Remembering Antônia Teixeira: A Story of Missions, Violence, and Institutional Hypocrisy

Uncover the truth about the scandal that shook the Texas Baptist community, buried for over a century.

In 1894 Steen Morris raped Antônia Teixeira. Both had been guests in the house of Baylor University president Rufus Burleson. The assault took place in Burleson's backyard and was the first of a series of assaults that eventually left the young Baylor student pregnant. Rather than hold the guilty party accountable, Rufus Burleson and other prominent members of the Baptist community in Waco launched a campaign of intimidation, victim-blaming, and cover-up to preserve the virtuous image of their institution.

In Remembering Antônia Teixeira, Mikeal C. Parsons and João B. Chaves painstakingly peel back the layers of concealment that have accumulated over a century of enforced silence about the case. Beginning with Antonia's father Antônio Teixeira, a priest who had renounced Catholicism and become a pillar of the Baptist community in Brazil, Parsons and Chaves uproot romanticized and hagiographical accounts of the Southern Baptist Convention's foreign missions. They then follow Antônia's journey north, her assault, and the subsequent scandal that shook Texas--until it was intentionally erased.

Iconoclastic and meticulous, Remembering Antônia Teixeira calls attention to how religious institutions have used selective memory to maintain power. In doing so, this book takes a first step toward dismantling those structures of oppression.

Author: Mikeal C. Parsons, João B. Chaves
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published: 07/18/2023
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.11lbs
Size: 9.24h x 6.38w x 0.94d
ISBN13: 9780802883094
ISBN10: 0802883095
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Religious
- History | Women
- Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional | Hispanic & Latino

About the Author
Mikeal C. Parsons is professor and Macon Chair in Religion at Baylor University. He is the author or editor of more than thirty books and numerous essays and articles.

João B. Chaves is assistant professor of the history of religion in the Américas at Baylor University. João is the author of several books, including Migrational Religion and The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South.