James Petigru Boyce

James Petigru Boyce was born in 1827. He was educated at Brown University under Francis Wayland, whose evangelical sermons contributed to Boyce's conversion, and at Princeton Theological Seminary under Charles Hodge who led Boyce to appreciate Calvinistic theology.

After completing studies at Princeton, he served as pastor of the Columbia S.C. Baptist Church and as a faculty member at Furman University. In 1859 he founded the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina, to establish a seminary that did not view owning slaves as disqualifying in becoming a missionary [1] After the war ended, he resumed office as chair of the seminary and relocated it to Louisville, Kentucky. He taught theology from 1859 until his death in 1888 and served as the President of the institution. Throughout his ministry, Boyce insisted on the importance of theological education for all ministers. In a preface, he described his Abstract of Systematic Theology, published the year before his death, as follows: "This volume is published the rather as a practical textbook, for the study of the system of doctrine taught in the Word of God, than as a contribution to theological science." During his life, Boyce owned 23 slaves.[2]

While the seminary was closed during the Civil War, Boyce served as a chaplain in the Confederate Army .[3] In 1865 he was elected as a representative to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention. He was a prominent advocate of white supremacy who opposed counting the black population in the cenus, stating that in his view it would be the “entering wedge of negro suffrage” also arguing “this is a white man’s government".[4]

Boyce died in Pau, France on December 28, 1888. He had traveled to Europe with his family in early July 1888 and had been expecting to be traveling abroad for a number of months. News reports at the time indicated that he had been suffering from gout and that while traveling his condition worsened and became fatal.[5]