Remembering the "Dean" of Frontier Kentucky Baptist History
A Tribute to Dr. Keith Harper (1957–2025)
My friendship with Keith Harper began only three years ago as I was starting to write my dissertation on Kentucky Baptists and Jeffersonian politics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As I researched different aspects related to my topic of interest, I quickly realized that I was traversing historical ground already well-trod by a living predecessor.
It seemed like every exciting new trail I followed—John Taylor and the “New England Rat,” David Barrow and the anti-slavery debate, the influential role of the Elkhorn Baptist Association in frontier Kentucky, the controversial populism of Elijah Craig—led me to a journal article or book by a Southern Baptist historian named Keith Harper. When my advisor, Dr. John Wilsey, told me to begin thinking about an external reader with expertise on my topic, one name clearly stood above the rest—Dr. Keith Harper at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Our relationship began with a fawning email—one that embarrasses me in hindsight (I told him I considered him the “dean of this period of American Baptist history,” and he replied, “The dean?? Ima talk to somebody about a raise!! They may be calling you for a reference.”) Despite my fanboy letter, he agreed, and I soon found out that I had gained much more than an external reader for my dissertation. I had gained a friend.
He told me he would be traveling to Kentucky soon to visit family and wondered if I would be interested in driving an-hour-and-a-half to Lexington to meet for coffee. I replied that I had Lexington roots, was in Lexington often, and had even been ordained by Ashland Avenue Baptist Church and sent out by that church as a church planter. Of course I would meet him! We then began making surprising connections. He too had been ordained by Ashland Avenue. I told him that my wife’s great-great-grandfather was Clarence Walker, Ashland Avenue’s first pastor who served there for fifty years. He knew her grandparents and remembered them working with the youth. He wrote, “I’m not sure we will get much done when we meet, but we WILL have fun.”
We met at the legendary McGee’s Bakery downtown, only a couple months before it closed. His prediction proved true as we talked for two-and-a-half hours on all things Baptist history. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’”
Keith had made many friends over his long career studying American Baptist history, but I was just beginning my Baptist history journey. I’ll forever be grateful for his willingness to unofficially welcome me into the guild of Baptist historians at McGee’s that day. We continued to meet for coffee and donuts whenever he visited Kentucky.
Customarily, the external reader of a dissertation reads the whole thing once before the defense. Keith read mine chapter by chapter, offering criticisms and suggestions as I went along. I would finish a chapter, send it his way, and within a week he would send it back with detailed comments and questions. On multiple occasions, when I couldn’t find a rare source, he scanned it from his personal library and sent it my way. Whenever I didn’t send him anything for a stretch of time, he reached out to see how I was doing. Once I wrote to express frustration with the quality and pace of my writing, and he offered wisdom that I’ve followed ever since— “just put word salad on the paper and edit later.”
At one point, I stumbled upon a rare document housed at the New York Historical Society about an obscure debate in Kentucky’s Elkhorn Association in 1807 between Elijah Craig and Thomas Lewis on one side and Jacob Creath on the other. He didn’t know the source existed, so I excitedly scanned it and sent it his way. “Nicely done,” he wrote back. I was thrilled by the opportunity to finally return a favor.
Keith served as professor of Baptist history at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary for nearly three decades, impacting the lives of thousands of students. He edited important historical works of Baptist history for contemporary readers like respective volumes of Lottie Moon’s and Annie Armstrong’s letters and the debate between Francis Wayland and Richard Fuller on domestic slavery. He wrote the definitive history of the early years of the influential Elkhorn Baptist Association and made dozens of contributions to other edited volumes and academic journals. Aside from his own extensive writing output, Keith was also the editor for the America’s Baptists series at the University of Tennessee Press, an essential series for understanding the Baptist story in America. He worked diligently over his career to accurately and passionately tell that story.
But more than anything Keith was a churchman. He was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last summer and began treatments immediately thereafter. I checked in on him in November, and he told me that God was answering prayers and rejoiced that most days felt “normal.” He was working on slowly regaining strength and otherwise going about his business. But he was most excited about returning to teach his Sunday School class that Sunday. He invited me to come by if I was ever in the neighborhood. In all my conversations with Keith, he would glow anytime the topic of the local church came up. He cared deeply about the health of the Southern Baptist Convention and local churches. He worked in his own way to ensure that the churches to which he belonged remained steadfast in their commitment to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Keith Harper leaves behind a weighty legacy of academic and ecclesial service, and his influence will certainly live on through his writings and in the many people impacted by his work and personal investment. In my mind, he will always be the “Dean of Frontier Kentucky Baptist History.” I’m sure that honor looks paltry to him now in the presence of Christ.