Southern Baptist Convention

“ In January 1813 there was formed in Boston “The Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in India and other Foreign Parts.” Other societies in the Eastern, Middle and Southern states speedily followed. The desirability of a national organization soon became manifest, and in May 1814 thirty-three delegates, representing eleven states, met in Philadelphia and organized the “General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions.” ”

“ In 1894 he was elected President of the National Baptist Convention, whose constituency numbers about a million and a half, and has been elected every year since to the same position. Under his leadership, this society has been firmly unified and has enjoyed the greatest prosperity in its history. It was his address before this Convention at Washington, in 1893, that inspired an indomitable and uncompromising determination in the minds of the colored Baptists to begin publishing interests of their own. ”

“ My only excuse for accepting your invitation to appear before you in these annual gatherings is that I am deeply interested in all that this National Baptist Convention stands for. It is in my opinion the largest and most representative body of colored people anywhere in the world.... I believe most profoundly in the work of this convention because it represents the common masses of all our people, those who are the foundation of our success as a race. I believe in you because you do not pretend to represent the classes but the masses of our people. ”

“ Such statements have never been regarded as complete, infallible statements of faith, nor as official creeds carrying mandatory authority. Thus this generation of Southern Baptists is in historic succession of intent and purpose as it endeavors to state for its time and theological climate those articles of the Christian faith which are most surely held among us.
Baptists emphasize the soul's competency before God, freedom in religion, and the priesthood of the believer. ”

“ The Southern Baptists' Convention has charge of the various activities of the body. These include mission boards, young people's societies, and Sunday schools. The convention supports about 1,400 missionaries. ”

“ The Baptist Church, the state’s largest denomination, faced, or more accurately dodged, the race issue at its annual convention in November, 1954. The convention received a report from its Social Service Commission urging Baptists to “protect the public school system and seek to strengthen it in all possible ways.” Noting that “these are the times that try men’s souls,” the Commission offered several “guideposts” for Baptists to follow “in this crisis.” “God’s will” should be “earnestly and prayerfully” sought. ”

“ But oh the pity! that money given by godly men to provide preachers of the gospel should be devoted to undermining the Christian cause!
What is the effect of this method of interpretation upon the churches of our denomination? It is to cut the tap-root of their strength, and to imperil their very existence. Baptist churches are founded upon Scripture. Their doctrine of regenerate church-membership, and of church ordinances as belonging only to believers, presupposes an authoritative rule of faith and practice in the New Testament. ”

“ At the very moment, probably, when the committee were engaged in considering the tremendous innovation contained in this article, “sundry persons of the Baptist church in the county of Prince William” were putting their names to a petition earnestly imploring the convention, “That they be allowed to worship God in their own way, without interruption; that they be permitted to maintain their own ministers and none others; that they may be married, buried, and the like, without paying the clergy of other denominations;” ”

“ Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia. Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida were represented only by letters. The convention had been summoned as a protest against the action of the "Acting Board" of the church in the country in refusing to consent to the appointment of a slaveholder to any field of foreign missionary labors. [411] In June of the same year the Kentucky Baptists for the most part withdrew from the northern organization and pledged themselves to this newly formed southern convention. ”

“ The authority of a Presbyterian church is limited to the bounds of its own denomination. It cannot ordain ministers for Baptist churches, any more than it can ordain them for Methodist churches or for Episcopal churches. When a Presbyterian minister becomes a Baptist, his motives for making the change and the conformity of his views to the New Testament standard need to be scrutinized by Baptists, before they can admit him to their Christian and church fellowship ”

“ There is no room in the South for our church system if its work be simply to transfer the people in bulk from other communions, with all their prevalent views and practices. Our brethren of the Baptist and Methodist churches are to be congratulated upon their large membership, and so upon their opportunity for doing good. They have the responsibility of purifying from within. Many are struggling nobly, as exhorted by the Christian Recorder, “to thin out the ministry of the church until there shall not be found an ignorant man, nor a bad man in the ranks. Thin out the church itself. ”

“ Throughout the country the effect of this vigorous propagation of rival sects openly, in the face of whatever there was of church establishment, settled this point: that the law of American States, by whomsoever administered, must sooner or later be the law of liberty and equality among the various religious communions. In the southern colonies, the empty shell of a church establishment had crumbled on contact with the serious earnestness of the young congregations gathered by the Presbyterian and Baptist evangelists. ”

“ They receive it, as a pleasing omen of a more intimate correspondence, and a more endeared fellowship, with our Baptist brethren in Great Britain. The Committee, however, are unanimously of opinion, that, as a Board, and as members of the General Convention, associated for the exclusive purpose of sending the gospel to the heathen, and to other benighted men not belonging to our own country, we are precluded by our constitution from taking any part in the discussion of the subject proposed in the said communication. ”

“ The Methodist Episcopal Church, in addition to their regular system of circuits, are [Pg 349] extending the influence of their denomination on the frontiers, by missionary operations, and their labors are prospered.
The Baptist denomination have made some important movements in the Western Valley within the last three years. Their Home Mission Society has nearly 100 missionaries in the West. In November, 1833, the "General Convention of Western Baptists," was organized by more than 100 ministers and brethren, assembled from various parts of the West. ”

“ The Baptists generally disclaim being "close communionists," but "close baptists." That is, they insist that no person is eligible to partake of the Lord's Supper until after baptism by immersion; and that by a regularly ordained Baptist minister, upon the authority of a Baptist church, expressed by a vote of its members. I do not know that I ever saw the ordinance celebrated in a Baptist church, that some explanation along this line was not made, by way of apology. ”

“ Whereas, in the providence of God, the time has come when it seems fitting more fully to manifest the essential oneness in the Lord Jesus Christ, as their God and Saviour, of the churches of the Baptist order and faith throughout the world, and to promote the spirit of fellowship, service and co-operation among them, while recognizing the independence of each particular church and not assuming the functions of any existing organization, it is agreed to form a Baptist alliance, extending over every part of the world. ”

“ While it will not be, as it has not been, the sole object of the Association to extend the form of church polity, to which most of the churches which contribute to it are attached, but rather to labor for the intelligent Christianization of the people who most need it, we are disposed to think that there will be found a greater affinity between the Southern people and the Congregational way than many have supposed. ”

“ The practice of mixed communion gradually spread in the denomination. Still more recently many Baptist churches have considered it right to admit to full membership persons professing faith in Christ, who do not agree with them respecting the ordinance of baptism. Such churches justify their practice on the ground that they ought to grant to all their fellow-Christians the same right of private judgment as they claim for themselves. ”

“ The Convention’s action in forthrightly condemning racial segregation and approving the Court decision has placed South Carolina Baptists in a quandary. Increasingly local churches and church groups have been prone to criticize the national Convention. ”

“ Human nature ever tends to substitute the unity of external organization for the spiritual unity which belongs to all believers in Christ. There is no necessity for common government, whether Presbyterian or Episcopal; since Christ's truth and Spirit are competent to govern all as easily as one. It is a remarkable fact, that the Baptist denomination, without external bonds, has maintained a greater unity in doctrine, and a closer general conformity to New Testament standards, than the churches which adopt the principle of episcopacy, or of provincial organization. ”

“ The reader who has followed me through this brief and imperfect sketch of the history of the Seventh-day Baptist Denomination, cannot fail to perceive that our churches have gradually and healthfully increased in numbers, notwithstanding the continual opposition which is manifested to the cause we advocate, and the continual discouragements that we have to encounter both in society and business. It is now about one hundred and seventy years since the first Seventh-day Baptist church was organized in America ”

“ This whole society arrangement is a relic of the old New England parish system of the standing order, and is inconsistent with the freedom of church action, and antagonistic to Baptist Church independence. It is anti-Baptistic and anti-Scriptural. A church should be allowed to manage its own affairs, both temporal and spiritual: and should be protected by law in doing so. The society system has been abrogated in most of the States. ”

“ We have now reached the point where attention may be well directed to the opportunity of Congregationalism for enlargement, and so for greater usefulness in the Southern States, and especially among the blacks. If the claim that our faith and polity lie in the very letter as well as spirit of the New Testament be anything more than pretense, then it is nothing less than cowardice to consent that either should be limited by lines of latitude. The other denominations have spread over the country, and have aspired to a national name and influence ”

“ The policy of the church, as to the association of the races in worship, is indicated by the following from the report of the Board of Missions in South Carolina, in 1832: "As a general rule for our circuits and stations, we deem it best to include the colored people in the same pastoral charge with the whites, and to preach to both classes in one congregation, as our practice has been. The gospel is the same to all men, and to enjoy its privileges in common promotes good-will." ”

“ In regard to church government, the Baptists agree with the Congregationalists that each separate church is complete in itself, and has, therefore, power to choose its own ministers and to make such regulations as it deems to be most in accordance with the purpose of its existence, that is, the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. A comparatively small section of the denomination maintain that a “plurality of elders” or pastors is required for the complete organization of every separate church. ”

“ He sought to impress Negroes “about the fallacy of trying to get their rights by going to court.” Other Presbyterian ministers, as will be noted later, have upheld the Court’s decision as being in line with the basic concepts of Christianity. An unofficial Lutheran position was presented by H. Odelle Harman, Lexington School Superintendent and delegate to the 1956 biennial convention of the national Lutheran church. In opposing a resolution commending integration, Harman told the convention:
The Lutheran Church in South Carolina will not integrate. ”

“ It seemed to two young New Englanders who traversed the vast region from the Western Reserve to New Orleans in 1813, in the interests of missionary societies, that the people were wrapped in spiritual darkness, "being ignorant, often vicious, and utterly destitute of Bibles and religious literature." The General Bible Society of the United States was founded in 1816 to dispel this irreligious gloom. Within five years this organization and its numerous auxiliaries had distributed one hundred and forty thousand Bibles and Testaments through the new States. ”