In Baptist history there has always been differences in doctrine. This has unfortunately resulted, at times, to separate believers from one another. This can be evident from comparing two American Baptist confessions. The most notable difference in doctrine between The Philadelphia Confession of 1742 and A Treatise on the Faith of the Free Will Baptists, 1834 and 1948 is the doctrine of Calvinism versus free-will. The Philadelphia Confession supported Calvinism and the Free Will Baptists supported Arminianism. A closer look at these two confessions show that throughout Baptist history certain doctrines remain constant while others are debated and cause separation of believers. However, this has not stopped the Gospel message to be preached faithfully.
Historical Background
In the seventeenth century, many Baptist churches were forming in the Middle Atlantic Colonies. Differences of opinion and doctrine arose within these churches. Because of their differences, churches met for several years and eventually formed the Philadelphia Baptist Association in 1707. This Association referred to a confession that was developed in 1689 and became the standard for their doctrine. In 1742, the Association printed the new edition of the confession and renamed it The Philadelphia Confession of Faith.
Benjamin Randall believed in the doctrine of believers’ baptism and held to an Arminian theology. He was a successful preacher and evangelist; however, Calvinistic Baptists from New Hampshire and Maine became critical of his Arminian theological views. It was then that Randall joined an Arminian Baptist church and later founded a Free Will church. The Free Will Baptists Confession was later developed in 1834 in response to the Calvinistic theo...
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... foundation of the world while the Free Will Baptists believe that anyone can come to faith based on their free will. The doctrine of election shows the sovereignty of God and that He is in control at all times. Free will places control in the hands of man where God is not completely sovereign in all decisions especially concerning salvation.
The doctrine of the Calvinism versus free will has been debated throughout Baptist history as is evident from these two confessions. The doctrine is still debated today, and as in the past, it can separate believers from one another. Some doctrinal differences will not be resolved in our time, but it should not separate believers from each other. More importantly, the church should be concerned with reaching others for Jesus Christ, and it is evident through Baptist history that this has taken precedent and continues today.
The Church I visited was The Infant of Prague, in Jacksonville, NC. At first, I wasn’t sure if the Saturday night vigil would be like the normal service, because the word vigil was attached, so I looked it up, and to my relief the definition is simply “night service.” Catholicism has an extensive history, deep-rooted rituals in their Order of Mass and a specific style of worship. Although the Baptist and Catholic pray to the same God, the way in which this worship is conducted is definitely foreign to one another.
Parishioners often ask me if there is really any difference between United Methodist and the Baptists down the road. The answer, “quite a lot,” generally surprises them. When they ask me to explain, I often point them in the direction of our polity and the theology it reflects.
"Every time he [Wesley] lays out Methodist beliefs he's saying it's basic Christianity," Jones said. Wesley was determined to preach "primitive Christianity" and to rescue the faith from "more corrupt forms." Jones asserted Wesley wo...
Prior to Enlightenment the colonists, like the Europeans, were guided by their fear of God and rulers. They followed their church’s teachings blindly, as many of them could not read the scripture themselves. As the colonists began to educate themselves, they found that their interpretation of the readings did not always match what was preached to them in Sunday’s sermon. Even with the vamped up services and revivals during the Awakening many continued to question organized religion and separate from the Catholic Church. Many smaller denominations resulted from these breaks caused by the Awakening, leading to the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther even wrote entire doctrines based on his differences of opinion which would eventually form the basis for the Lutheran Church. The colonists also questioned the authority of their European rulers. Many believed that God himself had put their rulers in charge, but with all the political disasters and condemnation they were seeing they began to question their...
The Protestants who emigrated to America knew from experience of the negative effect the government had on religion when the two were operating together. With the mindset of creating a new perfect holy land, they decided to make sure both church and state worked separately. While Puritans still did everything they could to enforce their beliefs in New England, including exiling those who did not attend church regularly, the core idea of separation of church and state was in the minds of the people. In order to have a country that values the freedom of religion, the church has to be out of any government policy. Any laws that are created around a single church’s faith, even if the majority of the population believes in them, threaten the freedoms of all other denominations. Ame...
In the beginning of the Second Great Awakening, preachers brought their message to the people with great fanfare and excitement in the form of a traveling revivals. In the beginning, these focused on the Appalachian frontier. However, they quickly moved into the area of the original colonies. These revivals were looked upon as a social event where faith was renewed. The Baptists and Methodists often worked together in these revivals. Both religions believed in free will with
In Walter B. Shurden’s The Baptist Identity, he looks at four of the core elements, or freedoms, that shape and mold Baptist theology and their identity. The four core concepts he explores in his book are Bible freedom, soul freedom, church freedom, and religious freedom. While looking at these four values, he examines how they mold and shape the Baptist identity and how they came to be. The origin to each of these values in the Baptist tradition is addressed as well as their benefits and draw backs. He explains their purpose and necessity in the Baptist denomination and how it effects the denomination as a whole.
Conversely, after researching it, I came to the conclusion that Jefferson was a deist. This conclusion is essentially drawn from and supported by the personal letters that were written by Jefferson himself and sent to his close friends. In this paper I will analyze Thomas Jefferson’s religious beliefs, as well as compare those beliefs to those held by Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin is also a political and historical figure of our nation. Out of all the founding fathers, Franklin is the only one that has signed all three of the major documents that freed the colonies from British rule and established the United States as an independent nation: the Declaration of Independence, The Treaty of Paris, and the United States Constitution. In comparison with Jefferson, Franklin’s beliefs also often get examined. Additionally, I will study the Declaration of Independence for imitated religious beliefs, and examine the different definitions, perspectives on, and creeds of the Christian and deist
Even though Winthrop and Edwards were two similar authors they were writing for two completely different reasons. Edwards was writing his sermon close to a hundred years after Winthrop, in a time called the Great Awakening. Edwards’s sermon was designed using scare tactics to bring people back to the church; while, Winthrop was working to keep everyone in a “group.” According to William Cain, Alice McDermott, Lance Newman, and Hilary Wyss, editors of “American Literature Volume One,” “he [Winthrop] believed that the English church could be reformed from within, cleansed of its “Catholic” doctrinal traces and elements of ritual” (102). Winthrop was giving his sermon aboard the ship to the new world and has belief that he can purify the English church. On the other side, Edwards is writing after the church has been “purified;” thus, a different means of communication is required to bring people back to the church. William Cain, Alice McDermott, Lance Newman, and Hilary Wyss, editors of “American Literature Volume One,” said, “Edwards witnessed a great revival of religion known as the “Great Awakening,” which he documented in several of his writings” (264). The quote says that Edwards is writing in a time period that required s method that would bring people back to the church. All in all, the time period of Winthrop and Edwards’s sermons play a major role in the content of the
American Protestantism struggled in the 1920’s with the issues of biblical criticism, sources of authority in Christianity, and the theory of evolution. Presbyterians and Baptists experienced splits in their denominations as the events of this decade began to chip away at fundamentalism. For example, John T. Scopes was put on trial for the teaching of evolution, which violated a Tennessee state statute. The growing controversy between Fundamentalists and Modernists as to biblical criticism and evolutionary theories is not what is important in analyzing American Fundamentalism. What is important to analyze is, “in view of the acknowledged impact of these forces, why a minority of Christians responded in one fashion while the majority reacted in another”(Sandeen xi). It was this split in Christianity that made many people believe that fundamentalism should have died out seventy years ago. But fundamentalism survived and there has been a recent resurgence in its’ popularity.
Mead, Frank S., and Samuel S. Hill. Handbook of Denominations in the United States. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1995. Print.
Instead of believing “their foot shall slide in due time” (Edwards, 209), Franklin and Emerson view individuals as empires full of potential rather than lives managed by God. Franklin seldom goes to public worship, because “their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens.” (Franklin, 580) Yet, he still gives money to some churches because he thinks the churches will use the money to do good, not because
Now we will look at the religious views of both Franklin and Edwards. Franklin thought spirituality was not a concern. He thought man was the center of life, not God. He thought man was basically good and prudence, hard work, and frugality was what made man good, not God’s gr...
The central assertion of Calvinism canons is that God is able to save from the tyranny of sin, from guilt and the fear of death, every one of those upon whom he is willing to have mercy. God is not frustrated by the unrighteousness or the inability of men because it is the unrighteous and the helpless that he intends to save. In Calvinism man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that, which is good and well pleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it. This concept of free choice makes Calvinism to stand supreme among all the religious systems of the world. The great men of our country often were members of Calvinist Church. We had the number of Presbyterian presidents, legislators, jurists, authors, editors, teachers and businessmen. The revolutionary principles of republican liberty and self-government, taught and embodied in ...
Lutzer, Erwin. The Doctrines That Divide: a Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines That Separate Christians. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1998.