Baptist Hall Of Shame

[guitarpreacher]

I'm Baptist from the top of my shinny bald head to the tips of my smelly old feet. It's doubtful that I will ever gain enough notoriety to make anybody's list - good or bad. I can't help but think that if I was somehow able to make Bro. Mark's list that I would consider that to be a badge of honor.

How about it Bro. Mark, can you at least squeeze me in at #11?

 

[Squire Robertsson]

I agree GP. There are times when you're not sure about someone or something. And you can't tell anything by the folks supporting it or them. So, you have to look at who is against it or them. That can be the decider. If the Mayor of San Francisco says he likes fried oyster poor boys, I'd have to give the dish second thoughts. (Not really, but you know what I mean.)

 

[mioque]

Thanks for the edit Squire.

 

[Plain Old Bill]

Is Mark being hypercritical?Mark would you wish to judged as harshly as you have judged this group in "your" hall of shame?

 

[Kiffen]

The fact is Landmark Successionism is a propaganda history that has been disproven over and over again. The most one can come to is a Anabaptist kinship view.

 

[rlvaughn]

Originally posted by Mark Osgatharp:
If J.R. Graves was a Calvinist, then shame on him. Shame on any man so steeped in the hell inspired philosophies of man that he would deny that Jesus Christ tasted death for every man.

We need to be careful of someone's logic that Graves was a Calvinist because most Baptists of his day were. But he was. I would put up a few quotes from his "The Work of Christ in the Covenant of Redemption: Developed in Seven Dispensations", but I can't seem to find it anywhere on my shelf. Readings from that book should be convincing enough. He was a Calvinist, but of the "Fuller" stripe, not like Gill or Ryland.

Since this is the history forum, theological questions for or against Calvinism aside, it is an historical fact that most of our American Baptist forebears were Calvinists. I don't have to be one because they were (or a freewiller because some early English Baptists and Anabaptists were), but I wouldn't put them in the Hall of Shame.

 

[rsr]

We must all admit that not all of Adam's race were given by the Father to the Son to be saved, else all will be saved, as the Universal Redemptionists falsely teach.

We know from our own observation that all men are not saved, for the overwhelming majority die in their sins; die disbelieving in the existence of God; die in the practice of the grossest sins; die in the act of murder; die in drunkenness; die in impenitency; die cursing and blaspheming the very name of God. If men are not saved without faith in Christ as Savior and Redeemer, — then this impenitent multitude will be forever lost: and where Christ is, they never can come.

But the Word of God expressly declares that without holiness and purity of heart no man can see God in peace (Heb. x.14), and that the road that leads to eternal death is a broad one, and the many go in thereat (Matt. vii.13). Therefore all men were not given to the Son, and his redemptive work does not embrace all men in the sense of the totality of the race, but in a sense hereafter to be noticed. Surely every rational man, every Christian, will freely assent to the Scripturalness of these positions, however prejudiced against the absolute sovereignty of God's pre-determinations and electing grace.

Christ took hold of a special class, and a definite number, known by the Father, to succor and to save, and whom he calls the "Seed of Abraham," "His Seed," "His Sheep," and "The lost sheep of the house of Israel." To save none others was He specially sent into the world. "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," (Matt. xv.24).

— J.R. Graves, The Work of Christ in the Covenant of Redemption Developed in Seven Dispensations, Chapter 7

 

[Mark Osgatharp]

Originally posted by rlvaughn:
it is an historical fact that most of our American Baptist forebears were Calvinists. I don't have to be one because they were (or a freewiller because some early English Baptists and Anabaptists were), but I wouldn't put them in the Hall of Shame.

First of all, since "most of our American Baptist forebears" didn't leave one word of written information about what they believed, you have no way of verifying what you call a "fact." Furthermore, if you could prove that most, or all, of our American Baptist forbears were Calvinists, all it would prove is that they deserved to have the finger of shame pointed in their faces.

Shamefulness, or lack thereof, is not determined by what most of our forebears did, nor how much feigned piety they affected when they did it. Shame is heaped on when a man sets aside the word of God for his own traditions.

In light of such glorious truth as that "God so loved the word" I can think of few things more shameful than asserting that He, after all, didn't.

Mark Osgatharp

 

[Squire Robertsson]

I would ask you to look at the Philadelphia Confession and tell me if it is a Particular Baptist confession or a General Baptist confession. We have to say "most" as most were Particulars; the non-mosts were Generals.

It is important to remember, by now God has combed the theological and doctrinal kinks out of their thinking.

 

[rlvaughn]

Originally posted by Mark Osgatharp:
First of all, since "most of our American Baptist forebears" didn't leave one word of written information about what they believed, you have no way of verifying what you call a "fact."

If you require that I have writings on the subject from every individual Baptist among our American forebears, you certainly require something I cannot give. But you require too much. Almost every known early Baptist on this continent was a member of a Baptist church that was a member of a Baptist association. These Baptist associations had articles of faith. The churches of these associations adhered (at least outwardly, I don't know their hearts) to the articles of faith of these associations. Except for the Arminian falling from grace Baptists, all of them had "Calvinistic" articles of faith. Some of the Separate Baptists later would effect change in that, but up until that point, I know of no exception to this fact. I do recognize there could be facts no longer accessible to us.

Furthermore, if you could prove that most, or all, of our American Baptist forbears were Calvinists, all it would prove is that they deserved to have the finger of shame pointed in their faces.

On this we'll just have to disagree. While you point the finger of shame at them, I will thank God for our Baptist forebears who delivered to us the faith which was once delivered to the saints, despite their flaws, inconsistencies, and doctrinal vagaries.

 

[Mark Osgatharp]

Originally posted by rlvaughn: While you point the finger of shame at them, I will thank God for our Baptist forebears who delivered to us the faith which was once delivered to the saints, despite their flaws, inconsistencies, and doctrinal vagaries.

Calvinism is not the faith once delivered to the saints. It is a doctrine of man which plays on and fosters intellectual pride, brings division and discord where ever it is introduced, makes hash out of the Scriptures - every bit as much as Campbellism - and blasphemes the Holy name of God and the sacrifice of Christ, and, ultimately, breeds infidelism of the most sordid kind.

Mark Osgatharp

 

[whatever]

Originally posted by Mark Osgatharp:
Calvinism is not the faith once delivered to the saints. It is a doctrine of man which plays on and fosters intellectual pride, brings division and discord where ever it is introduced, makes hash out of the Scriptures - every bit as much as Campbellism - and blasphemes the Holy name of God and the sacrifice of Christ, and, ultimately, breeds infidelism of the most sordid kind.

Mark Osgatharp

Yeah, it's too bad so many guys like Carey and Judson went to so many places like India and Burma spreading thier blasphemies and infidelism.

 

[John of Japan]

Whatever, you're joking, right? Or you are very ignorant of missions history. Or you are not distinguishing between moderate Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. Or something.

It was hyper-Calvinism that tried to prevent Carey from going to India and launching the modern missions movement. Add Calvinist John Ryland, Sr., to the Hall of Shame for saying, "Sit down young man. You are an enthusiast! When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without consulting you or me."

Go back to Baptist history and study the reaction of the Fullerites to hyper-Calvinism which made Carey's mission possible.

 

[whatever]

No joke. I know the difference between true Calvinism and so-called "hyper-Calvinism" (which I consider "sub-Calvinism"). Carey and Judson were only two of many true Calvinists who withstood opposition from the hypers of their day to carry their "blasphemies and infidelism" around the world.

 

[John of Japan]

Okay. Glad to know you know the difference. However, some friendly advice:

(1) Lose the "sub-Calvinism" thing. Hyper-Calvinists are infralapsarian, not sublapsarian, so it sounds weird.

(2) You really do need to study Fullerism out fully if you are going to understand Carey and use blithely his name as a "true Calvinist" missionary. (I'd challenge you on where you learned about his and Judson's doctrine but I don't have the time to do the research right now in case you come up with something.)

(3) In fact, avoid references to missions and evangelism if you are going to argue with Arminians or middle-of-the-roaders. You'll get blown away. I can count on one hand Calvinists of any stripe who have written on evangelism, and I have about 100 books on the subject (Pink? Gill? Hah!). And where are the reformed Baptist missionaries in Japan? There used to be a couple down on Shikoku, but I don't know any nowadays. However, the Freewill Baptists have 14 in Japan!

God bless.

 

[rsr]

Originally posted by John of Japan:
(1) Lose the "sub-Calvinism" thing. Hyper-Calvinists are infralapsarian, not sublapsarian, so it sounds weird.

Infralapsarianism is sublapsarianism. The opposing view is supralapsarianism.

While hyper-calvinism has been applied to supralapsarianism, they are not the same, and hyper-calvinism is always a perjorative term applied by opponents.

But we digress ...

 

[guitarpreacher]

Come on guys - you've hijack the thread. Debate Calvinism somewhere else. If you keep this up I'll never make the list!!!!

 

[Mark Osgatharp]

Originally posted by whatever:
Yeah, it's too bad so many guys like Carey and Judson went to so many places like India and Burma spreading thier blasphemies and infidelism.

Ddidn't Jesus have something to say about some who compassed land and sea to make one proselyte?

Mark Osgatharp

 

[rlvaughn]

Originally posted by John of Japan:
Add Calvinist John Ryland, Sr., to the Hall of Shame for saying, "Sit down young man. You are an enthusiast! When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without consulting you or me."

John, there is no doubt that John Ryland, Sr. was a strong Calvinist. But in the interest of historical accuracy, we probably should write "allegedly saying". A quote like this gets a lot of press, but there are some historians who call this account into question. See, for example, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in Transmission of Faith, by Andrew F. Walls (Orbis, 1996).

 

[rlvaughn]

Brother Mark, whether you accept Calvinism or not is not the point. The point is historical. I don't think the ancestry of American Baptist Association churches is buried in darkness. We know from whence we came. American Baptists such as Clarke, Backus, Leland, Edwards, Stearns, Graves and their churches were our forefathers in the faith. And they were Calvinists.