Born in 1839 from a theological split over foreign missions. Like its neighbor, it closed during the Civil War.
The third of the cove's churches is the Missionary Baptist Church, and its origin is a small window into just how seriously these mountain communities took their faith.
Back in 1839, a fierce debate was sweeping through the Baptist churches of East Tennessee — the question of missions. Should the church organize and fund missionaries to carry the gospel abroad, or not? To us it might sound like an in-the-weeds theological argument. To them it was fundamental. And it split this valley's congregation right down the middle. Thirteen members who believed in supporting missions left the original Cades Cove Baptist church and formed a new one — the Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church.
So by the mid-eighteen-hundreds this one small valley — never more than a few hundred families — supported three separate churches, each with its own strong convictions. Faith wasn't a Sunday habit here. It was the spine of daily life, and people were willing to divide over the fine points of it.
Like the Primitive Baptists just up the road, this congregation also fell silent during the Civil War, its pro-Union members scattered or lying low until the fighting passed. The building you see today was raised in 1915, after the war and long after the split. Walk through, and notice how plain it is — no ornament, nothing wasted. Everything in Cades Cove was built to last and built to matter.
Photo: tinyfroglet · CC BY 2.0
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