Since the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, two words that have rarely been seen together are "Baptist" and "pacifist." We have instead been subject to things like high-profile Baptist leader Jerry Falwell writing a defense of the Iraq war titled "God Is Pro-War," Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, writing to President Bush that his "policies concerning the ongoing international terrorist campaign against America" were "both right and just," and the Southern Baptist Convention passing resolutions expressing appreciation for President Bush, U.S. troops, military chaplains, and the war effort.

I have stood against this nonsense from the very beginning. At times virtually alone. I recently discovered a kindred spirit in the Baptist pacifist Joseph Judson Taylor.

Taylor was born in 1855 in Henry County, Virginia. He was named for his maternal grandfather, Joseph King, who had served in the Virginia Legislature, and Adoniram Judson, the famous Baptist missionary to Burma who died five years before Taylor's birth.

Taylor attended Richmond College from 1875-1880, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees. He was chosen valedictorian for the commencement. He was ordained a minister in 1876. The Southern Baptist Convention met in Richmond that year, and Taylor attended the meeting for the first time. He first attended as a delegate in 1881, and was elected vice-president for the first time in 1906. He also served on many denominational committees over the years. He married the college-educated Anna Hinton in 1882. After graduation from Richmond, he attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, but never took the examinations necessary to graduate. However, in 1889 Taylor received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Howard College in Alabama (now Samford University), and in 1904, a Doctor of Laws degree from Union University in Tennessee.