B.J. Cauthen, Former Baptist Official Dies

The Rev. Baker James Cauthen, retired executive director of the Baptist Foreign Mission Board and the administrator who directed the tripling of the Southern Baptist world missionary force, died Monday at his home. He was 75.

He was executive secretary and later executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board from 1954 until he retired at the end of 1979.

Under his leadership, the number of Southern Baptist missionaries increased from 908 to nearly 3,000 while the number of countries where they served grew from 32 to 95. Mission financing moved from $6.7 million in 1954 to $76.7 million in 1979.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Baptist organization, with more than 12 million members.

A former missionary in China, Cauthen preached that the prime duty of Christians is to spread the gospel and said he hoped his denomination would be preaching to the entire world by the year 2000.

He wrote several books, including “Beyond Call,” “Now Is the Day” and “By All Means,” and was co-author of “Advance: A History of Southern Baptist Foreign Missions.”

Cauthen was licensed to preach by his home church in Texas at the age of 16 after a rural church asked him to be its pastor.

Evangelist Billy Graham called Cauthen “one of the greatest missionary statesmen in all American church life.”