Building Bridges: Calvinism and Southern Baptists

I've just got home from church. You are correct to the churches name. I have friends that were members when all this happened, and are today and to this day they put the deal on the pastor and his Calvinism. When that pastor left it got into a little more.

I don't see as much anti-doctrinal in the churches that I know of but they don't agree with Calvinism. When one can not preach what he believes to be true, he does not need to be preaching in that church. I have spoke in many a Calvinistic churches and knew I should not speak on all that I disagree with their teachings. As I've said we aren't or should not be the enemy of each other.

My daughter got caught up in a church like Dauphin Way Baptist. She left the church as did about 75 percent of the church. That happen to her about 20 years ago. She went for years after that, that she wouldn't attend a Baptist church if the pastor was from Southern in Louisville or a member of the Founders. Her and her husband said they didn't believe Christians could act like that. I'm glad it has passed now.

Again I disagree with you Tom. After Dauphin Way Baptist and others their has been many overzealous pastors that has come out with that kind of stuff.

I can take you to a church that isn't fifteen minutes from the house that just went through that stealth calvinism about five years ago and are still trying to recover from it.

 

My friend you may well be correct. I might have been guilty of jumping to conclusion and I might have a poor memory. I'm just going off of memory that Dr. Shaw and some staff and members wanted to change the by laws from congregation led to an elder led church. It was voted down then all the cotton blew around everything.

To be honest until that began making the news in the mist of much of the other problems that had gone on for years before , I put at lease part of the problem on changing to elder led church which seemed to lean to the problem we had been talking about. That is how most of the churches around here and in many parts of the southeast and southwest that I know of began their down fall and found out trouble was a head. The change in theology and by laws was in and the not much to do but change churches.

 

1. They went to Southern Baptist Seminary because they are Baptistic in every way except sotierology.

2. There are very few reformed SBC churches when you compare the number of Reformed churches of all kinds to the relatively large number of calvinstic graduates. I believe the figures I read were that there about 10% of SBC churches with calvinistic sotierology, and 35 % of the graduates of Southern Baptist Seminary last year identified themselves as 5-point calvinists, plus some from 'Southeastern Seminary. To complicate matters, once a 5-pointer gets settled into a church with the same theology, they tend to stay for a long pastorate.

3. These guys are therefore a sort of cross-breed or half breed in doctrine, and the only way many of them will find a friendly pulpit is if they start their own church are are willing to take on a Nehemiah kind of project (rebuilding a church).

 

Bob, I know many members of Dauphin Way, too, and they will tell you flat out that Calvinism was made the scapegoat issue.

I hate what happened to your family, but 20 years ago, SBTS was not Calvinistic and the Founders movement was barely moving

I could discuss further, but I don't think we'll get anywhere. Have a good one :thumbs:

 

I do too, and three of the families are very close friends. I guess even our friends disagree. But as of a few weeks ago when I was there, they seem to be growing well, getting the Gospel out to the lost.

To hit the date correctly it was 1995, the pastor was a Southern Grad and was pushing Founders stuff, so she took it out on both places. I know a few Founders types and we get along fine and I know many a Southern Grad. Even among the Calvinist that I know and have fellowship with have told be there is no place for stealth soteriological. She put the blame on the institutions as well as the man. That was wrong.

I say we differ and will never see eye to eye on this. I agree with Major B, on all he has laid out here. I believe there is blame to go around. Churches that have been hurt by this and put out that deal that was going around for a while and the Founders was pointing it out should hang their head. They are doing just like so many after 9/11, going over board.
As I said at the start I put the blame or most of it on the search committee for not checking the person out and knowing the catch words. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Until you work with these churches and see how many building goes into foreclosure, how many friends stay split and see the damage it does to the Christian witness, one does not see the full cost. I was sharing the gospel with a lost man in Saint Augustine last week. He said after seeing the fighting that goes on between you Christians, I don't want a thing to do with you. He was a mortgage banker and he has had to foreclose on a few Baptist churches here in Florida do to as he said the differences in theology.

 

Good to hear. I know the new church started as a result of the schism is doing this as well. Silver lining, eh?

I started there in '95 and knew many in Mohler's admin. It simply was not a Calvinistic school then, nor is it now. Given the entrenched thought at the time, you'd be as likely to hear liberalism as Calvinism from a SBTS grad from that era.

It is sad that churches split. It's never a simple matter. I've been involved with churches that have. There is rarely ever a smoking gun that causes the split, but always one that preciptates one. Just as many, if not more, split over eschatology or Bible versions, but nothing draws the heat like Reformed theology because people play the "fear" card.

I do agree there is more blame to go around. Churches have created this monster by departing from the Word, failing to do due diligence, and for being anti-Theological. Unless and until the guiltiy churches and leaders repent of their sloth in doctrine and practice, we'll never see the problem fixed.

 

Interestingly, the SBC was birthed in Calvinism. Even in the 1920's the SBC Sunday School Board (the name at the time), was publishing materials which dealt with the Doctrine of Election (Election is a Biblical term BTW).

When E Y Mullins became the SBTS President, the short future of the SBC (until 1979) was determinedly (?) Neo Orthodox in many ways. This led to Calvinism becoming a completely tertiary issue (along with the rise of Fundamentalism in the SBC and that many SBC Pastors were untrained Theologically).

As far as contemporary men "deceiving" churches. yes I know that it happens, just like the Semi-Palagians did starting about 100 yrs. ago only in reverse order.

The Book "By His Grace, and For His Glory" by Tom Nettles deals with these issues pretty in depth

 

The convention has always had both General and Particular Baptists.

 

History does not support that statement

For the first 75 yrs. or so of the SBC, they would not even license a General Baptist. The founding document for the SBC was the 1689 and London Baptist Confession which is definitely a Calvinist Document. They also would not appoint Missionaries who were not Calvinists

 

Neither Calvinist nor Arminian but Baptist:


The New Hampshire Confession and the Rise of the Southern Baptist Zion.128

About a decade before the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, Baptists in New Hampshire were about to write what would become the most disseminated confession in the history of Baptist life in America.129 This document would serve as the predecessor of the Baptist Faith and Message. The doctrine was so unique that longtime Southwestern Seminary theologian James Leo Garrett explains, “One can conclude that the label ‘moderately Arminian’ would be as accurate as the term ‘moderately Calvinistic.’”130 Another writer asserts, “Calvinism and Arminianism are almost ignored.”131

According to Dr. Richard Land, the New Hampshire Confession (1833) solidified the fact that the Sandy Creek soteriology, with its skepticism towards Calvinistic interpretations of particular redemption, unconditional election, and irresistible grace, was now the majoritarian view of early Southern Baptists.132 While there were and are classical Calvinists in Southern Baptist life – men like P. H. Mell (1814-1888) who served as president of the SBC for a record seventeen years133 – they were not and are not the “melody” but the “harmony.”134

The New Hampshire Confession can be best described as a simple biblicism that unites doctrines of Scripture without philosophical speculation. While some may find it ambiguous in its rendering, many Baptists found it refreshing in its uncomplicated articles. For example, compare Article III, “Of the Fall of Man,” with the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, “On the Fall of Man”:

Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742)

They being the root, and by God’s appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free… From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.135

New Hampshire Confession (1833)

We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker, but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint but choice;…positively inclined to evil.136

The difference is not merely in the articles themselves, but in distinct articles omitted from the New Hampshire Confession, including the following soteriological articles:

1. Of God’s Decree
2. Of Divine Providence
3. Of God’s Covenant
4. Of Effectual Calling
5. Of Adoption
6. Of the Gospel, and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof

In its place, the New Hampshire Confession places heavy emphasis on a new article: “Of the Freeness of Salvation.” The statement sets the 1833 confession apart for its importance to Baptists who at the very least believed in human responsibility if not libertarian will. Article VI states:

We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel; that it is the immediate duty of all to accept them by a cordial penitent, and obedient faith; and that nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth, but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel; which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation.137

The confession, quoting different Scriptures, references Matthew 23:37 as a defense of the article, the passage where Jesus cries out to Jerusalem and His desire for her, yet she was not willing.

With the confession gaining prominence across the South, many churches and associations began adopting the statement. In 1843, three associations in Tennessee affirmed the new confession’s article on the freeness of salvation and then articulated that none of the articles adopted were to be “construed in their meaning as to hold with the doctrine of particular, eternal and unconditional election and reprobation.”138 Two years later, the Sandy Creek movement adopted a new confession of faith at the same time as the Southern Baptist Convention was formed. The confession was a near replica of the New Hampshire Confession, with the exception of excluding two articles (“Of Repentance and Faith” and “Of Sanctification”). The new Declaration of Faith (1845) was different than the 1816 confession that spoke of effectual calling and election from eternity. Like the New Hampshire Confession, the new Sandy Creek confession affirmed in full the “freeness of salvation.” The discussion of election, under the article “Of God’s Purpose of Grace,” is now “consistent with the free agency of man.”139….(Part 3 tomorrow).

http://sbctoday.com/historical-southern-baptist-soteriology-pt-23/

 

SBC founder James B. Taylor headed the Foreign Missions Board from 1846 to 1871. In his Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers copyright 1859 we find this:

"In the early part of his ministry he [David Jessee b.1783 d.1856] advocated the high-toned Calvinistic view of that subject; but in the latter years of his life he supported the view now generally adopted by the Baptists, viz., that the atonement is general in its nature."

 

Huh?

Please substantiate this whopper.

 

The New Hampshire Confession came about in 1833 and was used by Baptists in the North and was not a primary confession of Southern Baptists. The statement that says that we are "sinners by choice" is in direct contradiction to Romans 5:12 which says that sin came into the world by one man (Adam).

Sandy Creek Argument: http://sbcheritage.com/sandy-creek-the-myth-of-two-southern-baptist-streams/

Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742). This is from what you posted which is correct and is a Calvinistic statement -“the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free… From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.135”

My response to the Phil Confession of Faith--Sin definitely was imputed (which is the point of Romans 5:12). We are “by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:1) unless Jesus sets us free. We are disabled (read here –at the mercy of God) and opposed to all that is holy and good ie sinners!

The Matthew 23 passage deals with those who always were killing the prophets of God and rejecting the Word of the Lord. It follows a series of Woes which begin the Chapter and Jesus wraps up the section by saying that “they were not willing”. This statement speaks to the depth of their depravity to even hear the Word of God, not that they were able to accept it as truth. This has nothing to do whether or not we have a “Free Will” We certainly do not have a free will (John 1:12-13 and Romans 9:16)

 

I had heard and accepted wholesale the two streams view of Baptist history. Now, due to the link provided by Marooncat79, I am back in the swamp. I did come across this counter argument:

Based on this claim, it would seem the Sandy Creek Calvinist stream went dry before 1845.

Here is a link to an article that supports this view of a shift in doctrine:
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2157/2116

 

http://www.oldschoolbaptist.org/History.htm
"Primitive means 'original' and in doctrine and practice, the Primitive Baptists are identical to the original English and Welsh Baptists who immigrated to colonial America. More importantly, the Primitive Baptists are identical to the primitive or first century church in doctrine and practice.
Primitive Baptists are united by a strong desire to adhere to "Thus saith the Lord", refusing man made additions and auxiliaries to the church, we maintain a simple form of worship and rejoice in the truth of God's sovereignty in saving lost sinners.

The name 'Primitive' was adopted after a disagreement arose in the 1820's and 1830's over the use of Missionary Societies, Sunday Schools and Theological Seminaries, which were first introduced to the United States about 1800. Up till that time, all the Baptist churches (with the exception of a few general atonement Baptist churches) were identical in faith and practice.

Eventually, certain churches began to resist the introduction of the Missionary Societies, Sunday Schools and Theological Seminaries on the grounds that they were unscriptural innovations and there was no Biblical authority to authorize their use. (See The Kehukee Declaration and The Black Rock Address) They believed that God, through the Holy Spirit, directs his ministers where to evangelize not a missionary board. They believed that it is the responsibility of parents to instruct their children in the Christian faith, not others. They believed that the scriptural pattern was for young ministers to apprentice or train under elder ministers, not in a seminary. These Baptists were of the Old School in faith and practice and became known as the Primitive Baptists. The churches which adopted the use of Missionary Societies, Sunday Schools and Theological Seminaries were of the New School and became known as Missionary Baptists. The largest denomination of Missionary Baptists today is the Southern Baptist Convention.

Originally, most of the New School churches were sound on the doctrine of God's Sovereignty in the salvation of sinners. However, practice affects doctrine and vice versa and they soon lost that important truth and became Arminian (belief in the General Atonement). The Primitive Baptists understood this as a vindication against the New School practices and regard Arminianism as an even worse departure from the truth than the Missionary Societies, Sunday Schools and Theological Seminaries they originally stood against.

Primitive Baptists believe there are true believers in the other Christian denominations, however, it is our firm conviction that those believers who are seeking the truth, should return to the place where the truth never ceased to be taught, the Primitive Baptists." excerpt from above link.









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