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Baptists are a denomination of Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God), sola fide (salvation by faith alone), sola scriptura (the Bible is the sole infallible authority, as the rule of faith and practice) and congregationalist church government. Baptists recognize only two ordinances: baptism and communion.
Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today may differ widely from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship.[1] Baptist missionaries have spread various Baptist churches to every continent.[2] The largest group of Baptist churches is the Baptist World Alliance, and there are many different groupings of Baptist churches and Baptist congregations.
Historians trace the earliest Baptist church to 1609 in Amsterdam, with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor.[3] In accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults.[2] Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect.[4] Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have freedom of religion. Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious conflict with English Dissenters under James I.
Baptist historian Bruce Gourley outlines four main views of Baptist origins:
- the modern scholarly consensus that the movement traces its origin to the 17th century via the English Separatists,
- the view that it was an outgrowth of the Anabaptist movement of believer's baptism begun in 1525 on the European continent,
- the perpetuity view which assumes that the Baptist faith and practice has existed since the time of Christ, and
- the successionist view, which argues that Baptist churches actually existed in an unbroken chain since the time of Christ.[3] Some people prior to the reformation acknowledge the existence of Baptists and their separation from the church.[5][page needed] Sir Isaac Newton stated "Baptists are the only body of known Christians that never symbolized with Rome".[citation needed]
English separatist view
Modern Baptist churches trace their history to the English Separatist movement in the 17th century, over a century after the foundation of the Church of England during the Protestant Reformation.[6] This view of Baptist origins has the most historical support and is the most widely accepted.[7] Adherents to this position consider the influence of Anabaptists upon early Baptists to be minimal.[3] It was a time of considerable political and religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical "truth" had been discovered.[8]
During the Reformation, the Church of England (Anglicans) separated from the Roman Catholic Church. There were some Christians who were not content with the achievements of the mainstream Protestant Reformation.[1][9] There also were Christians who were disappointed that the Church of England had not made corrections of what some considered to be errors and abuses. Of those most critical of the church's direction, some chose to stay and try to make constructive changes from within the Anglican Church. They became known as "Puritans" and are described by Gourley as cousins of the English Separatists. Others decided they must leave the church because of their dissatisfaction and became known as the Separatists.[3]
In 1579, Faustus Socinus founded the Unitarian Polish Brethren in Poland-Lithuania, which was a tolerant country. The Unitarians taught baptism by immersion. After their expulsion from the Commonwealth in 1658, many of them fled to the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the Unitarians introduced immersion baptism to the Dutch Mennonites.[10]
Baptist churches have their origins in a movement started by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys in Amsterdam.[11][12][13] Because they shared beliefs with the Puritans and Congregationalists, they went into exile in 1607 with other believers who held the same biblical positions.[14] They believe that the Bible is to be the only guide and that the believer's baptism is what the scriptures require.[15] In 1609, the year considered to be the foundation of the movement, they baptized believers and founded the first Baptist church.[16][17]
In 1609, while still there, Smyth wrote a tract titled "The Character of the Beast," or "The False Constitution of the Church." In it he expressed two propositions: first, infants are not to be baptized; and second, "Antichristians converted are to be admitted into the true Church by baptism."[8] Hence, his conviction was that a scriptural church should consist only of regenerate believers who have been baptized on a personal confession of faith. He rejected the Separatist movement's doctrine of infant baptism.[18][19]
Shortly thereafter, Smyth left the group.[3] Ultimately, Smyth became committed to believers' baptism as the only biblical baptism. He was convinced on the basis of his interpretation of Scripture that infants would not be damned should they die in infancy.[20] Smyth, convinced that his self-baptism was invalid, applied with the Mennonites for membership. He died while waiting for membership, and some of his followers became Mennonites. Helwys and others kept their baptism and their Baptist commitments.[20] The modern Baptist denomination is an outgrowth of Smyth's movement.[9] Baptists rejected the name Anabaptist when they were called that by opponents in derision. McBeth writes that as late as the 18th century, many Baptists referred to themselves as "the Christians commonly—though falsely—called Anabaptists."[21]
Helwys took over the leadership, leading the church back to England in 1611, and he published the first Baptist confession of faith "A Declaration of Faith of English People" in 1611.[22] He founded the first General Baptist Church in Spitalfields, east London, in 1612.[23]
Another milestone in the early development of Baptist doctrine was in 1638 with John Spilsbury, a Calvinist minister who helped to promote the strict practice of believer's baptism by immersion (as opposed to affusion or aspersion).[7] According to Tom Nettles, professor of historical theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, "Spilsbury's cogent arguments for a gathered, disciplined congregation of believers baptized by immersion as constituting the New Testament church gave expression to and built on insights that had emerged within separatism, advanced in the life of John Smyth and the suffering congregation of Thomas Helwys, and matured in Particular Baptists."[7]
Anabaptist influence view
A minority view is that early 17th century Baptists were influenced by (but not directly connected to) continental Anabaptists.[24] According to this view, the General Baptists shared similarities with Dutch Waterlander Mennonites (one of many Anabaptist groups) including believer's baptism only, religious liberty, separation of church and state, and Arminian views of salvation, predestination and original sin.
It is certain that the early Baptist church led by Smyth had contacts with the Anabaptists; however it is debated if these influences found their way into the English General Baptists.[25] Representatives of this theory include A.C. Underwood and William R. Estep. Gourley writes that among some contemporary Baptist scholars who emphasize the faith of the community over soul liberty, the Anabaptist influence theory is making a comeback.[3] This view was also taught by the Reformed historian Philip Schaff. [26]
However, the relations between Baptists and Anabaptists were early strained. In 1624, the five existing Baptist churches of London issued a condemnation of the Anabaptists.[27] Furthermore, the original group associated with Smyth (popularly believed to be the first Baptists) broke with the Waterlander Mennonite Anabaptists after a brief period of association in the Netherlands.[28]
Perpetuity and succession view
Traditional Baptist historians write from the perspective that Baptists had existed since the time of Christ.[29] Proponents of the Baptist successionist or perpetuity view consider the Baptist movement to have existed independently from Roman Catholicism and prior to the Protestant Reformation.[30]
The perpetuity view is often identified with The Trail of Blood, a booklet of five lectures by James Milton Carroll published in 1931.[30] Other Baptist writers who advocate the successionist theory of Baptist origins are John T. Christian and Thomas Crosby.[30][31] This view was held by English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon[32] as well as Jesse Mercer, the namesake of Mercer University.[33] In 1898 William Whitsitt was pressured to resign his presidency of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for denying Baptist successionism.[34]
Baptist origins in the United Kingdom
In 1612 Helwys established a Baptist congregation in London, consisting of congregants from Smyth's church. A number of other Baptist churches sprang up, and they became known as the General Baptists. The Particular Baptists were established when a group of Calvinist Separatists adopted believers' Baptism.[35][page needed] The Particular Baptists consisted of seven churches by 1644 and had created a confession of faith called the First London Confession of Faith.[36]
Baptist origins in North America
Both Roger Williams and John Clarke are variously credited as founding the earliest Baptist church in North America.[37] In 1639 Williams established a Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, and Clarke began a Baptist church in Newport, Rhode Island. According to a Baptist historian who has researched the matter extensively, "There is much debate over the centuries as to whether the Providence or Newport church deserved the place of 'first' Baptist congregation in America. Exact records for both congregations are lacking."[6][38]
The First Great Awakening energized the Baptist movement, and the Baptist community experienced spectacular growth. Baptists became the largest Christian community in many southern states, including among the enslaved Black population.[2]
Baptist missionary work in Canada began in the British colony of Nova Scotia (present day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in the 1760s.[39] The first official record of a Baptist church in Canada was Horton Baptist Church (now Wolfville) in Wolfville, Nova Scotia on 29 October 1778.[40] The church was established with the assistance of the New Light evangelist Henry Alline. Many of Alline's followers, after his death, converted and strengthened the Baptist presence in the Atlantic region.[41][42] Two major groups of Baptists formed the basis of the churches in the Maritimes. These were referred to as Regular Baptist (Calvinistic in their doctrine) and Free Will Baptists (Arminian in their doctrine).[41]
In May 1845, the Baptist congregations in the United States split over slavery and missions. The Home Mission Society prevented slaveholders from being appointed as missionaries.[43] The split created the Southern Baptist Convention, while the northern congregations formed their own umbrella organization now called the American Baptist Churches USA (ABC-USA).[44] In 2015, Baptists in the U.S. number 50 million people and constitute roughly one-third of American Protestants.[45]
Baptist origins in Ukraine
The Baptist churches in Ukraine were preceded by the German Anabaptist and Mennonite communities, who had been living in southern Ukraine since the 16th century, and who practiced adult believer's baptism.[46] The first Baptist baptism (adult baptism by full immersion) in Ukraine took place in 1864 on the river Inhul in the Yelizavetgrad region (now Kropyvnytskyi region), in a German settlement. In 1867, the first Baptist communities were organized in that area. From there, the Baptist movement spread across the south of Ukraine and then to other regions as well.
One of the first Baptist communities was registered in Kyiv in 1907, and in 1908 the First All-Russian Convention of Baptists was held there, as Ukraine was still controlled by the Russian Empire. The All-Russian Union of Baptists was established in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro) in southern Ukraine. At the end of the 19th century, there were between 100,000 and 300,000 Baptists in Ukraine.[47] An independent All-Ukrainian Baptist Union of Ukraine was established during the brief period of Ukraine's independence in early 20th-century and once again after the fall of the Soviet Union, the largest of which is currently known as the Evangelical Baptist Union of Ukraine.
Some Baptist church congregations choose to be independent of larger church organizations (Independent Baptist). Other Baptist churches choose to be part of an international or national Baptist Christian denomination or association while still adhering to a congregationalist polity.[48][49][50][51] This cooperative relationship allows the development of common organizations, for mission and societal purposes, such as humanitarian aid, schools, theological institutes and hospitals.[52]
The majority of Baptist churches are part of national denominations (or 'associations' or 'cooperative groups'), as well as the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), formed in 1905 by 24 Baptist denominations from various countries.[53][54][55] The BWA's goals include caring for the needy, leading in world evangelism and defending human rights and religious freedom.
Missionary organizations favored the development of the movement on all continents. The BMS World Mission was founded in 1792 at Kettering, England.[56][57] In United States, International Ministries was founded in 1814, and the International Mission Board was founded in 1845.[58][59]
Worship service at Crossway Baptist Church in Melbourne, affiliated with Australian Baptist Ministries, 2008
Worship service at Kohima Ao Baptist Church in Kohima, affiliated with the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (India), 2019
Membership policies vary due to the autonomy of churches, but generally an individual becomes a member of a church through believer's baptism (which is a public profession of faith in Jesus, followed by immersion baptism).[60] Most Baptists do not believe that baptism is a requirement for salvation but rather a public expression of inner repentance and faith.[6] In general, Baptist churches do not have a stated age restriction on membership, but believer's baptism requires that an individual be able to freely and earnestly profess their faith.[61]
In 2010, an estimated 100 million Christians identified as Baptist or belonging to a Baptist-type church.[62] In 2020, according to the researcher Sébastien Fath of the CNRS, the Baptist movement has around 170 million believers in the world.[63] According to a census released in 2024, the BWA includes 266 participating fellowships in 134 countries, with 178,000 churches and 51 million baptized members.[64] These statistics may not be fully representative, however, since some churches in the United States have dual or triple national Baptist affiliation, causing a church and its members to be counted possibly by more than one Baptist association, if these associations are members of the BWA.[65][66]
Among the censuses carried out by individual Baptist associations in 2023, those which claimed the most members on each continent were:
- In North America, the Southern Baptist Convention with 46,906 churches and 12,982,090 members,[67] the National Baptist Convention, USA with 21,145 churches and 8,415,100 members.[64]
- In South America, the Brazilian Baptist Convention with 9,288 churches and 1,809,230 members, the Evangelical Baptist Convention of Argentina with 1,216 churches and 85,000 members.[64]
- In Africa, the Nigerian Baptist Convention with 14,523 churches and 8,925,000 members, the Baptist Convention of Tanzania with 1,391 churches and 2,690,730 members, the Baptist Community of the Congo River with 2,685 churches and 1,765,836 members.[64]
- In Asia, the Myanmar Baptist Convention with 5,337 churches and 1,013,499 members, the Nagaland Baptist Church Council with 1,724 churches and 716,495 members, the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches with 1,079 churches and 600,000 members.[64]
- In Europe, the All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists with 2,192 churches and 105,189 members,[64] the Baptist Union of Great Britain with 1,875 churches and 100,103 members, the Union of Christian Baptist Churches in Romania with 1,697 churches and 83,853 members.[64]
- In Oceania, the Baptist Union of Papua New Guinea with 493 churches and 84,700 members, the Australian Baptist Ministries with 1,029 churches and 78,416 members.[64]
Since the early days of the Baptist movement, various associations have adopted common confessions of faith as the basis for cooperative work among churches.[68] Each church has a particular confession of faith and a common confession of faith if it is a member of an association of churches.[68] Some historically significant Baptist doctrinal documents include the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1742 Philadelphia Baptist Confession, the 1833 New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith, and written church covenants which some individual Baptist churches adopt as a statement of their faith and beliefs.
Baptist theology shares many doctrines with evangelical theology.[69] It is based on believers' Church doctrine.[70] Baptists, like other Christians, are defined by school of thought—some of it common to all orthodox and evangelical groups, and a portion of it distinctive to Baptists.[71] Through the years, different Baptist groups have issued confessions of faith—without considering them to be creeds—to express their particular doctrinal distinctions in comparison to other Christians as well as in comparison to other Baptists.[72] Baptist denominations are traditionally seen as belonging to two parties, General Baptists who uphold Arminian theology, and Particular Baptists who uphold Reformed theology (Calvinism).[4] During the holiness movement, some General Baptists accepted the teaching of a second work of grace and formed denominations that emphasized this belief, such as the Ohio Valley Association of the Christian Baptist Churches of God and the Holiness Baptist Association.[73] Most Baptists are evangelical in doctrine, but their beliefs may vary due to the congregational governance system that gives autonomy to individual local Baptist churches.[74] Historically, Baptists have played a key role in encouraging religious freedom and the doctrine of separation of church and state.[75]
Shared doctrines would include beliefs about one God; the virgin birth of Jesus; miracles; substitutionary atonement for sins through the death, burial, and bodily resurrection of Jesus; the Trinity; the need for salvation (through belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, his death and resurrection); grace; the Kingdom of God; last things (eschatology) (Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to Earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge everyone in righteousness); and evangelism and missions.
Most Baptists hold that no church or ecclesiastical organization has inherent authority over a Baptist church. Churches can properly relate to each other under this polity only through voluntary cooperation, never by any sort of coercion. Furthermore, this Baptist polity calls for freedom from governmental control.[76] Exceptions to this local form of local governance include a few churches that submit to the leadership of a body of elders, as well as the Episcopal Baptists who have an Episcopal system.
Baptists generally believe in the literal Second Coming of Christ.[77] Beliefs among Baptists regarding the "end times" include amillennialism, both dispensational and historic premillennialism, with views such as postmillennialism and preterism receiving some support.
Some additional distinctive Baptist principles held by many Baptists:[78]: 2
- The supremacy of the canonical Scriptures as a norm of faith and practice. For something to become a matter of faith and practice, it is not sufficient for it to be merely consistent with and not contrary to scriptural principles. It must be something explicitly ordained through command or example in the Bible. For instance, this is why Baptists do not practice infant baptism: they say the Bible neither commands nor exemplifies infant baptism as a Christian practice. More than any other Baptist principle, this one when applied to infant baptism is said to separate Baptists from other evangelical Christians.
- Baptists believe that faith is a matter between God and the individual. It is connected in theory with the advocacy of absolute liberty of conscience.
- Insistence on immersion believer's baptism as the only mode of baptism. Baptists do not believe that baptism is necessary for salvation. Therefore, for Baptists, baptism is an ordinance, not a sacrament, since in their view it imparts no saving grace.[78]
Beliefs that vary among Baptists
Since there is no hierarchical authority and each Baptist church is autonomous, there is no official set of Baptist theological beliefs.[79] These differences exist among associations and even among churches within the associations. Some doctrinal issues on which there is widespread difference among Baptists are:
- Eschatology
- Arminianism versus Calvinism (General Baptists uphold Arminian theology while Particular Baptists teach Calvinist theology).[4]
- The doctrine of separation from "the world" and whether to associate with those who are "of the world"
- Belief in a second work of grace, i.e. entire sanctification (held by General Baptists in the Holiness tradition)
- Speaking-in-tongues and the operation of other charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit in the charismatic churches[80]
- How the Bible should be interpreted (hermeneutics)
- The extent to which missionary boards should be used to support missionaries
- The extent to which non-members may participate in the Lord's Supper services
- Which translation of Scripture to use (e.g., King James Only movement)[81]
- Dispensationalism versus Covenant theology
- The role of women in marriage
- The ordination of women as deacons or pastors.[82]
- Attitudes to and involvement in the ecumenical movement.
- The role of repentance and perseverance in salvation (Lordship salvation controversy).[83][84][85][86]
Excommunication may be used as a last resort by some denominations and churches for members who do not want to repent of beliefs or behavior at odds with the confession of faith of the community. When an entire congregation is excluded, it is often called disfellowship.[87]
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In Baptist churches, worship service is part of the life of the church and includes praise, worship, of prayers to God, a sermon based on the Bible, offering, and periodically the Lord's Supper.[88][89] Some churches have services with traditional Christian music, others with contemporary Christian music, and some offer both in separate services. [90] In many churches, there are services adapted for children, even teenagers.[91] Prayer meetings are also held during the week.[92]
The architecture is generally sober, and the Latin cross is one of the only spiritual symbols that can usually be seen on the building of a Baptist church and that identifies the place where it belongs.[93]
Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary, affiliated with the Baptist Convention of Hong Kong, 2008
Crandall University in Moncton, affiliated with the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada (Canadian Baptist Ministries)
College of Nursing, Central Philippine University in Iloilo City, affiliated with the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches, 2018.
Baptist churches established elementary and secondary schools, Bible colleges, colleges and universities as early as the 1680s in England,[94] before continuing in various countries.[95] In 2006, the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities was founded in the United States.[96] In 2023, it had 42 member universities.[97]
Many churches promote virginity pledges to young Baptist Christians, who are invited to engage in a public ceremony of sexual abstinence until Christian marriage.[98] This pact is often symbolized by a purity ring.[99] Programs like True Love Waits, founded in 1993 by the Southern Baptist Convention have been developed to support the commitments.[100]
Most Baptist associations around the world believe only in marriage between a man and a woman.[101] Some Baptist associations do not have official beliefs about marriage in a confession of faith and invoke congregationalism to leave the choice to each church to decide.[102][103] This is the case of American Baptist Churches USA, Progressive National Baptist Convention (USA), Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (USA), National Baptist Convention, USA and the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Some Baptist associations support same-sex marriage. This is the case of the Alliance of Baptists (USA),[104] the Canadian Association for Baptist Freedoms,[105] the Aliança de Batistas do Brasil,[106] the Fraternidad de Iglesias Bautistas de Cuba,[107] and the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (international).[108]
Baptists have faced many controversies in their 400-year history, controversies of the level of crises. Baptist historian Walter Shurden says the word crisis comes from the Greek word meaning 'to decide.' Shurden writes that contrary to the presumed negative view of crises, some controversies that reach a crisis level may actually be "positive and highly productive." He claims that even schism, though never ideal, has often produced positive results. In his opinion, crises among Baptists each have become decision moments that shaped their future.[109]
Missions crisis
Early in the 19th century, the rise of the modern missions movement, and the backlash against it, led to widespread and bitter controversy among the American Baptists.[110] During this era, the American Baptists were split between missionary and anti-missionary. A substantial secession of Baptists went into the movement led by Alexander Campbell to return to a more fundamental church.[111]
Slavery crisis
United States
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Leading up to the American Civil War, Baptists became embroiled in the controversy over slavery in the United States. Whereas in the First Great Awakening, Methodist and Baptist preachers had opposed slavery and urged manumission, over the decades they made more of an accommodation with the institution. They worked with slaveholders in the South to urge a paternalistic institution. Both denominations made direct appeals to slaves and free Blacks for conversion. The Baptists particularly allowed them active roles in congregations. By the mid-19th century, northern Baptists tended to oppose slavery. As tensions increased, in 1844 the Home Mission Society refused to appoint a slaveholder as a missionary who had been proposed by Georgia. It noted that missionaries could not take servants with them, and also that the board did not want to appear to condone slavery.[112]
In 1845 a group of churches in favor of slavery and in disagreement with the abolitionism of the Triennial Convention (now American Baptist Churches USA) left to form the Southern Baptist Convention.[113] They believed that the Bible sanctions slavery and that it was acceptable for Christians to own slaves. They believed slavery was a human institution which Baptist teaching could make less harsh. By this time many planters were part of Baptist congregations, and some of the denomination's prominent preachers, such as Basil Manly Sr., president of the University of Alabama, were also planters who owned slaves.
As early as the late 18th century, Black Baptists began to organize separate churches, associations and mission agencies. Blacks set up some independent Baptist congregations in the South before the Civil War. White Baptist associations maintained some oversight of these churches.
In the postwar years, freedmen quickly left the white congregations and associations, setting up their own churches.[114] In 1866, the Consolidated American Baptist Convention, formed from Black Baptists of the South and West, helped southern associations set up Black state conventions, which they did in Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. In 1880, Black state conventions united in the national Foreign Mission Convention to support Black Baptist missionary work. Two other national Black conventions were formed, and in 1895 they united as the National Baptist Convention. This organization later went through its own changes, spinning off other conventions. It is the largest Black religious organization and the second-largest Baptist organization in the world.[115] Baptists are numerically most dominant in the Southeast.[116] In 2007, the Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Survey found that 45% of all African Americans identify with Baptist denominations, with the vast majority of those being within the historically Black tradition.[117]
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In the American South, the interpretation of the Civil War, abolition of slavery and postwar period has differed sharply by race since those years. Americans have often interpreted great events in religious terms. Historian Wilson Fallin contrasts the interpretation of Civil War and Reconstruction in White versus Black memory by analyzing Baptist sermons documented in Alabama. Soon after the Civil War, most Black Baptists in the South left the Southern Baptist Convention, reducing its numbers by hundreds of thousands or more.[citation needed] They quickly organized their own congregations and developed their own regional and state associations and, by the end of the 19th century, a national convention.[118]
White preachers in Alabama after Reconstruction expressed the view that:
God had chastised them and given them a special mission – to maintain orthodoxy, strict biblicism, personal piety, and "traditional" race relations. Slavery, they insisted, had not been sinful. Rather, emancipation was a historical tragedy and the end of Reconstruction was a clear sign of God's favor.
Black preachers interpreted the Civil War, Emancipation and Reconstruction as "God's gift of freedom." They had a gospel of liberation, having long identified with the Book of Exodus from slavery in the Old Testament. They took opportunities to exercise their independence, to worship in their own way, to affirm their worth and dignity, and to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Most of all, they quickly formed their own churches, associations, and conventions to operate freely without white supervision. These institutions offered self-help and racial uplift, a place to develop and use leadership, and places for proclamation of the gospel of liberation. As a result, Black preachers said that God would protect and help him and God's people; God would be their rock in a stormy land.[119]
The Southern Baptist Convention supported white supremacy and its results: disenfranchising most Blacks and many poor whites at the turn of the 20th century by raising barriers to voter registration, and passage of racial segregation laws that enforced the system of Jim Crow.[120] Its members largely resisted the civil rights movement in the South, which sought to enforce their constitutional rights for public access and voting; and enforcement of midcentury federal civil rights laws.[121]
In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that recognized the failure of their ancestors to protect the civil rights of African Americans.[122] More than 20,000 Southern Baptists registered for the meeting in Atlanta. The resolution declared that messengers, as SBC delegates are called, "unwaveringly denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin" and "lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest." It offered an apology to all African Americans for "condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime" and repentance for "racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously or unconsciously." Although Southern Baptists have condemned racism in the past, this was the first time the convention, predominantly White since the Reconstruction era, had specifically addressed the issue of slavery.
The statement sought forgiveness "from our African-American brothers and sisters" and pledged to "eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry." In 1995, about 500,000 members of the 15.6-million-member denomination were African Americans and another 300,000 were ethnic minorities. The resolution marked the denomination's first formal acknowledgment that racism played a role in its founding.[123]
Caribbean islands
A healthy Church kills error, and tears evil in pieces! Not so very long ago our nation tolerated slavery in our colonies. Philanthropists endeavored to destroy slavery, but when was it utterly abolished? It was when Wilberforce roused the Church of God, and when the Church of God addressed herself to the conflict—then she tore the evil thing to pieces! – C.H. Spurgeon an outspoken British Baptist opponent of slavery in 'The Best War Cry' (1883)[124]
Elsewhere in the Americas, in the Caribbean in particular, Baptist missionaries and members took an active role in the anti-slavery movement. In Jamaica, for example, William Knibb, a prominent British Baptist missionary, worked toward the emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies (which took place in full in 1838). Knibb supported the creation of "Free Villages" and sought funding from English Baptists to buy land for freedmen to cultivate; the Free Villages were envisioned as rural communities to be centered around a Baptist church where emancipated slaves could farm their own land. Thomas Burchell, missionary minister in Montego Bay, was active in this movement, gaining funds from Baptists in England to buy land for what became known as Burchell Free Village.
Prior to emancipation, Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe, who served with Burchell, organized a general strike of slaves seeking better conditions. It developed into a major rebellion of as many as 60,000 slaves, which became known as the Christmas Rebellion or the Baptist War. It was put down by government troops within two weeks. During and after the rebellion, an estimated 200 slaves were killed outright, with more than 300 judicially executed later by prosecution in the courts, sometimes for minor offenses.
Baptists were active after emancipation in promoting the education of former slaves; for example, Jamaica's Calabar High School, named after the port of Calabar in Nigeria, was founded by Baptist missionaries. At the same time, during and after slavery, slaves and free Blacks formed their own Spiritual Baptist movements—breakaway spiritual movements which theology often expressed resistance to oppression.[125]
Landmark crisis
Southern Baptist Landmarkism sought to reset the ecclesiastical separation which had characterized the old Baptist churches, in an era when inter-denominational union meetings were the order of the day.[126] James Robinson Graves was an influential Baptist of the 19th century and the primary leader of this movement.[127] While some Landmarkers eventually separated from the Southern Baptist Convention, the movement continued to influence the Convention into the 20th and 21st centuries.[128]
Modernist crisis
The rise of theological modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also greatly affected Baptists.[129] The Landmark movement has been described as a reaction among Southern Baptists in the United States against incipient modernism.[130] In England, Charles Spurgeon fought against modernistic views of the Scripture in the Downgrade Controversy and severed his church from the Baptist Union as a result.[131][132][133]
The Northern Baptist Convention in the United States had internal conflict over modernism in the early 20th century, ultimately embracing it.[134] Two new conservative associations of congregations that separated from the convention were founded as a result: the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches in 1933 and the Conservative Baptist Association of America in 1947.[134]
Following similar conflicts over modernism, the Southern Baptist Convention adhered to conservative theology as its official position.[135][136] In the late 20th century, Southern Baptists who disagreed with this direction founded two new groups: the liberal Alliance of Baptists in 1987 and the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991.[137][138][139][140] Originally both schisms continued to identify as Southern Baptist, but over time they "became permanent new families of Baptists."[137]
Criticism
In his 1963 book, Strength to Love, Baptist pastor Martin Luther King Jr. criticized some Baptist churches for their anti-intellectualism, especially because of the lack of theological training among pastors.[141]
In 2018, Baptist theologian Russell D. Moore criticized some Baptists in the United States for their moralism emphasizing strongly the condemnation of certain personal sins, but silent on the social injustices that afflict entire populations, such as racism.[142] In 2020, the North American Baptist Fellowship, a region of the Baptist World Alliance, officially made a commitment to social justice and spoke out against institutionalized discrimination in the American justice system.[143] In 2022, the Baptist World Alliance adopted a resolution encouraging Baptist churches and associations that have historically contributed to the sin of slavery to engage in restorative justice. [144]
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