Lessons from a Baptist Timeline
We are in a study of Baptist history in our church. Our study lasted just over a year, but we are down to the last lesson or two. The folks in our church tell me they enjoyed it, I certainly enjoyed teaching it. (But then, I would!!) Near the end of our study, I came across a timeline compiled by the late Dr. David Cummins. Dr. Cummins passed into glory in 2009. I am not sure when he compiled the timeline, but the later part of the 20th century seemed a little sparse in details, so I took the liberty of filling in a few blanks. A pdf copy of the timeline is here.
What can we learn from a timeline?
We should bear in mind that the authors of a timeline like this are subjective in their selections. They highlight those events that seem significant to them. Obviously, a lot more happened in history than the few events highlighted in the timeline. Still, good timelines are quite suggestive and provide a helpful review and some lessons we can apply to present day ministry.
Matters of First Importance: What is the most important feature of Baptist doctrine? Baptists came into existence over believers’ baptism. This step distinguished them from other Separatist groups in the early 17th century. From it flowed many other typically Baptist ideas, such as regenerate church membership, congregational polity, soul liberty, and autonomy of the local church, to name a few. Some might think that baptism is the Big Idea of Baptists (especially since that’s what the name says!). No doubt proper baptism is important to Baptists, but an attendant doctrine became of vital importance not just to Baptists, but also to the Western world at large. That attendant doctrine is the doctrine of freedom of religion, or religious liberty.
We can see in the events of the seventeenth century many items linked to religious liberty. After Baptists appeared on the scene, locales with established churches (official state churches) frequently persecuted Baptists. Massachusetts, for example, banned Baptists in 1644. Obadiah Holmes suffered a brutal whipping in 1651. Harvard College dismissed Henry Dunster for Baptist views in 1654. 1660 saw John Bunyan’s first prison sentence. A few more events like this appear in the timeline, but these suffice. Baptists suffered for their beliefs. That suffering inspired the doctrine of freedom of religion, something that is at the bedrock of the free societies we live in.
There are clouds on the horizon of liberty without a doubt. Nevertheless, we see in our forebears tremendous courage of their convictions that produced a free society — after suffering. We look to their faith as a model for our own going forward.
Empty Spaces because of Aberrant Doctrine: Early in the eighteenth century, the slots in the timeline are mostly bare. These years reflected the deadening rise of aberrant doctrine among Baptists in Britain (while the Baptists in America were not yet flourishing). In Baptist history, a dividing line runs between two poles. In Britain, the first Baptists were General Baptists who followed Arminian theology. The other strain was the Particular Baptists, who were Calvinists. Both “camps” find their place in Baptist ranks, and each one led to errors. The General Baptists almost completely fell into the Unitarian heresy in the eighteenth century; the Particular Baptists fell into Hyper-Calvinism.
As the century drew to its close, Baptist activity picked up. Revival in Britain, led by Andrew Fuller and others, brought Particular Baptists out of their “Hyper-difficulty” and some General Baptists revived the faith of their fathers (though they remained few and weak). In America, following the Great Awakening, a great stirring developed Baptist churches all over the country under the leadership of men like Isaac Backus in the north and Shubal Stearns in the south. The American Revolution produced the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, including the landmark amendment concerning religious freedom.
Aberrations deadened, but revival made alive. That groups who started so promisingly in the seventeenth century, recovering the notion of believers’ baptism and all that went with it, should almost wither and die by pursuing strange doctrines is a lesson to us today. Independent Baptist fundamentalists find themselves distracted by niggling aberrations today. Their influence is not what it once was. Can God be honored by our aberrations? Can we keep our eyes on the main thing?
The Energizing Effect of Revival: The nineteenth century holds the title of “the Great Century of Christian Missions.” A look at our timeline shows the presence of more significant events than any other century of our history. The revivals in the late eighteenth century produced this activity; the revivals of the nineteenth century sustained it. The people of this era were “doers,” serious about reaching their world for Christ. In these years, the greatest missionary expansion of the church in general occurred, with Baptists busily involved in the thick of this work. This activity and growth is despite problems with some revivalists, the tension and strife that led to the Civil War and its aftermath, and no doubt other failings among the men and women serving the Lord in this century.
Among some, “revivalist” and “revivalism” seems almost a curse, but the revivalists of the nineteenth century built the prosperous Baptist church (and other churches) that entered the twentieth century. For me, it is folly to dismiss these men. Nor do I dismiss the work of the Lord they accomplished during those years. They had faults, to be sure. Yet they did something for the Lord.
It seems that conditions were right for the efforts of the nineteenth century and times are different now. Nevertheless, we could do with more zeal and less intellectualism, more concern for the gospel and less concern for worldly approval, and more actual effort and less academic achievement these days. We could learn something from the revivalists.
The Crippling Effect of Apostasy (and its cousin, compromise): Notable events seem less in the twentieth century. In a century marred by two world wars and other international conflicts, Baptists themselves experienced much conflict in their ranks, leading to division. The first major conflict was the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the 1920s, the second was the New Evangelical compromise of the late 50s through the 70s. Through these controversies, Baptist groups further fragmented. To some extent this weakened the Bible believing testimony, though despite these controversies growth in other ways continued.
Given the apostasy of liberalism, continued cooperation between the warring groups really was impossible. However, the rise of liberalism began in the previous century, with all its successes, bearing its bitter fruit among the 20th century Baptists. Some Baptists, in reaction, became so concerned with apostasy that any minor disagreement (seemingly) became the harbinger of false doctrine to follow. This, itself, had a crippling effect. On the other hand, some Baptists ignored apostasy, only to find false doctrine rising yet again in their ranks.
Beyond the battle with false doctrine, the more “broad-minded” opened their lifestyles and churches to the world, becoming preoccupied with the trends of the day, losing the pioneer spirit that built Baptist churches historically. The Baptist movement is now very broad, millions take the label, but it lacks spiritual depth in many instances.
What should we learn from this conflict? Well, we are called to vigilance, so we should be wary of deviant doctrinal innovations and always wary of the corrupting influence of the world. More than this, though, we should recover the life of days of old, where Baptists preached the gospel wherever they went, winning souls and building churches for the glory of the Lord.
Note: the views expressed in the above article are the author’s alone; no doubt more (and better) could be said about the lessons of our history.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.