William Owen Carver's Controversies in the Baptist South

William Owen Carver (18681954) was a denominational stalwart and longtime professor of Missions and Comparative Religion at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who for over four decades educated the denomination's ministers and missionaries. He was considered one of the brightest minds in the growing denomination. He was a prolific writer, managing editor of the SBC academic journal Review & Expositor, and the first president of the Southern Baptist Historical Society.

In addition to these contributions, he was a Southern Baptist ahead of his time, gently prodding Southern Baptists to see beyond the narrow confines of theological conservatism and embrace the dangerous, modern world. But Carver encountered many controversies, some of which still resonate in our world today. Carver's controversies illustrate how free-thinking denominational leaders interacted with their more conservative constituency as they sought to orient the denomination to the modern world.