Furman, Richard
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Furman, Richard
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Richard Furman (1755-1825) was an influential Baptist minister and theologian in the United States during the late 18th and early 19th century; despite opposing slavery in his earlier years, Furman later became a slave owner and defender of white supremacy in the south.
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Richard Furman (1755-1825) was an influential Baptist minister and theologian in the United States during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He is perhaps best known for his role in the founding of the Triennial Convention, which later became the Southern Baptist Convention.
In 1787, Furman was ordained as a Baptist minister and became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charleston. He quickly established himself as a leader in the Baptist community, and played a key role in the growth and development of the denomination in the southern United States.
Furman’s stance on slavery was controversial, as he never wholeheartedly supported either side. In his earlier years as a baptist minister he openly expressed his opposition to slavery stating that, “a piratical warfare which the Christian world should, with all its powers, oppose." At this time he believed that slavery was anti-christian. However, despite his opposition to the slave trade, Furman was not necessarily an abolitionist. He believed that slavery as an institution was permissible under certain conditions, and that slave owners had a duty to treat their slaves with kindness and compassion. In his "Exposition of the Views of the Baptists," a document he wrote in 1822, Furman stated that "we consider the voluntary enslaving of one portion of the human race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature." Nonetheless Richard Furman’s stance on slavery was dynamic and remains controversial.
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9 October 1755
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25 August 1825
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