Forty-eight years ago Dr. John Waters saw the need to have a paper for fundamental independent believers across South Carolina and our country. When the paper began, the Independent Baptist movement was in its infancy. The South Carolina Baptist Fellowship didn’t exist, the Christian school movement was over a decade from its birth, the Independent Baptist Missions Board (that are so common today) were all but non-existent. Only five years before, Dr. Lee Roberson had just started Tennessee Temple College. Being an Independent Baptist meant quite a bit more then than it does now. Now with only two years until the Trumpet celebrates the half century mark, let’s remember our heritage and fundamental Bible believing Christians. The Landmarks have moved.
The spirit, attitude and ideals of today’s Independent Baptist are much different than in 1952 when the Trumpet was born. It would seem that we’ve become a “Politically Correct” group of Christians. When Dr. Waters published the first Trumpet each issue was red hot and militant in its attacks on modernism and compromise. The paper lifted up the local church and its authority and autonomy. Most of the early issues contained a story about a pastor pulling his church out of the convention. No punches were pulled. One early issue attacked the worldliness of Furman University because they were having a dance. Today it would seem we’re more interested in a gooshy, touchy feely story someone sent us for the fourth time on the internet. We’ve become professional wordsmiths. We say a lot without saying anything. We have the audacity to extol the virtues of keeping it calm and quite when it comes to anything that might be considered controversial. When the Trumpet was born the desire was to have a paper that HIT right between the eyes each month. A paper that spoke uncompromisingly to the issues, and named those issues. As we begin a new century of publishing and near the half century mark for the Trumpet, I would like to affirm our commitment to the vision and aims of Dr. Waters and those early pioneers of the Independent Baptist Movement here in South Carolina and across this nation. With the help of God that mantle picked up so many years ago will not be dropped. Psalms 11:3 says, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” By the Grace of God, we will continue to build upon the foundation that the Trumpet was started on in 1952. This paper will remain a thorn in the side of some and will continue to be an irritant to many. I would like to ask the men of God who read the Trumpet on a regular basis to write articles and send them in. We have run several articles like this already. Let’s obey Isaiah 58:1 and “Blow the Trumpet!”. May the Lord help us to resurrect some of the fight of the Trumpet’s founder and many of our forefathers; may HE also help us to regurgitate the ideals of coddling and comforting compromise.