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IFB Origins

Discussion in 'Fundamental Baptist Forum' started by Truth Seeker, Sep 1, 2018.

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  1. Truth Seeker

    Truth Seeker Member
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    When I look up on the origins of the IFB movement two names comes up. William Bell Riley and J. Frank Norris. I know they were other fundamentalists before them but not considered "IFB". Was W B Riley a Calvinist? I would love to know if he agreed with J. Frank Norris doctrinally. Based on my research, the IFB movement probably began in the 1920's. Even though they were other fundamentalists in the mid 1800's. I also read that W B Riley started the "IFB" up North and Norris down "South". Is this accurate? Was W B Riley ever considered "IFB"? Did W B Riley get along with J Frank Norris?
     
    #1 Truth Seeker, Sep 1, 2018
  2. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
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    He is the one who started the separation from the Modernism of the Northern Baptist Convention by his strong denunciation of the NBC at the meeting in 1920. However, the church he pastored, First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, remained in, and never separated from, the NBC.

    There is a third name associated as the founding triumvirate of the IFB movement, T. T. Shields, of Toronto, Canada.
     
    #2 TCassidy, Sep 1, 2018
  3. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
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    He accepted the calvinistic New Hampshire Confession of Faith as his doctrinal statement.
     
    #3 TCassidy, Sep 1, 2018
  4. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    Eyewitness account from Pastor Mae Fry, present with Riley and other fundamentalists at the 1920 Northern Baptist Convention (from the July 10, 1920 Evangel):

     
    #4 Jerome, Sep 1, 2018
  5. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    #5 Jerome, Sep 1, 2018
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2018
  6. Truth Seeker

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    I had read that W B Riley may have been a 4 point Calvinist. He was referred to as "The Grand Old Man of Fundamentalism". Obviously he was one of the founders of the movement. Someone recently told me that even though Riley was a fundamentalist and a baptist he was never considered an "IFB". That the term "independent fundamental baptist" was something that was coined in the South, perhaps with J Frank Norris.
     
    #6 Truth Seeker, Sep 2, 2018
  7. Squire Robertsson

    Squire Robertsson Administrator
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    First, the Independent in IFB is somewhat of an oxymoron. As Francis Wayland wrote in the 1850s in his Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches:
    A Baptist church cannot be represented. (In writitng about the disolution of the Trienniel Convention)​
    Between their withdrawal of the Northern Baptist from the Triennial and the formation of the Northern Baptist Convention (1901), they conducted business on a more or less functional basis. Like-minded individuals (not churches) came together and formed various organizations such as:
    • The Northern Baptist Foreign Missionary Society
    • The Northern Baptist Home Missionary Society
    • Judson Press
    • The Education Society
    My own home church was founded in 1881. It affiliated with the Northern Baptist movement.

    As for W.B. Riley's soteriology, I hazard if you asked him he'd refer you to the New Hampshire Baptist Confession. As Wayland noted in PPBC, most Baptists are Calvinists of the Fullerite (Andrew Fuller) persuasion.
     
    #7 Squire Robertsson, Sep 3, 2018
    • Agree Agree x 1
  8. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    Yes, Southern Baptist Jeremiah Bell Jeter wrote:

    "Baptists generally hold to what may be termed, for the sake of distinction, "moderate Calvinism"."

    As his fellow SBC Founder James B. Taylor (the first Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the SBC) explained in Virginia Baptist Ministers, published in the 1850s:

    "the view now generally adopted by the Baptists [is] that the atonement is general in its nature"


    In the North, Edward Hiscox affirmed that Baptists in America hold to:

    "what in England is called "moderate Calvinism." Though diversities of personal opinion in many cases may incline to either extreme, the "general atonement" view is for the most part adopted"
     
    #8 Jerome, Sep 3, 2018
  9. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    "Independent" signifies not being affiliated with the Convention (Northern or Southern).
     
    #9 Jerome, Sep 3, 2018
  10. Squire Robertsson

    Squire Robertsson Administrator
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    Wayland does a somewhat deep dive into the difference between the Fullerite position and the Gillite in Principles and Practices.
     
    #10 Squire Robertsson, Sep 3, 2018
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