I was born on January 1, 1940, in Danville, Kentucky. The hospital, thankfully, had an incubator and kept my four-pound and fourteen-ounce body safe for over six weeks. Family members thought it was a miracle I survived.
After World War II ended, my mom, dad and I moved to Shelbyville, my father’s hometown, where he opened Ellis Welding and Brazing Company. From an early age, I learned to weld, braze, solder and swing a sledgehammer.
I was among the last cohort of boys whose lives were not determined by organized sports. So I could roam my small world from our tiny home outside town.
I was free in the sense that I could work in the shop, tend a garden, ride my bicycle ten miles to Bagdad without my parents knowing and get beaten up by a bully or two. I knew saints as well as sinners.
At eight years old, I made a profession of faith in Jesus at Clayvillage Baptist Church. The church did not have a baptistry, so I was baptized at the Shelbyville First Baptist.
I was small for my age, so when the pastor placed his hand on my mouth and “dunked” me, my feet slipped on the wet floor and came out of the water. Because of this, I have joked over the years that I may actually be a Methodist.
A few years later, my family joined the Shelbyville church, where I attended Sunday School. I have multiple attendance pins to prove it.
I joined Royal Ambassadors and played on the church softball team, where our pitcher always had a drink or two before a game.
I also attended Georgetown College, where I played on the football team. While still a student, I married my wife, Charlotte, who goes by “Lottie,” in 1960, and I graduated in 1962.
I taught in public schools and coached high school football for four years. Lottie and I were blessed with the birth of our two kids, Eva and Bill. Our daughter became an elementary teacher and our son became a Baptist minister.
I was fortunate to attend a summer institute for history teachers at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) in the summer of 1966, where a stipend kept me from having to sell encyclopedias.
A year later, I enrolled in the graduate History program at EKU. For my thesis, I chose the “Kentucky Evolution Controversy” of the 1920s. I became enthralled with the religious leadership that developed against anti-evolution legislation.
One of those important leaders was Dr. E.Y. Mullins, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville. I delved into his papers, including his writings and personal correspondence, in the SBTS library.
My academic and religious views changed. I had never really studied evolution or its religious and educational ramifications until my mid-twenties.
I taught in a Kentucky mountain junior college for three years before accepting a teaching position at EKU. While still teaching, I pursued my Ph.D. in history at the University of Kentucky.
My dissertation topic was “Edgar Young Mullins: Southern Baptist Theologian, Administrator and Denominational Leader.” Mercer Press published the revised version of my Mullins work in 1985.
In a denomination steeped in conservative thought, Mullins’ work helped determine my pilgrimage from a “conservative” to a man of somewhat liberal leanings. He became my “beau ideal” of what a Baptist should become in the 20th century.
I became more moderate in my religion while becoming quite liberal in my views of science, particularly the controversial topic of evolution.
If God is great enough to create our world, then I cannot help but believe in the Holy One’s omnipotence. What keeps God from using evolution in creation through an extremely long series of changes?
As SBTS in Louisville became more fundamentalist, I joined a committee to found a moderate Baptist seminary in the mid-1990s. The committee, led by Dr. Greg Earwood, led to the creation of what would become the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky (BSK).
I retired from EKU in 1999. I was fortunate to have survived a major heart attack and on March 30, 2024, celebrated my 25th anniversary of five bypass heart surgery.
For the first five years after the founding of BSK, initially housed at Calvary Baptist Church in Lexington, I taught a course titled “Christianity and Culture.”
Dr. David Cassady succeeded President Earwood as president of BSK in 2016. The seminary has developed a strong relationship with Simmons College, a traditional African American school in Louisville, and a member of the National Baptist Convention of America.
Dr. John Lepper, the initial coordinator of the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship (KBF), appointed me to a KBF committee, which also placed me on a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship committee.
I attended national meetings and the annual Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly. At these gatherings, I learned more about our efforts to be an alternative to Baptist fundamentalism, which was becoming increasingly political.
My wife and I soon joined a wonderful KBF project, building a house for a deserving family in McCreary County each summer. I drove nails while my wife cooked for the flock that descended each year for this event. We have now become too old for such manual labor, but we still contribute financially each year.
In the meantime, my wife and I joined Calvary Baptist Church in Lexington. This church has been a blessing. Refusing to move from its downtown location, Calvary has become a centerpiece of what a Baptist church should be.
It is “moderate” in many ways, including having women and male deacons. Dr. Monty Stallins has replaced Dr. Bob Baker as pastor, while the associate pastor, Dr. Hank Ellington, will soon retire. The church’s programs are great.
As the old saying goes, “I’m Baptist born and Baptist bred, and when I die, I’ll be Baptist dead.”
Retired Foundation Professor of History, Eastern Kentucky University
