Southern Baptists Used to Call Easter 'Worldly'

Southern Baptists originally did not attach much significance to Easter. This was much the same regarding Christmas. Both days were not recognized as a special day of worship in any of the historic Baptist confessions; allusions to them were rare in Baptist history volumes before the 20th century; and both holidays possessed an association with worldliness, and even paganism, in the minds of many Baptist ministers. Even as late as 1903, a writer for the North Carolina state Baptist paper, the Biblical Recorder, wrote an anti-Easter article that stated that "Baptists do not keep this day" (March 18, 1903).