RICHMOND, Va. -- The Rev. Dr. Baker James Cauthen, who led Sout(ern Baptists in building the largest missionary force among Protestant denominations, died Monday at his home. He was 75.
Cauthen was executive secretary and executive director of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1954 until his retirement in 1979.
Under Cauthen's leadership, the number of Southern Baptist missionaries increased from 908 to nearly 3,000, and the number of countries in which they served grew from 32 to 95.
Mission financing increased from $6.7 million in 1954 to $76.7 million in 1979.
Evangelist Billy Graham said Cauthen was 'a father figure' to Southern Baptist missionaries.
Cauthen was 'one of the greatest missionary statesmen in all American church life,' Graham added. 'He was one of the most pkwerful speakers on missions I ever heard.'
Cauthen was born in Huntsville, Texas, and grew up in Lufkin, Texas. He decided by age 8 to enter the ministry and was asked to be pastor of a rural church in Texas at 16.
While serving in rural pastorates, Cauthen was graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, and earned a master's degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
He earned master's and doctoral degrees in theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Foreign Mission Board elected him secretary for the Orient in 1946 and executive secretary in 1954. His title later was changed to executive director.
Survivors include his wife, Eloise; a daughter, Carolyn Mathews of Sante Fe, N.M.; a son, Ralph B. Cauthen of Greensboro, N.C., and two grandsons.
A funeral was to be held Thursday in Richmond.
