John D Freeman holds a unique place in the history of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. He is the only man to have served as executive secretary (now director) of the TBC and editor of the Baptist and Reflector.
Freeman served as pastor of Belmont Heights Baptist Church in Nashville before being named editor in 1925. He served until 1933 when he was named executive secretary. He held that position until he resigned in 1942 to become editor of the Western Recorder in Kentucky. While TBC executive secretary, the Tennessee Baptist Foundation was established during his tenure.
Freeman was not afraid to address the social issues of his day. He wrote fiery editorials in 1925 during the famous trial in Dayton when famed attorney Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes, a local teacher who was accused of teaching evolution. William Jennings Bryan was the special prosecutor assigned to the case.
The jury found Scopes guilty but the verdict was later overturned on appeal. Freeman challenged newspapers that wrote unkindly about Bryan. After his death a few days after the trial, Freeman wrote an editorial claiming that “Christ’s Greatest Champion Has Fallen” (from Telling the Truth in Love: A Brief History of the Baptist and Reflector from 1835, written by Wm. Fletcher Allen in 2005, page 73).
Allen noted that Freeman gave good advice for all generations in an editorial in the June 9, 1932 issue of the B&R: “He advised that individuals should economize, and not lose hope for better times, spend less on their own selfish interests and return to the farm, which would help provide food and a more peaceful spiritual life.”
Freeman believed in the role of the state paper. He wrote not long after he became editor, “With all the Baptists of Tennessee supporting the paper, it will become a mighty factor in the denominational life of the state and of the world. To that end, the editor pledges his heart, his mind, his brain, his very life” (Telling the Truth in Love, page 69).
— Lonnie Wilkey
Editor
Baptist and Reflector
