What separates the most liberal Baptists from Unitarian Universalists?

What matters is NOT what different groups might think or accept.

What matters is what the Bible says.

What matters is that Jesus said HE is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one has access to the Father but through HIM.

What matters is that Peter says that there is no other name under heaven which brings salvation.

What matters is the truth, not what this or that group thinks about it.

 

BWSmith wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I know that, under soul freedom, there's nothing stopping a Baptist from going anywhere on the spectrum between ultra-conservatism and atheism. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No offense, BWSmith, but am I the only one who sees something really, really wrong about this? The idea that you have the freedom to believe almost anything and yet still be a Baptist, or worse still be a Christian seems anathema to me. Am I totally off base here? (Tom opens the door for Michael Wrenn, et.al., to pounce with that last phrase )

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TomVols:
BWSmith wrote:


No offense, BWSmith, but am I the only one who sees something really, really wrong about this? The idea that you have the freedom to believe almost anything and yet still be a Baptist, or worse still be a Christian seems anathema to me. Am I totally off base here? (Tom opens the door for Michael Wrenn, et.al., to pounce with that last phrase )<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As the late J. Gresham Machen of Princeton said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The chief modern rival of Christianity is "liberalism." An examination of the teachings of liberalism will show that at every point the liberal movement is in opposition to the Christian message.

A terrible crisis has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundations of the faith. And now there are some indications that the fiction of conformity to the past is to be thrown off, and the real meaning of what has been taking place is to be allowed to appear. The Church, it is now apparently supposed, has almost been educated up to the point where the shackles of the Bible can openly be cast away and the doctrine of the Cross of Christ can be relegated to the limbo of discarded subtleties.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

See
Liberalism or Christianity?

 

Dear BW,

One day whilst surfin the WEB, I found documentation of a Baptist Trinitarian Universalist (in doctrine) Church (yes Trinitarian) in Boston around the turn of the 17th century (1830ish).
The pastor of said church wrote that eventually all men will be saved because hell is temporary, kind of like the Catholic view of Purgatory.
He used the UU proof text that Christ "is the savior of all men especially of those that believe" 1 Timothy 4:10.
Those in hell will accept Christ there (every knee shall bow, etc),
I don't know if it should be called a cult, but perhaps a curious deviation from orthodoxy.
So it doesn't take liberalism to be a universalist (as this with 17th century Baptist pastor).

HankD

[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: HankD ]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by BWSmith:
So is it safe to say that 99.999% of Baptists are Trinitarians?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think the percentage would be that low. Why are you not a trinitarian?