Daniel Parker
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Elder1 Daniel Parker (1781-1844) - an "anti-missionary" Baptist preacher and leader in the first half of the 19th century.
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Early life
Daniel Parker was born on April 6, 1781, in Culpeper County, Virginia. He was the oldest son of Elder John Parker, a former Continental soldier, and Sarah (White) Parker. The family moved to Elbert County, Georgia around 1785. Daniel professed conversion before the Nail's Creek Baptist Church in Franklin County, Georgia, and was baptized on January 19, 1802. He married Patsey Dickerson on March 11, 1802. In 1803, John & Sarah, Daniel & Patsey, and other Parker family members moved to Dickson County, Tennessee. Before the Parkers moved to Tennessee, the Nail's Creek church had licensed Daniel to the ministry. In August of 1803, Daniel and Patsy settled on Turnbull Creek. The Turnbull Baptist Church was organized by fourteen members (mostly the Parker family) in the home of John Parker in April of 1806. The Turnbull Church ordained Daniel Parker as a minister of the gospel on May 28, 1806. Parker served several churches in Tennessee. Though mostly self-taught, and often considered a backwoodsman, Parker was a skilled speaker. John Mason Peck, a Baptist missionary, would later concede that Parker spoke "with such brilliancy of thought, force, and correctness of language, as would astonish men of education and talents."2 He began to engage the "missions system" controversy at least as early as 1816. For many Baptists, this consisted of whether auxiliary missionary organizations usurped the authority of the local church. Daniel and Patsey moved to Crawford County, Illinois in December of 1817, shortly before Illinois entered the Union.
Illinois and Texas
It was in Illinois that Parker would enter politics, stir the foreign missionary controversy, and develop a form of doctrine that would isolate him from many of his brethren, while eventually creating a small Baptist sub-group. In 1820 Parker published a pamphlet, A Public Address to the Baptist Society, and Friends of Religion in General, on the Principle and Practice of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions for the United States of America, attacking missionary practices, especially those of the recently formed Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. He published a newspaper, the Church Advocate, from 1829 to 1831.
Parker became the developer of "two-seedism", a doctrine which teaches that from Adam mankind has been the bearer of two seeds, one divine and one diabolical. His teaching made (or appeared to make) the devil an eternal, rather than a created, being. Parker introduced this doctrine in a pamphlet in 1826 - Views on the Two Seeds - and supported it with another in 1827. This "two-seedism" would separate him doctrinally from many other "anti-missionary" Baptists (later known as Primitive Baptists). They remained in agreement in their opposition to missionary societies, tract societies, Bible societies, Sunday schools, and theological seminaries. The churches holding the two-seed doctrine split from the Primitive Baptists late in the 19th century, and became known as Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists. Opponents of Parker, both within and without the anti-missionary movement, would accuse him of dualistic Manichaeism and even Zoroastrianism. Alexander Campbell, in 1830, marked Parker as "the author of American Manichaenism, and teacher of Persian Predestination."3 Parker probably developed his beliefs independently of any knowledge of Mani or Zoroaster. Some scholars believe that his idea was developed to soften criticism of the doctrine of election.
Parker made a trip to Texas to investigate the land and the laws. Still a part of Mexico, the Texas (Mexican) law protected the Roman Catholic Church and forbade the establishment of other religions. The Mexican government, nevertheless, tolerated the presence of Protestants, and did not persecute them on religious grounds. Parker visited the Austin Colony in the winter of 1832-33. He perceived that while the law forbade establishing a Baptist church in Texas, it did not forbid the immigration of such a body. On July 26, 1833, he and six others established the Pilgrim Regular Predestinarian Baptist Church at Lamotte, Illinois. The first assembly of the pilgrims and Pilgrim Church in Texas was on January 18, 1834, in Daniel Parker's home near present-day Navasota, Texas in Grime County. From there they moved and built Fort Brown near what is now Grapeland, Texas, and then a little further northwest to 4600 acres (19 km²) not far from the present-day city of Elkhart in Anderson County. On October 17, 1840, representatives from four churches met at Hopewell Predestinarian Baptist Church near Douglass, Texas. Here Parker led in the organization of the Union Association of Regular Predestinarian Baptists. It was the second Baptist association organized in Texas.
Parker served as a state senator in Illinois from 1822 to 1826. He voted against pay raises for legislators, opposed increasing the bounty on wolf scalps, worked to reform the method of county road maintenance, favored the construction of a canal from the Illinois River to Lake Michigan, and introduced bills for the construction of at least four roads. He worked actively for abolition of slavery, though his opinion was in the minority in the Senate. His last official act, on January 21, 1826, was to dismiss the Senate with prayer. Parker's anti-slavery stance probably contributed to his defeat in the election of 1826. The religious controversies in which he was engaged did not help either. In 1832 he appeared on the Crawford County ballot for the House of Representatives, but was defeated. Wimberly noted, "By 1832, Parker had not changed, but Illinois had." (Frontier Religion: 54)
Daniel Parker was elected to represent Nacogdoches County at the General Council of the Provisional Government of Texas in the fall of 1835. At this consultation, he served on several committees and proposed several resolutions. Parker spoke in favor of peace with Mexico, citing their liberal dealings with the Texans, including large grants of land and exemption from taxes and duties. He also proposed consulting with the Cherokee and Shawnee Indian tribes concerning certain land grievances. A resolution by Parker, perhaps his most important, led to the establishment of the Texas Rangers, the oldest law enforcement body in North America with statewide jurisdiction.
He was elected a member of the Fourth Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1839. He took his seat on November 11, and was elected to a committee. The House vacated his seat on November 14, because ordained ministers were constitutionally ineligible to serve, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. President Mirabeau B. Lamar declared the seat officially vacant on November 18, 1839.
Parker remained quite active into his sixties. In August of 1844, he set out on a trip to visit some churches he had organized, and probably to assist in the formation of an association in Jasper County. He became ill and had to return home, yet continued church and familial activities. His body weakened and he became bedridden in November. Daniel Parker died at his home in Anderson County, Texas on December 3, 1844, and was buried in the Pilgrim Predestinarian Baptist Church Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, nine children, and five siblings. His wife Patsey died two years later. Daniel and Patsey Parker had eleven children.
Summary
J. M. Carroll declared Parker's ministry "left a mighty empress on East Texas" - not only on the Primitive Baptists, but on the missionary Baptists as well. The Pilgrim Predestinarian Baptist Church, which meets near Elkhart, Texas, is the oldest Baptist church in the state. Pilgrim Church is now identified with the Absolute Predestinarian branch of the Primitive Baptists, but not with "two-seedism". The Union Association remains in existence with three churches (but not the Pilgrim Church), also identified as Absolute Predestinarian Primitive Baptist. Parker's legacy of "two-seedism" also remains in Texas, with two congregations meeting near Jacksboro in Jack County, Texas. Though mostly self-taught, Parker made his mark in both religion and politics. He traveled extensively and wrote several books to promote the faith that he preached. Apparently the toils and travels of Texas frontier life silenced the pen of Parker. Except for correspondence, there seems to be no extant writings from that period. Though remembered as an "anti-missionary", he was responsible for the organization of about 9 churches in Texas, as well as several in Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee.
Books by Daniel Parker
- A Public Address (1820)
- Plain Truth, &c. (1823)
- The Author's Defence (1824)
- Views on the Two Seeds (1826)
- The Second Dose of Doctrine on the Two Seeds (1827)
- A Short Hint (1827)
- A Short History (1831)
External links
- Daniel Parker (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/PP/fpa19.html) - from Handbook of Texas Online
- Daniel Parker's "Homepage" (http://www.primitivebaptist.org/writers/parker_d/Default.asp?print=1)
References
- A History of Texas Baptists, by James Milton Carroll
- Dictionary of Baptists in America, Bill J. Leonard, editor
- Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists (4 vols.), Norman W. Cox, et al., editors
- Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family, by Jo Ella Powell Exley
- Frontier Religion: Elder Daniel Parker, His Religious and Political Life, by Dan B. Wimberly
- The Genesis of American Anti-Missionism, by Benajah Harvey Carroll
Related subjects
Footnotes
- 1. Elder - an ordained Baptist minister
- 2. Historical Sketches of the Baptist Denomination in Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, by John Mason Peck in The Baptist Memorial and Monthly Chronicle, July 15, 1842
- 3. Alexander Campbell in The Christian Baptist, March 1, 1830