John Albert Broadus

Let the dead past bury its dead. Forgetting the things which are behind, let us reach forth to those things which are before.

John Albert Broadus (1827–1895) was a Baptist pastor and President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Quotes

• Our fathers, in New England, in the Middle Colonies, and in the South, brought African slaves to America for reasons of their own, which it is impossible to justify, and useless now to censure. The God of our fathers has set them free by overruling a vast amount of human selfishness and passion in long-continued political and military conflict. Let the dead past bury its dead. Forgetting the things which are behind, let us reach forth to those things which are before.
  • "As to the Colored People" (1 February 1883), as quoted in Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (December 2018), by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pp. 38–39

• You look with incredulous contempt or horror upon the worship of many negroes. Perchance the angels have a rather poor opinion of your worship. And it may be that he who knows all things knows that both you and these poor degraded men do really love him, and are trying to worship and serve him amid all your imperfections. Some are unwilling to admit that there has been true conversion, when the "experience" includes seeing visions and hearing voices. Yet John Bunyan, when convicted of sin, heard voices, as he relates in his "Grace Abounding," and Augustine at the time of his conversion saw a beautiful vision, as described in his "Confessions."
  • "As to the Colored People" (1 February 1883), as quoted in Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (December 2018), by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pp. 38–39

External links

• Encyclopedic article on John Albert Broadus on Wikipedia