Primitive Baptist Culture

PB's must be Jykle and Hyde. Some of the sweetest folks I''ve ever met are PB's. But I keep hearing reports like the one you've posted also.

 

I'm a PB, and not ashamed of it.
Some of my folks are rude, there's no two ways about it. Heck, I think I myself may have been a victim of latent racism by a few of my own folks and fellow ministers, come to think of it.
Remember that most of them come from the deep South (this is not to bash you rebs, y'all heah now ?).

But you know, that can happen in any church, Primitive Baptist or not. A church is made up of fallen but redeemed sinners, who may or may not be growing in grace, and may or may not be evidencing that grace in their lives.

So, I'm not going to post here and cry out in protest that all PB's are saints in fact, deed, and life. We are not.

I, for example, am a believer that when someone takes a swing at you, it's time to duck and swing right back. Harder. I'm not gonna watch that fist land in my face and then look up to heaven and say, "Lord, you know about this".

Now, having said that mouthful, let me say that I find it somewhat intriguing that here you post a mouthful yourself about this particular PB church, and what you're saying amounts to a parable. No details.

What were you doing in that church ? What did they say about your SBC church ? Did they particularly name the church where you were a mamber at ? Where was it said, in the pulpit ? Did they know you were a member of that church ?Who said it ? What kind of PB church was that ? A Black PB church ? A white PB church ? A mixed PB church ? What kind of 'big deal' was made about this particular black woman whose only fault was she wanted to use the bathroom ?

John Hagee takes potshots at Baptists, too. Not very pleasant to hear, but I've never heard him name one particular Baptist church. Baptist churches take potshots at Baptist churches, Roman Catholic churches, Seventh day Adventist churches, JW churches, and almost anyother church under heaven's roof, and vice versa.

I've been to plenty of Baptist churches up here in Western New York, looking for one that at least bears a resemblance to what I hear from PB pulpits, and let me tell you this, I've seen more subtle racism here than I've seen down south. Some churches don't even bother to ask who we were, where we come from, or try to pretend to shake our hands in welcome !

So, what's the big deal ? Don't be too onion-skinned about that, friend, and welcome to the real world. The real world is a fallen world, and until we get to heaven, we'll find the roads we walk in are muddy, dirty, broken, and not paved with gold. In heaven we get to look around and gape at faces we thought while on earth were not supposed to be there !

 

Well, then, you were trying to start a PB bashing thread is the case, to get even with the SBC bashing that church did in your presence ? You ought to have spoken out in defense of your church right there and then, and not post here where none from that church can give their side of the story, don't you think ?

 

The title of the thread caught my eye.I've never been in a PB church. What is the difference between a PM and say a SB. in Bible doctrine or church practice.
How are services conducted?How is the church led?What types of fellowshipping do they do?Who do they felowship with outside of thier local church body?

 

Differences

I think there are a lot of differences, in doctrine, history, and practice, and to get a really good grip of these things, a search of the web for more concise information will be a better option.

But in a nutshell, we believe that grace means exactly that, grace with no attachments. Salvation is OF the Lord, who gives it to whom He will, according to His purposes for that soul. We believe that God chose a definite number of people unto salvation in Christ from before the foundation of the world, and that these chosen are scattered all over the earth, and have been and will be found in all generations and in all chronologies, and are separated and divided here in time by culture, creed, color, geography, theologies, politics and such things as may be found in this fallen world.

We believe that the gospel is to be preached to the world by those who are called of the Lord to do so, not as a means of salvation, but as good news of a finished salvation provided by a successful Savior, and that the gospel is intended for the living (spiritually) and not for the spiritually dead since the gospel does not cause regeneration, and that those who are called to this ministry, if called to a foreign land, ought to depart immediately, conferring with no flesh and blood, and to rely fully and solely for his needs to the Lord.

In practices, we do not subscribe to Sunday Schools, both for adults or children, nor to musical instruments (though there are those who call themselves Progressive Primitive Baptists who do have Sunday Schools disguised as Bible Studies, and who use recorded musical accompaniment).

We sing our songs Acapella, with or without a song leader, and our services consist of singing, praying, preaching.

We baptize all who wish to join the church notwithstanding previous baptisms they may have had.

 

erratum/addendum

....notwithstanding previous non PB baptisms. I am not so sure about this, but I think if one is a member of a PB church that preaches absolute predestination, or no-hellism, or a Progressive PB, and seek membership in a church that does not hold to absolute predestination, no-hellism, and the practices of a Progressive PB, then he is also baptized into membership because his previous baptism is deemed not valid.

 

I can't speak for every church, but mine would require valid baptism for people from these groups.

We have a few ways of taking in members.

1 - Baptism into our church by an ordained Elder of our faith.

2 - A letter in good standing from a church of our faith and order.

3 - By relation; meaning, if their former church was a PB church in good order and is no longer in existence or is no longer in fellowship with us, we can accept them by their own statement of faith.

We have received many members by all 3 of these methods, but as far as No.3 goes, we have never received anyone from a no-hell, absolute, or Progressive order of PBs.

Bro. Tim, you ought to come visit. Annual Meeting is 2nd Sunday weekend in October, starting Fri. night and going through Sunday. I think you would find yourself very welcomed in our group of churches down here. The church could help with your travel and you wouldn't even need a hotel room, not that you would be led by such things. We've got plenty of homes with plenty of rooms.:thumbsup:

 

I am a strange bird. The primitive baptists are strange birds. One of the best friends I had was PB. We would fight........oh boy would we fight and yet he would cry and love me all the more. He was hard headed, stubborn, pigeonholed, inconsistent, unrelenting and he loved me and my family more than all that I just said about him. He was one of the most true and loyal friends I ever had. He was calvinist supreme, and yet he sometimes would stop and say, "you know I don't have an answer for that question". I loved him dearly and it is breaking my heart to even write of him tonight. He was so very kind to us. He loved my children. He cared for my family. He prayed for us and took care of us. His name was Albert Witvoit, from NE Ill. He is with the Lord tonight. God took him home several years ago. I went to church with him many times. I sat with him at his table and ate with him many times.
Thank You Lord for my Friend........Al.

Bartimaeus

 

Thanks for the information gentlemen.:thumbsup:

 

It seems to be the case that this was solely started as a PB bashing thread.

How, indeed, can we as Primitive Baptists even begin to understand or defend, if warranted, the actions of our brethren when we are told only that they made fun of the SBC and a black woman. We get no specifics about anything that happened; only an opinionated, one-sided view of what took place.

I must say, from my experience, I've been treated better by Primitive Baptists in my life than I have by any other people I know, including my own family who are SBC. To take one experience as being indicative of Primitive Baptist Culture is lunacy.

How many times has this young man been to this or any other Primitive Baptist church? How many people were at the church? My guess would be 15-20. Whatever may or may not have occured there, it would hardly be indicative of Primitive Baptist Culture, as the title of this thread asserts.

If the original post was not meant to start an argument over the issues raised, then what exactly is the meaning of this thread, other than, as indicated, to "get back" at Primitive Baptists for, in your view, bad-mouthing the SBC.

I would suggest, if you were offended by anything which may have occured at this church, that you go and speak with the brethren who may have offended you. They may not even realize that anything was said amiss, yet they are now being sullied in an open discussion board without even being able to defend themselves.

Brother, if you have an issue with a person or church, whatever affiliation that person or church may have, go and tell it to that person. Don't post it on the internet for the whole world to see. After all, if you refuse to divulge the details, then maybe you shouldn't have made the fuss in an open forum to begin with.

May God bless His people, even when are being offensive or offended.

Bro. James

 

FYI,

The above post was intened for JRG39402,even though I did start out with a quote from Bro. pinoybaptist. Don't want to be mis-read by anyone.:thumbs:

 

Allow me please another opportunity to post and answer as honestly as I can as I have experienced the Primitive Baptist Folks.

I have spent many hours with many PB's. They have been very kind and helpful, offering much and expecting very little in return. I have been in their regular Sunday services. Each church has a certain way of worship and they are all different yet, there are similarities that maintain a cohesive bond between the individual churches. Some call young people from the congregation for a Bible reading and some do not. I do not know of any congregations that sing with musical instruments and yet they all sing vibrantly and fervantly old hymns. They share ministers from time to time and make sure congregations w/o ministers are taken care of. I know they fellowship with other PB churches alot, much of the time even accross state lines. I have been in their special preaching services and they are wonderful. They have suppers together sometimes after their meetings. The families (children) are taught to respect their elders and I must say I met a great bunch of young people. They are hard working (I met alot of PB farmers) and strongly opinionated. I say that to their honor. I will tell you of a circumstance that happened to me at one of their special meetings. We had a great service and the minister was asking for song requests from the congregation. Songs were suggested and sung. I was a visitor and unfamiliar with what was considered appropriate in their church service. I suggested a scripture song and I quickly was passed over. I gathered that I was out of order. I was not shunned or rebuked at all. I did not get my feelings hurt either. I realized what I did was not correct. The reasons do not matter. They (the congregation) treated me like family afterward. The PB's that I have met are a trusting people to a fault. They take the command to walk by faith literally.

This synopsis is only my opinion and is not exhaustive, but it is my heart felt position on the PB Church.
I do not subscribe to their Doctrine. I am considered by them as Arminean (sp). I pray that I just believe the Bible as it is written, hence the debate with my friend Albert. I have been loved by the PB folk and I love them.

Thanks Bartimaeus

 

Presupositions

Please note, my personal knowledge of Primitive Baptists is what I have gleaned from contacts here on Baptist Board.

I see that we don't share enough presupositions to have more than an acquaintence level of relationship. Regretfully, my discription of my salvation experience would not be acceptable to many if not all nor would my baptism. As HSBC was not daughtered from any specific pre-existing church in 1881, I doubt if they would accept it as a valid NT church (leaving aside all of the frippery we have that a PB church doesn't). Come to think of it, I don't think any of San Francisco's Baptist churches in that era fit that bill. First Baptist was started by a pioneer pastor who came around the Horn as a '48er.

edited to clean up Bro. Fall's spelling.

 

Bartimaeus,

Thank you for your kind words. I am glad that there is at least one non-PB here who can attest to the love that is commonly found among our people.

I love Arminians, though I debate hotly and heatedly with some, but this is only in matters of doctrines.
Never do we of the Primitive Baptist faith question the salvation of anyone, Arminian, Calvinist, PB, SDA, JW, RC, Muslim, or atheist, and personally I dare not condemn even Osama bin Laden or the WTC attackers to hell.

For the simple reasons that, (1) Salvation is OF the Lord, which is He authored it, He finished it, He owns it, and He dispenses it to whom He will, (2) Salvation is not dependent on one's beliefs, practices, creeds, or doctrines here in time. If it were so, then we were not saved for eternal purposes, but only for timely purposes. God's elect have been and will always be found among all the nations, tongues, and races, and He will gather them in His eternal kingdom one day, (3) God is able to save to the uttermost whom He will, and quicken them and bring them to a knowledge of Him in Spirit and in Truth, even at the last millisecond of death. If He is unable to, then His powers are not limitless.

At Columbia PBC in Maryland which I had the privilege of pastoring for a short while, we do call out hymns, and the members are as loving and trusting as you described them.

 

On the matter of soteriology, I believe, Pinoy, you proved my point on not sharing some basic presupositions. I have no problem saying

Mind you this is based on my (imperfect) knowledge of Islamic theology.

Can God save them? Yes. Will God save them? Maybe. From what we know of the paths they trod or tread, is it at all likely? No. But this is a topic for another forum.

 

This thread was just a bash on the PBs in my opinion. This was started in Baptist History and then the Mod. Locked it out because he said it needed to be moved. I sent a Pm to the Mod. and said it was not right to let some one say that then lock it and let no other PBs respond. then later mod. pm me back told me it had been moved and i am glad to see the PBs stand up for their church and people. it could have been two people who didn't even belong to church. it could have been some one from the original posters like church for all we know who was visiting just like him. I am in Ohio and we go around alot of Pbs I have never heard of any thing like that from them. We Correspond with an all black PB association and never did any of the white visiting PB preachers have a problem with that and we have had Pb come from the North and South. He was bashing in my mind, they probably wrecked his religion and he was offended. May be the original poster ought to read the history of why there is a southern Baptist Convention when it split.
..........brother Jeremy an Old Regular Baptist

 

From a Historic Nortern Regular Baptist

For a history of Hamilton Square Baptist Church, please follow this link.
http://www.hamiltonsquare.net/PDFs/HSBC%20Book.pdf

Further, I would remind you many of us with roots in the North split from what became the SBC at the time of the demise of the Triennial Convention.

I am not seeking to "bash" the Primitive Baptists. I am simply trying to articulate why we would have difficulties in fellowship.