Wilmer Clemont Fields

Wilmer Clemont Fields (March 16, 1922 – December 2, 2018) was an American Southern Baptist minister, public relations executive, newspaper editor, and the (co-)author or editor of 30 books. He was a pastor in Louisiana, Kentucky and Mississippi. He was the editor of The Baptist Record and Baptist Program, a director of the Baptist Press, and the vice president for public relations for the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. He was a defender of the freedom of the press.

Early life and education Fields was born on March 16, 1922, in Saline, Louisiana. He was baptized at the Old Saline Baptist Church at the age of 8; by the age of 16, he was preaching at the First Baptist Church of Arcadia and the First Baptist Church of Gibsland in Louisiana.

Fields graduated from the Gibsland High School in 1939. followed by a doctorate of Theology in 1950.

Career Fields began his formal pastorate at the Woodworth Baptist Church in Woodworth, Louisiana. He also pastored churches in Woodworth, Belcher, and Gilliam in Louisiana, as well as the Bethany Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky from 1948 to 1951.

Fields worked for the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tennessee from 1959 to 1987, where he started as the secretary and retired as the vice president for public relations. He was the editor of its magazine, Baptist Program, from 1959 to 1972.

Fields was a member of the Public Relations Society of America. He received the Religious Freedom Award from the Associated Baptist Press in 2006. who died in 2002. The following year, he married his second wife, Lawanna Jane House McIver, who was the widow of Bruce McIver, the pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Fields taught Sunday school at the First Baptist Church in Nashville for two decades.

Fields died on December 2, 2018, in Nashville, Tennessee. His funeral was held at the Woodmont Baptist Church in Nashville on December 8, 2018.

Selected works