“My feeble efforts among Africa's millions seem like a drop of water in the desert sand. May the Lord convert them like a spark to dry stubble.” —Thomas Jefferson Bowen

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The First Baptist Church in Brazil was organized in Santa Bárbara do Oeste, SP, on September 10, 1871. In the context of the celebrations of the sesquicentennial of Baptists in Brazil, it is opportune to honor the memory of Rev. Thomas Jefferson Bowen. He was the first missionary sent by Southern Baptists to Africa. Bowen served in present-day Nigeria, where he learned the Yoruba language. Apparently, he became the first Southern Baptist missionary to preach in a Muslim town, Ilori. He wrote some works, notably Grammar and Dictionary of the Yoruba People, admittedly an academic achievement published by the Smithsonian Institute. Due to health problems, he returned to the United States. However, his work in Africa leaves no doubt of his love for African peoples and his burning desire to preach the gospel.

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Most likely influenced by the book Brazil and Brazilians, written by Methodist missionaries Daniel Kidder and James Fletcher, Bowen volunteered to serve in Brazil. He, his wife Lurenna Henrietta Davis Bowen, and their two-year-old daughter Lurenna Henrietta Bowen (the same name as her mother) were sent by the Richmond Board (Foreign Mission Board, now called the International Mission Board) as missionaries to the country. 152 years ago, the family arrived in the city of Rio de Janeiro, on May 21, 1860.

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The family came to Rio de Janeiro to start Baptist work. He settled at the Grand Hotel White, in Alto da Boa Vista, Tijuca, where the climate was milder for the family with fragile health and there was a flow of foreigners in the region with whom they could talk. TJ Bowen had a lot of plans. In correspondence with the Junta de Missões, he expressed his desire to work among blacks with whom he was familiar with the Yoruba language, perhaps starting a training school. Bowen wanted to reach people with the gospel, but he faced many obstacles in his mission. The aristocratic elite was a problem, especially in a society that approved of slavery. The opposition of the Roman clergy, always hostile to the Protestants, as well as the indisposition of the press, dominated by traditional families of the city, were humanly insurmountable barriers.

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The intention of renting a house in the city, from which the work could begin, was not realized. After months of trying, the family was unable to settle in the city. Resistance to evangelical missionaries was a reality in the Brazilian culture of Roman Catholic formation, whose opening would take place, gradually, from the end of the 19th century. Financial limitations also weighed, but it was health problems that led Bowen to make the difficult decision to return to the United States. “The mission in Brazil didn't last long because Thomas' health took a turn for the worse and the field was tougher than he expected,” reports David Brady.

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From his arrival in Brazil, on May 21, 1860, to his return to his homeland, on February 9, 1961, there are only eight months and nineteen days. However, Bowen and family failed in the mission among Brazilians? I do not think so. Sovereign grace triumphed, using mysteriously perfect ways to make the seed of the gospel blossom through Baptists in Brazil. God had greater plans and his designs were never thwarted.

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Converted at age 26 (1840), Bowen began preaching and was soon ordained to the ministry of the Word. The Ratcliff family was one of the first he won to Christ before serving a mission in Nigeria. Richard Ratcliff, then a teenager, was converted by listening to Bowen's preaching. Six years after his father in the faith had returned to the US, on January 24, 1867, Richard arrived in Brazil. He would become the pastor of the First Baptist Church on Brazilian soil, founded on September 10, 1871, in the city of Santa Bárbara do Oeste, SP. He came to Brazil as a settler, but ten years earlier he had applied to the Richmond Board to serve in Africa. The plans were interrupted by the American Civil War (1861-1865), but it pleased God that Richard played an important part in the mosaic of Providence in favor of Baptist work in Brazil. Although there were other pastors among the American settlers, Ratcliff had the honor of organizing the church that would ask the Richmond Mission Board to send missionaries to evangelize the country. The exchange of correspondence between the Baptists of Santa Bárbara do Oeste and that organization is a treasure of Baptist historiography and serves as great encouragement for us to continue the work that the pioneers started.

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The Baptist Church in Santa Barbara made a historic appeal to the Board of Missions in Richmond, Virginia. The request was that “missionaries to this country” be sent. They were settlers who had come to Brazil after the American Civil War. In the interior of São Paulo, they joined other Americans in a growing community that would give rise to the city of Americana. These early Baptists on Brazilian soil loved Brazil and prayed that the gospel of grace would flourish in the land that had welcomed them. The Southern Baptist Convention had already made efforts to promote the gospel in the country but did not see the possibility of renewing them due to other demands and limited resources.

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It pleased God to use one person to mobilize Baptists to lift their eyes to Brazil: Alexander Travis Hawthorne. A lawyer and general in the US Army, Hawthorne had spent a few years in Brazil. Back in his homeland, he was one of the Baptists most enthusiastic about the possibility of resuming missionary activities in the country. He had personally met Emperor Dom Pedro II, from whom he had obtained carte blanche to travel throughout the country. Hawthorne had good impressions of the Imperial government in relation to Protestants. He said: "The government is just and stable, wisely administered, offering ample security of life, liberty, and property, government that recognizes merit, and promptly punishes criminals." In 1880, during the Southern Baptist Convention in Lexington, Hawthorne was designated as rapporteur for the Commission that would present an opinion on the reopening of work in Brazil. With the eloquence of a skilled lawyer, he argued in favor of sending new missionaries, and persuaded the Baptists gathered at that assembly to make the following decision: “That the Board of Foreign Missions be authorized to appoint other missionaries to work in Brazil”. In the following two years, missionaries William and Anne Bagby (1881), Zachary and Kate Taylor (1882) were sent to Brazil to restart Baptist work in the country. ZC In Brazil, Taylor met with Ratcliff and was encouraged by him to deepen his theological studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (presided over by Rev. James P. Boyce). Richard Ratcliff returned to the US eleven years later, after the death of his wife.

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Thomas Bowen died in the US on November 24, 1875, at the age of 62. He must have been glad to know that Rev. Richard Ratcliff, his son in the faith, was an instrument in the Lord's hands to organize the First Baptist Church in Brazil and to summon Southern Baptists to send missionaries to evangelize Brazilians. "While TJ Bowen's initial attempt in Brazil may be considered by some to be a failure, his inspiration and influence, especially on Richard Ratcliff, were instrumental in establishing one of the Southern Baptists' greatest missionary successes," says Jim Hardwicke). Thomas Jefferson Bowen sowed the seeds of Baptists in Brazil. The small mustard seed grew into a leafy tree. His tears and trials were not in vain. What I had said about working in Africa was fulfilled in Brazil. His efforts were like a drop of water in the desert, but God turned them into a spark in dry stubble. As David J. Brady stated, “Thomas Jefferson Bowen is to be remembered with great gratitude because he lived, not to bring glory to himself, but to Jesus Christ.”.

"The memory of the righteous is blessed...". Prov 10.7a

May God be glorified among the Baptists of Brazil.

TeoBrasil

Judiclay Santos

Judiclay Santos is senior pastor at Jardim Botânico Baptist Church in Rio de Janeiro. Graduated from the Baptist Theological Seminary of Southern Brazil, RJ. He completed his Masters in Divinity, with an emphasis on Historical Theology at the Andrew Jumper Studies Center, at Mackenzie Presby-terian University, SP. He teaches at the Martin Bucer Seminary, in São José dos Campos-SP. Founder and Executive Director of Pro Nobis Editora.

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Baptists in Brazil

Source:

pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igreja_Batista

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Baptist missionaries are among the first groups of Protestant missionaries in the country, having been preceded by some missionaries from other denominations, especially Congregational and Presbyterian, being also contemporaries of the first Methodist missionaries in Brazil. 

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The beginnings of the history of Baptists in Brazil date back to the second half of the 19th century, when foreign missionaries, mostly Americans, arrived in the country to start the work of Protestant evan-gelization, in a nation that until then was officially and socially Catholic. The missionaries spread biblical reading among the population, disseminated Protestant teachings, and founded the first churches with Brazilians who had adhered to the doctrine.

The evangelistic missions were helped by the work of colporteurs, that is, street vendors of copies of the Holy Bible, several of whom were also of foreign origin; colporteurs played a fundamental role in making the Scriptures available to the population of the time, whose access to the sacred texts was precarious.

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In addition, the evangelistic work already started by Presbyterians and Congregationalists, especially the missionary couple Robert and Sarah Kelley, contributed to the dissemination of Protestant Christianity among the population, before and during the work of Baptist missionaries. It is worth noting that the Kalley couple, to which the Brazilian Protestant movement as a whole is heir, adhered to the doctrine according to which baptism should preferably be voluntary, according to New Testament teaching, although they preferred not to adhere to any specific Protestant group. , despite its Presbyterian / Congregational origins. 

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The first Baptist missionary in Brazil is believed to have been the American Thomas Jefferson Bowen. Previously he was an American missionary in Nigeria, having worked among the native Yoruba tribe.  After some time in Africa, he returned to the United States and was sent, in 1860, to Brazil, as there were many slaves in the country who spoke the Yoruba dialect., as it was the common language among the trafficked blacks, and who therefore could understand the evangelistic message in their own language, with Bowen's help. Eight months later, he had to return to his country, this time permanently, due to health problems and also because Brazilian regional authorities prevented him from preaching the gospel since his message contradicted some teachings of Catholicism, the country's official religion until then.

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Subsequently, due to the devastation caused by the American Civil War (1861-1865), thousands of farmers from the southern United States emigrated to places where there was the land of agricultural potential, including Brazil. Soon, in 1867, more than fifty thousand Americans disembarked in Brazilian ports in search of refuge and land for cultivation. Moving to the mainland, they chose the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste to acquire land and settle there. Among the émigrés, most professed Protestantism, and many were Baptists. As early as 1870, they published a " Manifesto for the Evangelization of Brazil ". This manifesto, as soon as it was published, had the signatures of Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and a Baptist, the young pastor Richard Ratcliff, one of the émigrés, whose family had converted through Thomas Jefferson Bowen in the United States. In 1871, Baptists emigrants from the United States organize the " First Baptist Church in Brazil for Foreigners " in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste. Years later, in 1879, another group of emigrants created the second Baptist Church on Brazilian soil, also in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, in the Estação neighborhood, currently belonging to the city of Americana.

Capela do Campo, in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, the city where the first Baptist church in Brazil was founded in 1871 by American immigrants, in the interior of the state of São Paulo.

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The Baptists of that time, in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, joined together to ask the Board of Richmond, in the United States, to send missionaries to Brazil. In 1881, the first missionaries arrived: the couple William Buck Bagby and Anne Luther Bagby and the couple Zachary Clay Taylor and Katharine Steves Crawford Taylor. The first missionaries, as soon as they were received in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, joined the existing Baptist church and began to study the Portuguese language, having as their teacher Antônio Teixeira de Albuquerque, who had previously been ordained a Catholic priest at the Seminary of Olinda., however, he had left Catholicism and become a Protestant, later adhering to the Baptist doctrine and being ordained a pastor by the presbytery of the Baptist Church of Santa Bárbara.

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It was not long before the two missionary couples, joining Antônio Teixeira de Albuquerque, headed for the State of Bahia, where, on October 15, 1882, they organized in the state capital the first Baptist congregation formed by Brazilians, having called the " First Baptist Church of Brazil for Brazilians ", which would officially be the first Baptist church in Brazil, although there were already two other Baptist churches organized by North American immigrants, residing in the region of Santa Bárbara do d'Oeste and Amer- icana. , in Sao Paulo.  Within a year, that church had seventy members.

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From Salvador, the missionaries went to other capitals, planting churches. Back in the state of São Paulo, with other newly arrived missionaries, the Bagby's and Taylors were organizing other new churches from 1899 onwards in São Paulo, Jundiaí, Santos, Jacareí, Campinas, São José dos Campos, among other cities. In 1904, there were seven Baptist churches in the state of São Paulo. These, meeting in Jundiaí, organized, in 1904, the Baptist Convention of the State of São Paulo, then called União Baptista Paulistana. However, it is worth noting that the missionary Salomão Luiz Ginsburghad was the first to suggest, still in 1894, the organization of a national convention of Brazilian Baptists, an ideal that would come to fruition in 1907. 

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Prior to the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889, Brazil's official religion was Roman Catholic, as set out in the Imperial Constitution of 1824, and there were limitations on freedom of worship, although worship itself and dissemination (preaching) were permitted. It is worth noting, in this context, that Emperor D. Pedro II held the missionary couple Kalley in high esteem, and never opposed the emergence of Protes-tantism .in the country; on the contrary, he was an avid reader of the Holy Bible, and even listened to the missionaries personally, having been enchanted by the Holy Scriptures. There are even records that when a Protestant colporteur (Bible seller) was arrested, because of his activity, by a delegate in Sergipe, the emperor promptly ordered his release, pointing out that there was no justification for the arrest since the laws of the Empire did not forbid that activity. 

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Nevertheless, there was strong intolerance against Protestants among the population; Baptist missionary Salomão Luiz Ginsburg, for example, was in danger of death, because of a crowd that came with hoes and sticks towards him, believing that he was one of the antichrists of the last days, as the local priest had said.   However, in 1891 religious freedom would be enshrined in the new Constitution, but it would still be many decades before Baptists and other evangelical groups were better accepted by society.

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In the first twenty-five years of work (since 1882), Bagby and Taylor, aided by other missionaries, and by an increasing number of Brazilians, evangelists and pastors had already organized 83 Churches, with approximately 4200 members. Zacarias Taylor, AB Deter, and Salomão Ginsburg then agreed to proceed with the plan to create a nationwide convention. Then they got the support of other missionaries and Brazilian leaders, including Francisco Fulgencio Soren. Thus, in 1907, in Salvador, with the presence and support of forty-three representatives, delegates, and messengers, sent by thirty-nine churches and congregations, the first assembly of the Brazilian Baptist Convention was held in a solemn session .

The basic motivation for the creation of the Convention was missions, and then there was talk of the evangelization of Portugal, Chile, and Africa. Two Mission Boards were created: one for National Missions and one for Foreign Missions (today World Missions ). In addition to these, several other Juntas was created; altogether seven. The areas of Missions, Religious Education and Publications, Theological Education and Education (in general) were the ones that received the most attention from the conventional ones. Over the decades, Baptist churches grew and multiplied, and evangelism was actively carried out by church members, as well as by pastors and missionaries, both Brazilian and foreign. Hundreds of missionaries were sent by North American churches and boards to the most remote regions of Brazil, and later teachers and educators would come to deepen and consolidate theological teaching in the seminaries, many of which were built thanks to the contribution and funding of American Baptists.

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In the 1950s, the first Baptists appeared in Brazil who confessed to the observance and rest of the seventh day of the week ( Saturday ). After the rejection of Ellen G. White's prophecies by some members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Paraná , they founded a church with the name "Evangelical Seventh-day Adventists" in 1913. Because they aligned themselves with Baptist doctrines, in 1950 they adopted the name of Seventh Day Baptist Church in Brazil. In 1965, Brazilian Seventh-day Baptist churches joined the Seventh-day Baptist World Federation.  Currently, the Seventh Day Baptist Church is organized around the Brazilian Seventh Day Baptist Conference.

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In the 1960s, the advent of Pentecostal and renewed (charismatic) doctrines and practices, to which some members and churches adhered, and the resulting controversies between those who accepted the new doctrines and those who did not, would culminate in the rupture of several historic Protestant denominations in Brazil, including the Baptists. In this context, in relation to the Brazilian Baptist Convention, those churches that had joined the Pentecostal renewal movement were disconnected; these churches came together to create the charismatic-oriented National Baptist Convention, unrelated to the first convention. [ 33 ]Since then, the first group is labeled by the second as "traditional Baptists", with a pejorative connotation, while the second group is sometimes not considered as authentically "Baptist" by the first. In 2007, the president of the Brazilian Baptist Convention, Nilson Fanini , proposed the possibility that the two conventions could come together again; however, the controversy over Pentecostal doctrines remains a factor of controversy to the present day, not only among Baptists but in Christianity as a whole, even among Catholics. 

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Baptist Education in Brazil

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Education can be considered a visible mark of the Baptist people. His passion for the study of the Bible developed an interest in religious education, cultivated in the Churches through training organizations and the Sunday School. As a result, Baptist temples became true educational complexes, including the establishment of libraries,  founded in 1907-1908, based in Rio de Janeiro; remains to this day as one of the main centers of Baptist theological teaching in the country.

Along with Religious  Education came Theological Education. Initially through classes given by the missionaries in their homes, then the Seminars emerged: Baptist Theological Seminary of Northern Brazil, organized in Recife , PE by Salomão Ginsburg on April 1, 1902, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, founded by missionary John Watson Shepard, in the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1908. To these two seminaries were added dozens of others spread across the country, with thousands of students. 

The so-called General or Secular Education had the same origin: the desire to open up opportunities for the study of youth and to create schools with the capacity to exert influence over Brazilian society. Taylor Egídio College, founded in Salvador by Laura Taylor and Captain Egídio Pereira de Almeida, was the first to succeed. In 1922 it was transferred to the city of Jaguaquara , where it still exists today..

After him came the Colégio Batista Brasileiro de São Paulo; American Baptist College of Recife; Batista Industrial Institute in Corrente (PI); American College, in Vitória; Baptist Shepard College in Rio de Janeiro; Baptist College Alagoas in Alagoas; Colégio Batista Fluminense in Campos dos Goytacazes; Baptist Mineiro College , in Belo Horizonte. In addition to these colleges, dozens of others were organized with the help of missionaries or on the initiative of churches and state conventions. The contribution of Baptists in the field of education is truly remarkable, considering both quality and quantity. Currently, about two million Brazilians have already attended Baptist schools. 

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