Kevin Bauder: A Fundamentalist's Education

Quite an interesting read. Thanks for posting.

 

I enjoyed reading it. Interesting how Bauder's conservatism (or fundamentalism) was strengthened while studying at schools that naturally might have led him to be less conservative.

 

One point that Bauder makes -- and which is probably also true of you -- was that he was older and more experienced when he began those studies. Sometimes the starry-eyed young student is shocked and awed by the elevated professors, and swallows all down, hook, line, and sinker.

I was still fairly young when I went to Bible College, but in comparison to many classmates, had been well grounded in Bible studies by my church, teachers and pastors. Many of my fellow students knew next to nothing about the Bible or theology. I'm not saying that as a pat on my back -- for there is worlds of biblical stuff that I didn't know and still don't know. But many others seemed to have little backgound in the Bible. For example, in a homiletics class assignment to make a sermon outline on "assurance," everyone else did an outline on eternal security.

I suspect it would do most people good to get some "real world experience" before going on to higher education classes. Of course, a big problem there is it can be hard to move back to that after being out of school awhile.

 

I appreciate Dr. Bauder's commitment to accuracy in presenting the history of Baptist Fundamentalism.

From his powerpoint for his Central Seminary's Spring 2009 Pastors' Day lecture:

I've done my own research and found that Amy Stockton also preached at Hamilton Square Baptist Church (San Francisco), and at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Washington, D.C.) where she returned year after year. It was she who finished Mel Trotter's last evangelistic campaign, in North Carolina, when he was felled by a heart attack.

 

Kind of off topic, but in my recent foray into Free Will Baptist history, I found that women evangelists and even pastors were fairly common in the first half of the 20th century, but increasingly came to be looked on with disfavor.

I have found Bauder's historical posts on In the Nick of Time to be very helpful to me in beginning to understand Northern Fundamentalism.

 

Bauder devotes a number of pages to preacher Amy Lee Stockton in his book with Robert Delnay, One in Hope and Doctrine: Origins of Baptist Fundamentalism, 1870–1950 (Regular Baptist Press, 2014). PDF of the first chapter of the book and index provided here.

Reviewed in Cambridge's Church History journal:

cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/one-in-hope-and-doctrine-origins-of-baptist-fundamentalism-18701950-by-kevin-bauder-and-robert-delnay-schaumburg-ill-regular-baptist

"The book is based on rigorous scholarship, complemented by the authors' inside knowledge of their subjects. Even when discussing theological liberals and other opponents of Baptist fundamentalism, they are for the most part balanced in their assessment."

"Bauder and Delnay have brought to the fore a couple of historical actors who have been overlooked previously. One in particular is Oliver Van Osdel of the Wealthy Street Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the development of fundamentalism within the old Northern Baptist. Convention (NBC) and the formation of the Baptist Bible Union (BBU), Van. Osdel was probably more significant than the early fundamentalist stars—William Bell Riley, T.T. Shields, and J. Frank Norris. While those three crisscrossed the country rallying and energizing fundamentalists, Van Osdel worked diligently behind the scenes to build an actual fundamentalist movement in Michigan that became a core part of the BBU. When the BBU fell apart in the early 1930s, and the big three went on to other things, Van. Osdel and some of his even lesser known compatriots founded the General. Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC)."

 

I also enjoyed these articles by Bauder:
Initial Thoughts on Distance Education
Roger, Roger | Part Four: Today’s Situation
and especially
The Baptist Paradox

Thanks for the mention. Just ordered it.

 

Miss Stockton preached there when Louis J. Sawyer was pastor, but I don't see why the time would matter, since as you've said:

 

It has long been the assumption that the Yankees held a form of the truth, but denied the truth in practice.

:)

Somewhere I posted how an early controversy in Baptist churches was over congregational singing.

The strident held that such singing (remember it was typically the psalms) was presenting the gospel and therefore such was not allowed to be done when women were in the. assembly.

A brief reading of the events can be found here :
https://founders.org/2017/12/08/the...nd-the-reformation-of-congregational-singing/

 

Who holds such a faulty assumption regarding Northern Baptist Fundamentalists?

 

Why would you think it a “faulty assumption?”

Can you name a fundamental independent Baptist Church in the south that endorsed a woman preachet?

 

I hold to the Doctrines of Grace with a modified limited atonement placed upon belief rather than blood shed.

My “LA” would be “LR”

 

I'm not sure why reading about a squabble between Baptists over prohibiting singing in worship would affect your TULIP status.