By Bo Salisbury and Ryan Rindels
The state of Maine made national headlines earlier this summer when the Supreme Court decided by a 6–3 vote that residents could apply vouchers for private Christian schools, not only secular ones. Religious liberty advocates praised the ruling in Carson v. Makin, though its greatest impact will be felt in states with larger Christian populations.
Most New Englanders today are estranged from their Puritan and evangelical ancestry. Like western Europe, church buildings are up for sale, their congregations having long dissolved. A recent poll by Ryan P. Burge, asked participants in each state if they attended church at least once in the last year. Sixty-eight percent of Mainers said “no,” a number exceeded only by its southwestern neighbor, New Hampshire (70%).
Maine has an intriguing religious history. One of the earliest Baptist churches in America was located in Kittery. Persecution by the Congregationalist establishment caused its pastor, William Screven (1629–1713), to leave the state and establish the first Baptist church in South Carolina in 1695.
The District of Maine was a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until the Missouri Compromise granted it statehood in 1820. English Puritans first settled at Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Congregational churches possessed denominational and cultural hegemony for nearly two centuries. Missionaries such as John Eliot (1604–1690), “Apostle to the Indians,” and David Brained (1718–1747) in the century that followed, were Congregationalist. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1757) remained committed to the tradition despite his contemporaries’ skepticism about the nature and effects of revival that he defended by pen and pulpit.
Notably, the First Great Awakening, led by Edwards and George Whitefield, the Anglican, benefited New England Baptists more than any other tradition. During the last quarter of the eighteenth-century, however, the gospel had not adequately reached residents in the ever-expanding northern frontier. In A History of Education in Maine, Ava Harriet Chadbourne described the following:
The province had frequently been an asylum for those people who had been excommunicated. Since the early settlers had immigrated here merely for the purposes of gain they did not value their privileges as highly as the people of Massachusetts. The opinion generally prevailed that Maine was peopled by those who were too immoral and irreligious to be allowed to remain in other colonies and it used to be tauntingly said, “When a man can find no religion to his taste let him remove to Maine.”[1]
Early in the 19th century, Baptist missionaries traveled for miles by horseback and on foot, successfully planting churches throughout Maine. Unlike most Congregationalist at the time, large numbers of Baptists ministered among the rough-hewn settlers in the wilderness. Baptists had an advantage in that most churches did not require their pastors to possess a formal education. The emphasis on “calling” over academic standards has been a strength, and at times, a weakness among Baptist pastors even to the present day.
Over time, however, Baptists founded schools that developed into institutions of higher education. Nearly all of these began as seminaries tasked to train pastors and missionaries. Isaac Backus served as an inaugural trustee for Brown University and Baptist pastor James Manning (1738–1791) served as its first president (1765–1791). The Philadelphia Association of Baptists hoped that Brown would instruct future generations of ministers.
Daniel Merrill, Maine Exemplar
One remarkable figure in Maine Baptist history is the reverend Daniel Merrill (1765–1833). A Revolutionary War veteran and Dartmouth graduate, Merrill was ordained as a Congregationalist pastor and missionary. Like Adoniram and Anne Judson, Merrill interacted with Baptists and after some time, proceeded to refute their teaching on the ordinance of baptism. After extensive study, he became convinced that the rite should be administered to believers only.
After an anguished period, which he called “Egyptian darkness,” Merrill wrestled with the implications of his doctrinal shift. He could no longer baptize infants in good conscience, yet his church in Sedgwick remained Congregationalist. By 1804, Merrill had helped convince his church to become fully Baptist. Most members were baptized by immersion on the same day in 1805.
Merrill never looked back after his decision. He contributed to the founding of scores of churches in Maine. In addition to his pastoral duties, Merrill served one term on the Massachusetts legislature. Merrill’s legacy as it stands today is his founding Colby College, a school that in 2020 ranked as the 11th most selective liberal arts college in America. Originally called the Maine Literary and Theological Institute, it received its charter in 1813. Merrill’s grandson and family historian, emphasized his grandfather’s intention for the school,
At the time of the early agitation of the establishment of an institution of learning by Baptists, the predominating idea was that of a school for the education of the young men for the ministry… Mr. Merrill was from the first an advocate for the formation of a school in Maine…[2]
To get perspective, one motivation for founding a new seminary was the liberal theology taught in the established New England colleges. Jonathan Fisher (1768–1847), a Congregationalist and contemporary of Merrill’s, for example, helped found Bangor Theological Seminary as an alternative to Harvard. Eventually, even schools like Colby and Bangor became liberal over time, a development that would have deeply troubled their respective founders.
Higher learning and a higher calling
The idea that rigorous learning and orthodox Christianity are incompatible is a common modern prejudice. Many of course, have dispensed with faith for intellect’s sake. The reverse—to reject the life of the mind for sake of faith—has been far more common among evangelicals in America, Baptists included.
In Carson v. Makin the United States Supreme Court sought to balance religious and secular interests in a sphere of tax-funded public education. As for Christian colleges and seminaries that have lost their confessional way, the most viable course for a school that will not reform is to establish an entire new one. Daniel Merrill chose this path. A new institution will not solve every problem but will likely assure that the academy serves the church and not visa-versa. In this respect, a school’s direction reflects the theological health of the churches whose students it educates. As Maine history has shown, the stream flows in both directions.
[1]A History of Education in Maine (Orono, ME: University Press, 1936), 13.
[2] Samuel Pearce Merrill, “Rev. Daniel Merrill, An Appreciation” 53.