Featured Honest question to the Calvinists...

Calvinistic Baptists can be found in American and British written history at least from 1640. The 1689 Baptist London Confession of Faith is Calvinistic. The Philadephia Baptist Confession of Faith and New Hampshire Confession of faith is Calvinistic. The Southern Baptist Confession of Faith comes originally from the New Hampshire Baptist Confession which is Calvinistic.

Prior to 1640 Calvinistic teachings can be found in pre-Calvin Waldenses as early as 1100 A.D. Samuel Moreland's History of the Waldenses provide early Waldenses Confessions which are Calvinistic before Calvin was born.

 

HungryInherit

They hold a covenant continuity based on the OT type that they believe carries over to the NT..... we believe there is some continuity however we believe in the newness of the new covenant....

9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

they say..just like the Covenant I made with your fathers



They also believe Ot circumcision is replaced by baptism[a sign and seal of the covenant]

We say Ot circumcision ...is replaced by regeneration....

They follow the OT model of saved and unsaved being in the covenant together....[not all of whom were saved}hence they sprinkle babies
We say only regenerate are in the covenant[all saved by new birth]
so our view of the church differs...
.they say it is a mix and children of believers are in[ not necessarily saved}

we say..no..children must be born again first to enter...[regenerate church membership}

 

Unfortunately most baptists are woefully ignorant of baptist history. The SBC for example began with a large majority of Calvinists.

But uneducated people can only judge the entirety of human history by the tiny spec that their own lives have occupied.

Study William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Charles Spurgeon and the like and you'll find out that non-cals are the least baptist of baptists throughout baptist history. This noncal majority is a hiccup in baptist history that I believe is fortunately coming to an end.

 

.............

 

Think due to there being many subsets of calvinists represent here on the board!

Some are reformed baptists, following all the detail of calvinistic theology, especially Covenent theology

Some here hold to 5 points of Grace, as I do, but reject the whole system and its theology

others takes 4 points of Grace

So the Reformed and reformed calvinists co exist in calvinistic baptist circles here!

 

Don't forget all those "one point Calvinists" who are also on this Forum masquerading as Arminians!

 

How could you manage to write nearly 100 words and so totally ignore the question in the OP? He didn't ask for a history lesson. He asked "why you are a Calvinist Baptist?" YOU! Not the Baptists of 375 years ago.

 

How could you manage to miss the final clause of his question. He said that he had never heard of so many Baptists being Calvinist until he came on this forum. Iconolast already answered why we are not Presbyterian before I posted. Did not see any need to repeat what he said. So I addressed the last clause of his question.

 

Presbyterians have a different church goverment than Baptists, elder rule instead of congregational rule. Their church membership is different than Baptists. Their form of baptism is different than Baptists. They originate with Roman Catholicism as Calvin was a Roman Catholic Priest but Baptists originate with New Testament Christianity.

 

The SBC was wrong about slavery in its beginning and we made the necessary adjustments to correct our mistakes. I'd argue that we made some of the same strides in our soteriology.

While I will concede the fact that many of the leaders during the SBC founding were more Calvinistic than others, I'd say their form of Calvinism is night and day different from what we are 'typically' seeing from the neo-Calvinism of the "young, restless, and reformed" crowd of today.

I can almost quote as many passages from Spurgeon to support my views as you could, because he was a real "Biblicist." I disagree with the way he interpreted some of the bible but He didn't fall into the trap of trying to make all the scriptures fit into the Calvinistic 5 point system. If it didn't fit, he would say so and accept the paradox of it. I respect that.

 

That's unfortunate. Baptists, traditionally, have been Reformed in our theology.

So, other than sprinkling babies, why aren't you a Methodist?

 

When I first came to this board I really didn't know where I fit in (I guess I still don't to some extent :saint, but anyways through self study of the scriptures I always held to a high view of God and his sovereignty, and knew I was baptistic. One of the arguments I first encountered here that led me to fully embrace the DOG was the undisputable fact about early missionaries, Spurgeon, founders of the SBC, etc. These great men and women were clear what side of the fence they were on. I am now going through By His Grace and For His Glory by Tom Nettles (albeit slowly) hoping to gain even a better historical perspective.

:smilewinkgrin: :smilewinkgrin: :smilewinkgrin:

 

Nettles book is excellent though not a particularly easy read!

 

How were they wrong?

 

With regard to slavery or their soteriology?

 

The soteriology and eschatology situation is well argued on the BB.

Go for the slavery.

What was wrong about the original views of the SBC founders on the slavery issue?

 

Support your claim.

I'll take that challenge and I'll even get us started.

"Calvinism is the Gospel," Charles H. Spurgeon

Your turn.

Another claim without warrant.

 

How would I need to do that in order to appease you? I ask because I suspect I could provide several quotes from people on this forum and contrast them to some of the older Calvinistic types, but I recall that approach not going well in the past with you because you have just about as much ability objectively interpreting scriptures as you do commentators of those scriptures.

"What then? Shall we try to put another meaning into the text than that which it fairly bears? I trow not. You must, most of you, be acquainted with the general method in which our older Calvinistic friends deal with this text. "All men," say they, —"that is, some men": as if the Holy Ghost could not have said "some men" if he had meant some men. "All men," say they; "that is, some of all sorts of men": as if the Lord could not have said "all sorts of men" if he had meant that. The Holy Ghost by the apostle has written "all men," and unquestionably he means all men. I know how to get rid of the force of the "alls" according to that critical method which some time ago was very current, but I do not see how it can be applied here with due regard to truth. I was reading just now the exposition of a very able doctor who explains the text so as to explain it away; he applies grammatical gunpowder to it, and explodes it by way of expounding it. I thought when I read his exposition that it would have been a very capital comment upon the text if it had read, "Who will not have all men to be saved, nor come to a knowledge of the truth." Had such been the inspired language every remark of the learned doctor would have been exactly in keeping, but as it happens to say, "Who will have all men to be saved," his observations are more than a little out of place. My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent with the word of God. I never thought it to be any very great crime to seem to be inconsistent with myself, for who am I that I should everlastingly be consistent? But I do think it a great crime to be so inconsistent with the word of God that I should want to lop away a bough or even a twig from so much as a single tree of the forest of Scripture. God forbid that I should cut or shape, even in the least degree, any divine expression. So runs the text, and so we must read it, "God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."" —Charles Spurgeon, "Salvation By Knowing the Truth"

 

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