J. William Jones was known by his contemporaries as “the evangelist of the Lost Cause”. Historian Charles Reagan Wilson said of Jones that he was, “the single most important link between Southern religion and the Lost Cause.” He was also known by his own generation as “the fighting parson.”
Jones was born in 1836 in Mineral, Virginia. He grew up in this area of Virginia and became interested in the ministry. He belonged to the first class of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1860. He pastored a small Baptist church in the Mineral, Virginia area. In late 1860 and early 1861 he felt the call of God on his heart to go to China as a missionary.
Before he could leave for China the War Between the States broke out and he enlisted in the 13th Virginia Volunteer Infantry as a private. He soon applied for a commission as a chaplain. A short while after receiving this commission he resigned it and seeing the need for more chaplains in the ranks he became the first Baptist evangelist the Army of Northern Virginia.
During the war he helped form the Chaplains Association of the Army of Northern Virginia, and ministered to troops who served under Generals A. P. Hill, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. He was indefatigable as a preacher and revivalist, once baptizing more than 220 men in a single year.
After the war Jones became embroiled in Lost Cause apologetics, arguing that the South had waged a just and holy war, and that the Confederacy produced “the noblest army . . . that ever marched under any banner or fought for any cause in all the tide of time.” He held the powerful position of secretary-treasurer of the Southern Historical Society for more than a decade (1875-87) and edited fourteen volumes of the society’s Papers, the major organ for the dissemination of Lost Cause ideology.
At the same time Jones became an influential leader of the Southern Baptist denomination. Especially notable is his service in Atlanta as the assistant corresponding secretary of the Home Mission Board, from 1884 to 1893. He became a well-known figure at the Southern Baptist annual conventions, and four of his sons followed him into the Baptist ministry.
In his final years Jones lectured and preached widely. His standard prayer opening wedded his two passions: “Oh, God! Our God, our help in years gone by, our hope for years to come—God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God of Israel, God of the centuries, God of our fathers, God of Jefferson Davis, Robert Edward Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, Lord of hosts and King of kings.”
On March 17, 1909, Jones died in Columbus while visiting one of his sons. He was buried in Virginia. A member of the Virginia Historical Society at the time wrote that Jones was “never ‘reconstructed’” and while “worshipping Lee and Jackson next to his God, devoted his whole life to defending by tongue and pen the eternal righteousness of the ‘Lost Cause,’ after it went down in defeat, and who at the last died not only in the ‘faith once delivered to the saints,’ but in the good old Confederate faith.”
Jones was born in 1836 in Mineral, Virginia. He grew up in this area of Virginia and became interested in the ministry. He belonged to the first class of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1860. He pastored a small Baptist church in the Mineral, Virginia area. In late 1860 and early 1861 he felt the call of God on his heart to go to China as a missionary.
Before he could leave for China the War Between the States broke out and he enlisted in the 13th Virginia Volunteer Infantry as a private. He soon applied for a commission as a chaplain. A short while after receiving this commission he resigned it and seeing the need for more chaplains in the ranks he became the first Baptist evangelist the Army of Northern Virginia.
During the war he helped form the Chaplains Association of the Army of Northern Virginia, and ministered to troops who served under Generals A. P. Hill, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. He was indefatigable as a preacher and revivalist, once baptizing more than 220 men in a single year.
After the war Jones became embroiled in Lost Cause apologetics, arguing that the South had waged a just and holy war, and that the Confederacy produced “the noblest army . . . that ever marched under any banner or fought for any cause in all the tide of time.” He held the powerful position of secretary-treasurer of the Southern Historical Society for more than a decade (1875-87) and edited fourteen volumes of the society’s Papers, the major organ for the dissemination of Lost Cause ideology.
At the same time Jones became an influential leader of the Southern Baptist denomination. Especially notable is his service in Atlanta as the assistant corresponding secretary of the Home Mission Board, from 1884 to 1893. He became a well-known figure at the Southern Baptist annual conventions, and four of his sons followed him into the Baptist ministry.
In his final years Jones lectured and preached widely. His standard prayer opening wedded his two passions: “Oh, God! Our God, our help in years gone by, our hope for years to come—God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God of Israel, God of the centuries, God of our fathers, God of Jefferson Davis, Robert Edward Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, Lord of hosts and King of kings.”
On March 17, 1909, Jones died in Columbus while visiting one of his sons. He was buried in Virginia. A member of the Virginia Historical Society at the time wrote that Jones was “never ‘reconstructed’” and while “worshipping Lee and Jackson next to his God, devoted his whole life to defending by tongue and pen the eternal righteousness of the ‘Lost Cause,’ after it went down in defeat, and who at the last died not only in the ‘faith once delivered to the saints,’ but in the good old Confederate faith.”
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