God's Economy: Free of Special Interests
A case study of how the (economic) tail can wag the dog(ma).
In this installment of our Active Measures Substack series on God’s Economy, we examine how economic (special) interests can impact theology. In other words, God’s Economy would contrast with the corruptibility of the “worldly” market in which we live, and breathe and have our being.
It is helpful to explore the dynamics at play in the conventional economy in order to identify those elements which would be absent in God’s Economy. To do that, we might attempt a case study.
So, we might consider an example of how one locality’s economic interests influenced (national!) theology. This particular example is instructive because it practically isolates cause-and-effect forces: they are “isolatable” here since this example springs from a historically and geographically isolated instance .
Additionally, this example provides a clean focus on a single “independent variable”: the influence of a Planter Class. Not only does this bring in a factor (a class) not often considered in biography-rich accounts of history, it allows us to drill down to specific economic forces.
A Unique Place in Time and Space: Beaufort, SC is even today an amazing place: it has played many impactful roles in almost all major US conflicts — ranging from the American Revolution to modern-day deployments. Beaufort County is also ecologically significant along the East Coast, recognized as part of one of the most biodiverse and ecologically important regions in the United States. And it has amazing geography: It surrounds Port Royal Sound, a safe haven during the heyday of Hispaniola, big enough, it was said, to protect the entire Spanish Armada from storms. All this and many other factors make modern Beaufort County a (mind-numbingly) complex of moving parts.
Some of that complexity, even back then, played into producing a fertile economy we will explore in the case study.
And it was from that rich primordial stew of natural and strategic advantages that sprung a significant and lasting influence on the US faith community during the antebellum years: specificaly its outsized role in the the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention (in 1844-5). So, to cut to the chase, we begin our story: In Augusta, Georgia, in 1845, highly influenced by the Lowcountry Planter Culture, Baptists in the south decided that a “split” with the larger Baptist chruch was in order. In this moment and later, the Lowcountry and its planter class played an outsized role influencing the structure, the funding and indeed, and the very theology of this organization which is still a huge spiritual force in the US and (though missions) well beyond.
The Southern Baptist Convention is a really big deal: the denomination currently has about 12 million members (down from about 16 million in its heyday.) As to its influence, for a quick example, at one time the President and the next three officials in line for the presidency were Baptists: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich (for decades), and Strom Thurmond…and several more further “down the line.” Currently, House Speaker Mike Johnson, in addition to being a most powerful person in the federal government, is possibly the denomination’s most influential policy shaper.
Indeed, historically, through Southern Baptists such as J D Rockefeller, Harry Truman, MLK, Johnny Cash, Brad Pitt, and Snoop Dog (to name a very few), the Southern Baptist Convention — through those with its upbringing — has had powerful influence in the modern world and its religious and governmental institutions.
So, it may be worth our while to examine the discrete economic time and place which influnced this historical and present-day societal force.
A Distinctive Plantation Society
One overlooked factor when we recount the contributions of individuals (which is the way history is told, by and large), is the context, and specifically, the influence of the Planter Class. However politically correct-or-incorrect it is to talk about “class”, this woke-sounding factor must be considered, here especially.
By the antebellum period, Beaufort District represented one of the most intensive plantation environments in North America. Several interlocking characteristics defined the region:
Exceptionally high ratios of enslaved to free inhabitants, often exceeding those of other Southern districts
Substantial concentrations of wealth derived from Sea Island cotton production
Dense kinship networks among elite families, reinforcing social cohesion and political coordination
Geographic fragmentation across marshes and barrier islands, contributing to cultural insularity. (This is not to be overlooked.)
These features produced a society simultaneously affluent and structurally dependent upon enslaved labor. Such dependence generated ongoing concern regarding moral legitimacy, social stability, and external criticism.
Theological Emphases in a Slaveholding Context
The Lowcountry did not uniformly deny the moral seriousness of slavery. Rather, many leading figures framed the issue through a particular Protestant lens emphasizing individual salvation, personal conscience, and scriptural authority.
Clergy such as Richard Fuller and Basil Manly Sr. articulated arguments that may be summarized as follows:
Christianity addresses the redemption of individuals rather than the restructuring of civil institutions.
Scripture regulates slavery but does not explicitly prohibit it.
Therefore, slaveholding, while morally hazardous, cannot be categorically defined as sinful.
The ethical burden rests on humane treatment and evangelization rather than abolition.
Also, some claimed the plantation system afforded the great “civilizing” opportunity through education, evangelism, and governance — a controversial claim debated both at the time and by later historians.
This philosophical approach allowed ministers to support both biblical fidelity and the existing social order! In practice, it shifted the moral focus to the character of participants within it.
Such reasoning also resonated with broader Baptist emphases on:
The primacy of personal conversion (which actually buttressed existing systems as a back-door rationalization for enslavement. We’re saving souls.)
Local church autonomy
Suspicion of centralized religious authority (note: remember the ant-Pope tracks on your windshield?)
The sufficiency of Scripture (which probably plowed the ground for fundamentalism’s focus on literalism.)
In any case, this theological posture functioned to accommodate — intentionally or otherwise — the interests of the planter.
From Local Conditions to National Consequences
Anyway, we might describe a sequence of developments (although no one would argue they are linear) through which Lowcountry conditions influenced the wider denominational crisis as this:
Sea Island plantation society → concern for moral and social legitimacy → theological defense of slaveholding → institutional separation → organizational consolidation → doctrinal perpetuation
Key figures associated with these stages include:
Richard Fuller and Basil Manly Sr., who articulated theological defenses grounded in scriptural interpretation and pastoral concerns.¹
Robert Barnwell Rhett, who advanced a more overtly political doctrine portraying slavery as foundational to Southern civilization.²
William Bullein Johnson and James Petigru Boyce, who contributed to the creation of a separate denominational structure capable of operating independently of Northern institutions.
Patrick Hues Mell, whose procedural leadership helped stabilize the new organization.
Basil Manly Jr., wdho participated in developing educational institutions to sustain the denomination’s theological orientation.
Seeing these prominent LowCountry planters listed here in the context of most all of the key “founding fathers” illustrates the Plantation Culture’s disproportionate influence. Once again, trying to achieve true historical understanding by singling out individuals, outside of context — in this case, the list of SBC founders — as we tend to teach history these days) ironically minimizes these planters’ significance!
A Coastal–Interior Coalition
Of course, the split and the later canonization of the denomination’s precepts cannot be attributed to a single (Lowcountry) locality. Rather, it emerged from collaboration between regions with complementary strengths.
Coastal elites, particularly those in Charleston and the Sea Islands, contributed:
Financial resources
Intellectual leadership
Social prestige
Confidence in the moral defensibility of their system
Interior Baptists supplied:
Large congregational bases
Revivalist energy
Organizational capacity
A less hierarchical but broadly pro-Southern constituency
The resulting alliance proved sufficiently robust to sustain a new national denomination.
But this small backwater region figures prominently
Modern observers remark that a relatively small coastal district appears repeatedly in narratives of national religious history. Yet this prominence reflects the convergence of wealth, social cohesion, and strategic position within the Lowcountry.
In such contexts, local concerns can exert influence far beyond their geographic boundaries. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Sea Islands constituted a focal point where economic interests, theological interpretation, and political ideology intersected with unusual intensity.
Recognizing and highlighting this specific instance underscores the degree to which local economic interests can shape institutions — and even thought systems — with enduring national consequences.
Beaufort’s Leaders had a reinforcing impact
In summary, the Southern Baptist Convention which these men helped establish — and ultimately harden into — sprung from the economics of the time.
Of course, we can also learn from their rationalizations and from the distance of time, and ask questions like: Is what’s good for the planters also good for the populous? It’s an assumption we still hear today: "The United States is the largest oil producer in the world, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money," (Thursday post on Truth Social.) When we hear this, it’s still incumbent on all — believers and non believers — to stop and ask who “we” are!
Yes, we have to stop and question if not the indoctrination powers of Faith System, it’s usefulness in reinforcing cultural elements which anure to special interests. One of the Baptists’ most significant and important theological themes and contribution to American success has always been Separation of Church and State. That should extend to mean keeping up the wall of “separation between church and state” leaders’ own personal and political interests. And we have to bring the clarity that modern-day perspectives can bring to history.
It should also be said, we can all stand to gain from a reminder of the pitfalls of relativism, which used to be a pro-social rallying cry of Christian Conservatism.
The ends don’t justify the means
Perhaps the greatest caution in this tale is how susceptible spiritual purity and potency and policy is to status quo agendas of organized religion itself.
Notes on Beaufort Connections
1. Richard Fuller was born on nearby St. Helena Island, experienced a religious awakening at St. Helena’s Episcopal Church, and briefly, but very instrumentally, served as pastor of Beaufort Baptist Church before assuming a prominent pulpits in other large East Coast parishes. Incidentally, under his leadership, the Beaufort church constructed the existing Greek-Revival meetinghouse.
2. Basil Manly Sr. served as pastor of the Baptist Meeting House in Beaufort during the 1830s, ministering within the same plantation society whose concerns later shaped Southern Baptist theology.
3. Robert Barnwell Rhett was born in Beaufort District (St. Helena Parish) and maintained strong familial and social ties to the region despite a political career centered in Charleston.
4. William Bullein Johnson — the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention — is generally reported in biographical sources as having been born in the Charleston area rather than in Beaufort District. However, his family origins were not confined to Charleston. His father, also named William Johnson, was born in St. Helena Parish in the Beaufort region. They shared economic interests and property interests that spanned multiple coastal districts. Such holdings typically included plantation lands, town residences, agricultural operations, and — central to the regional economy of the period — enslaved people treated in law as property. Through these interlinked assets, along with marriage alliances and commercial ties, Charleston and Beaufort formed a single social and economic sphere in which influence, capital, and leadership circulated across the coastal plain.