He was raised on his parents' farm, and in July 1902 was baptized in a stream near Union Baptist Church.
He initially resisted the offer of this position since he was only a layman, but was persuaded to accept and was ordained on April 20, 1929, just before his thirty-seventh birthday.
In 1946, soon after the end of the Second World War, he was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, serving from 1947 to 1948.
Newton reported that the churches were open seven days a week, carrying on highly active programs of religious instruction, culture and recreation.
[3] He received a certain amount of criticism for the positive statements about Russia he made on his return, with some accusing him of communist sympathies, others of naivety and still another of "intellectual inadequacy.