About

At the 1836 General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Committee on Book Concern authorized the founding of three weekly religious newspapers in Charleston, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Richmond, Virginia. The Charleston paper was titled the Southern Christian Advocate, and the General Conference elected Reverend William Capers as editor. The prospectus for the Southern Christian Advocate, reprinted in the paper’s 1937 centennial edition, stated that Southern delegates called for Southern Methodist newspapers “on the ground of its being necessary to an equal distribution of the benefits of the Church’s press, and especially in view of the peculiar political aspects of the times.” The South Carolina Conference’s Book and Publishing Committee garnered the necessary subscriptions and published the first issue of the Southern Christian Advocate on June 24, 1837. Although published in Charleston, the newspaper’s audience spanned across Methodists in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. In April 1862, then Editor Edward H. Myers presided over the paper’s relocation to Augusta, Georgia after Federal occupation of Charleston seemed imminent. The Christian Advocate published out of Augusta until early 1865 when its press and offices were destroyed. Reverend John William Burke, who established a publishing house in Macon, Georgia in 1864, then acquired printing responsibilities of the Southern Christian Advocate while Reverend Myers remained editor. Reverend F. Milton Kennedy replaced Myers at the editorial helm in 1872, and Burke joined Kennedy as an associate editor in 1874. In 1866, 1870, and 1874, J. W. Burke & Company’s contract for publication of the newspaper was renewed by the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida Conferences. In 1878, the Southern Christian Advocate returned to Charleston when the Georgia Conference established its own newspaper, the Wesleyan Christian Advocate. The Southern Christian Advocate continues to publish today as the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate.