Faith and courage are often not far apart. It often takes a mixture of both to weather the scorn of those who may disagree or to say something important knowing that it may be unpopular.  The history of the Christian faith is filled with individuals who faced contempt and ridicule for spreading a message of peace, brotherhood, and sometimes justice for marginalized groups.  Rev. Anthony Bewley, a Methodist minister and outspoken abolitionist, was one such individual who would pay the ultimate price for his beliefs.

Anthony Bewley was born in May 1804 in Tennessee.  His father, Rev. John Bewley, was himself a Methodist preacher; and the younger Bewley was inspired to follow him into the ministry. 

He was in his early twenties when he was ordained.  His first assignment as a new Methodist preacher was as a circuit rider in Virginia, filling the pulpit for small churches spread across vast rural areas.  The circuits were often long and dangerous.  The ride between churches would sometimes take days.  These frontier-era preachers knew their ordination would not protect them from bandits or from the elements.  Often, it would take them far from their families.  But their belief in the importance of their message kept them moving forward. 

In 1834, he married Jane Winton, also a native of Tennessee. The couple would eventually have eight children.  The new family moved to Polk County in Southwest Missouri in 1837. 

Bewley’s life took a sharp turn in 1845 when his Missouri Conference of and  several other southern Methodist conferences split from the Methodist Episcopal Church over its long-standing opposition to slavery.

The slavery question had divided and wrecked churches across the South as some argued that slavery was a sin while others defended it.  Whole denominations split over the issue.  Blacks and whites together had spoken out against slavery across the nation, in both the North and the South, determined to end the practice and free the millions held.  As late as the 1830s, there were more abolitionist societies in the South than in the North.  But the planters were determined to defend and expand the system of human bondage and human trafficking.  Slavery’s supporters increasingly issued threats, censored books and the mail, and silenced one voice of opposition after another.

In spite of the increasingly violent rhetoric, Bewley and others remained determined to spread their message from the pulpits.  Even preachers had received threats and had been forced out of their own churches for their words.  By 1848, Bewley and other abolitionist preachers became part of the Missouri Conference of the Northern Church, maintaining their affiliation with the Methodist Episcopal Church.

For the next several years, Bewley would continue his work as a circuit-rider preacher across southern Missouri and into northern Arkansas.  Though Missouri and Arkansas were both slave states, the hills and mountains of the Ozarks made practicing slavery difficult in this area.  As a result, there were fewer slaves and more congregations open to his message.  However, Bewley still faced many critics who defended slavery.

In 1858, Bewley moved to Johnson County, Texas, a farming region immediately south of Fort Worth and established a mission.  Supporters of slavery immediately viewed him with suspicion and contempt.  By 1860, a conspiracy formed to silence all abolitionists in Texas.  A forged letter appeared in a newspaper that appeared to confirm fears that Bewley was part of a plot to overthrow slavery in Texas.  A large number of Texans feared that abolitionists were determined to wage war on the South and burn farms and cities in order to free the slaves.

Bewley recognized he was a target and attempted to get his family to safety as quickly as possible.  He gathered his wife and children and rode as far north as the Kansas Territory, but a posse rode out from Texas in pursuit of him.  He then rode back into the Indian Territory for nearly eleven days then returned to Arkansas where he stayed with friends in Benton County for a time.  From there, he rode into Cassville, Missouri, where he was caught.  How he was discovered was not certain, but his fate was sealed.

Bewley was hanged in Fort Worth in September 1860.  The crowd roared with approval.  He was never charged with a crime.  His body was left in full view of crowds for a full day, then taken down and dismembered.  Several weeks after his lynching, his body was dug up and placed on the roof of a local store where witnesses recounted that children played with the bones.  Bewley’s fellow abolitionists were silenced in the aftermath, but the fight was far from over as the Civil War appeared on the horizon.

Slavery would end five years later.