Religion

The roots of Lipscomb University date to October 5, 1891, when David Lipscomb and James A. Harding established the Nashville Bible School. Lipscomb and Harding believed there was a need for a school that would prepare students completely through high…

David Lipscomb, a famous and influential second generation Stone-Campbell Movement leader, was born in Franklin County. Educated at Franklin College in Nashville, he matriculated between 1846 and 1849. Tolbert Fanning baptized Lipscomb while he was a student at the college,…

Memphis entrepreneur and Catholic leader Eugene Magevney was born in 1798 in County Fermanagh, Ireland. He studied for the priesthood but changed his mind and became a school teacher. In 1828 he immigrated to the United States and settled in…

Formerly the Tennessee and Alabama Female Institute, Mary Sharp College was chartered in Winchester in 1850. Opening in 1851, the school was named for an early benefactor. Under the direction of Dr. Z. C. Graves and the Baptist Church, Mary…

Mason Temple, a flagship of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), was a monumental achievement, becoming upon its completion in 1945 the largest gathering place in Memphis as well as the largest church owned and operated by African Americans…

A nationally recognized pastor in the Pacific Northwest and a famous name in Seattle history, Mark A. Matthews began his career in Tennessee. Between 1896 and 1902 Matthews laid the foundation for his work and established his pattern of ministry…

Samuel McAdow, one of the founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, was born on April 10, 1760, in Guilford County, North Carolina, the son of Scots and Irish immigrants. Raised a Presbyterian, McAdow attended the church and school led by…

The first American-born bishop of the Methodist Church, William McKendree was closely associated with the establishment of the Methodist Church in Tennessee. Born in Virginia in 1757, McKendree visited Nashville as early as 1797. Three years later, he became the…

Methodist Bishop Holland N. McTyeire is best remembered for his indispensable role in the founding of Vanderbilt University. As a key player in wresting a charter for a central university from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, McTyeire acquired the money…

Though the two groups of Mennonites in Tennessee share a religious background, only one functions as a distinct cultural and ethnic community. As Anabaptists, they trace their roots to the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation, and nearly all are…

Milligan College is located in Carter County in East Tennessee. Its origins go back to a Buffalo Male and Female Institute (1866) chartered by a small Christian (Disciples of Christ) congregation. In 1882 Josephus Hopwood upgraded it to a college…

In 1882 a group of Tennessee Sunday school workers organized an assembly patterned after that in Chautauqua, New York, which had been founded in 1873 to train Sunday School teachers during the summer. That fall, a site selection committee accepted…

Known for many years as one of the oldest African American congregations organized in Nashville, Mount Zion Baptist Church is now also recognized as one of the largest congregations in Tennessee. Under the leadership of its dynamic senior pastor, Bishop…

The National Association of Free Will Baptists, an organization of evangelical churches, has maintained its headquarters in Nashville since its formation in 1935. A derivative of Arminian or "general" Baptists, the denomination arose in the United States in the early…

The National Baptist Convention, founded in 1895, has since spawned four different denominations that have roots in the original convention. It formed originally as a combination of three separate organizations--the American National Baptist Convention, the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, and…

Chartered in 1896 by Richard H. Boyd and a group of black businessmen and fully operational by 1898, the National Baptist Publishing Board grew in the twentieth century to be the largest black publishing enterprise in the United States. Located…

The National Campground, located in rural Loudon County, has held religious camp meetings since the late Reconstruction era. In 1873 individuals from congregations representing the Presbyterian, Cumberland Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Friends (Quakers), and the Methodist Episcopal Church…

The Old Stone Fort State Park in Coffee County preserves a prehistoric enclosure consisting of embankments or "walls" constructed of undressed stacked or piled stone covered with earth. They circumscribe a fifty-acre plateau at the forks of the Duck River.…

James H. Otey, Christian educator and first Episcopal bishop of Tennessee, established the Anglican church in the state and organized its first parish churches. Born in Bedford County, Virginia, on January 27, 1800, he attended the University of North Carolina.…

Parker’s Chapel is an African American community that was established in Sumner County shortly after the Civil War by ex-slaves. Originally known as “Taylor’s Old Field” or simply “Old Field,” the area attracted Sam and Lucinda Coakley from neighboring Robertson…