About ABWE
Lucy Peabody
In her younger days, Mrs. Peabody (1861 - 1949) served as a missionary for a number of years among the Telugus of India and this field always lay close to her heart. Her first husband, Norman Waterbury, died while they were in India in 1886 and left her with two small children. These circumstances precipitated her return to the USA. She became a teacher, a writer, an editor and a gifted public speaker. She was a person of considerable prominence in Northern Baptist Convention circles and served as secretary of the Women's American Baptist Foreign Mission Society for 18 years.
In 1904 she married a prominent and successful businessman, Henry Wayland Peabody. For the rest of her life she lived in a beautiful home in Beverly, MA using her talents and financial means in many worthy causes. She was particularly active on committees within the Northern Baptist Convention.
From ABWE's standpoint, her most notable achievement was her courageous fight against the inroads of liberal theology within the ranks of the Northern Baptist Convention. She believed the Bible with all her heart and stood valiantly for the Fundamentals of the Faith. She refused to be a party to the inclusive policy which was officially adopted by the Northern Baptist Convention in order to include all shades of belief and unbelief within its fellowship. Specifically, she took up the battle against the operation of this inclusive policy in the Philippine Islands mission field where her son-in-law and daughter, Dr. and Mrs. Raphael Thomas, were laboring. When the foreign board of the Convention imposed restrictions upon Dr. Thomas' evangelistic activities in favor of a purely medical work in the Union Mission Hospital at Iloilo and gave other evidences of favoring the more liberal program of fellow missionaries, Mrs. Peabody took the issue to the floor of the Northern Baptist Convention and led in a plea for a return to a biblical faith and practice, and, for a thorough study of the actual situation in the Philippine field.
Failing to accomplish this objective, and with an indomitable spirit, Mrs. Peabody took her historic walk and resigned from every office within the Convention and gave the full weight of her support to the courageous little group of missionaries in the Philippines who resigned over these same issues. In August of 1927, on the porch of the summer cottage of Marguerite Doane at Watch Hill, RI, an adventure of faith in the Philippines was launched and a new independent Baptist mission agency was formed (incorporated under the name, Association of Baptists for Evangelism in the Orient; later changed to Association of Baptists for World Evangelism). Mrs. Peabody was elected as the first president of the mission and served for seven years in that capacity.