According to one award-winning biography, Sam Houston remains the singular figure “standing like a
colossus astride the middle decades of the 1800s.” Remembered by Texans for his leadership during the
war for independence, he was also a man with complex and developing understandings of Christianity
and religious devotion. He carried misunderstandings of Christian theology and mistrust of Christian
ministers for decades. His substance abuse for many years created something of a spiritual barrier as well.
Eventually, however, through the ministry of local pastors and his loving wife, Houston trusted Christ and
was baptized as a formal member of a local Baptist congregation in November 1854 at age 61. Alongside
his political career, he would devote later years to Baptist expansion throughout Texas and focus
especially on missionary efforts to his beloved Cherokee Indian friends.
Interestingly, Houston’s religious conversion and commitment synced chronologically with the most
difficult of his years in the United States Senate representing Texas and his later governorship of Texas in
1859. As a U.S. Senator, Houston was embroiled in the debates surrounding slavery and the survival of
the Union. Specifically, his vote against the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 caused him to be extremely
unpopular among southern Senators and in his home state. He would increasingly be isolated due to his
pro-Union (though not entirely pro-emancipation) views, and he would eventually be disowned by the
very state he helped establish because of his anti-secessionist position.
What sustained Houston in these crucible years of tears and rejection? His Christian spirituality.
Specifically, we see his spirituality emerge with rapidity during this crucible moment in four primary
ways: his engagement with Scripture, his attendance at local churches, his prayer life, and his dependence
upon other believers. These practices allowed him to face various trials—both political and personal—in
one of the most difficult stretches of American history for any elected official.
This paper will offer the first exploration of Houston’s senatorial spirituality from 1854-1859. While
generic evaluations of Houston’s faith exist in scholarly literature, they are either dated (and preceding
new material) or uninterested in (and even skeptical of) his actual religious practices. Using recently
published Houston correspondence and historical evidence from Washington D.C. churches, this paper
will shed light on how one of the nation’s most important figures survived one of the nation’s most
important moments through his Christian spirituality. While nobody will match Houston’s life—for it
borders on caricature—all Christian leaders can identify with the need for spiritual sustenance in
excruciating circumstances. In this, we find a friend and a sympathizer in Sam Houston.