in Saint Louis was within themselves and the issues they argues over were race, class, gender and theology. For example, women were not allowed to the podium of any churches and most of them sat separated from men. Citizens from the lower levels of the society were not allowed in the affluent churches, and neither were women allowed to vote in church business meetings. Yet another restrictive feature concerned slaves, who could not hold any leadership positions like serving as pastors, and they were also seated in separate sections. After the 1830s, there was a state law which stated that whites had to attend services at which black preachers spoke to their own people. There were exceptions though and one of them was the Rev. Harlan Bartholomew, who was so popular that was frequently invited to preach at services attended by white people. During the post-war period, all the major denominations established schools and colleges to train ministers and priests. The Saint Louis State University was one of the institutions that took wholeheartedly the idea that future ministers had to be trained in foreign languages, so they provided the required assistance by assigning the task to its Saint Louis Translation Division. Some of the other colleges were Farrell College, Mortimer College, Brandon College and John Preston College.

The years before the Civil War were marked by a lot of tension and education was one of the spheres that were most negatively affected. Methodists did not stay with their national denominations and neither did the Baptists, which was explicable as white evangelicals ardently defended the institution of slavery. As white members had serious disagreement with black members over racial issues they forced them to leave the churches and even assisted them by providing financial support to them. Some prominent black pastors like Henry Springton and Patrick Hewitt turned into national religious leaders. With over 4,000 members, the latter was able to build his own congregation into arguably the largest black church in the state. He also established important contacts with Tampa Translation Services Bureau representatives as he needed assistance with the many immigrants and refugees that would become members of his newly-formed denomination. This guaranteed that black pastors could serve as social, business, educational, and political leaders within their communities.