John A. Broadus

John Albert Broadus
Born	1827 Culpeper County, Virginia
Died	1895
Education	University of Virginia
Occupation	Preacher, seminary president and professor
Spouse(s)	Maria Harrison
Relatives	Gessner Harrison (father-in-law)

John Albert Broadus (1827–1895) was an American Baptist pastor and President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

John Albert Broadus was born in 1827 in Culpeper County, Virginia. He was educated at home and at a private school. He taught in a small school before completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Broadus was ordained in 1850, became pastor of the Baptist church in Charlottesville. He delivered a lecture at the University of Virginia in memorial to Professor Harrison in 1873. A decade later, in 1883, he delivered an address on the Confederate cause at Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetery. The address was an important part of reunion, for it argued that both sides were partly correct in their positions that led to war.

In 1859, Broadus became professor of New Testament interpretation and homiletics at the new Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he served as a Confederate chaplain to Robert E. Lee's army in Northern Virginia. In 1888, he became Southern Seminary's second president.

In 1889, Broadus delivered the Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School.

Broadus married Maria Harrison, the daughter of Gessner Harrison (1807–62), Professor of Ancient Languages at the University of Virginia.

Broadus died in 1895.

Charles Spurgeon deemed Broadus the "greatest of living preachers." Church historian Albert Henry Newman later said "perhaps the greatest man the Baptists have produced."

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