Baptist Hall Of Shame

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?

 

Thanks for the edit Squire.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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).

 

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.