Personally, for me, it was in fact a Independent Baptist man that led me to God and the saving power of his Son Jesus Christ. It was a Independent Baptist that showed me a clear presentation. It was the Independent Baptist that showed me the gospel to where I clearly understood it and grasped it’s significance. The Independent Baptist taught me and showed me the truth and infallibility of the King James Bible.
On a practical note, an Independent Baptist preacher taught me the invaluable definitions of balance. An Independent Baptist showed me the importance of individual liberty. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for all the Independents Baptist in the sense of the truth and certain positions they have maintained for decades. The wars they have fought and the battles they have won, yeah, I can claim their name to certain extents, knowing their true history. And I am proud for it.
I remember being introduced to the first “real” Christian men I ever met. They were men in a small Independent Baptist Church, 50-70 strong. An eager bunch to say the least. All sermons where edifying, instructive and admonishing. The teaching was verse by verse. About 7 guys in all were all allowed opportunities to preach from time to time, very rare among pastors today to be so selfless with their pulpit. The song leader was a charismatic man that loved the old time hymns, thank God I was exposed to true song and worship at infancy in salvation so I did not carried up in praise music and charasmania.
The Independent Baptist were also the first REAL Christians I think I ever met outside of my own family. It was the first evidence of real Christianity that I ever saw in my entire life. I was 16 at the time. I had also grown up my entire life in the Bible belt town of Columbia, SC. Pastors would kick me, the skateboarder off the steps of their church, but never tried to build dialogue or relay the gospel to me.
These men loved God sincerely and genuinely, those dear people, they loved that old book. They loved preaching and many of those men to this day still do. They loved singing and fellow-shipping. I mean, clean stuff. Hymns, no mumbo jumbo, just classic old songs from the 17 and 18th century. Get togethers and such, BBQs, just hanging out with like minded decent people. Laughter, love, joy, peace, times of my life I wanted never to end.
Those first 5 years of my saved life were almost magical. It was so new. Every thing was so fresh. My whole life had changed, along with my desires for the rest of my life. The Church was great, the preaching was fulfilling. The fire to serve was abounding, even at times over running to the point of hysteria, if that makes any sense. I wanted to serve, I wanted to be that guy! Those men introduced me to the God of the bible, and the salvation of the soul through Jesus Christ and his blood. “I knew whom I believed”.
Having said all that, ahem, now that I have gotten that out there, err, after all that positive, I must deal with the negative.
I accepted Christianity at face value. I was accepted into a fellowship, exhorted, edified, fed the milk of the word, and found a wholesome group of Christians that shared commonality. I believed everything with child like faith. I was so naive as a young, new Christian. I hung on every word of every preacher. I learned a few years later that it was not a utopia.
After those early years, sin entered into the church like any other church with sinners. It split it in half, literally. The remaining church had to drop missionaries, there was confusion about what had happen that had caused the riff, how the incident was handled and why they were going this way and the others were going that way. Many members who stayed with the pastor where confused. I remember it distinctly and vividly even years later. Ultimately, it was probably a defining moment in many peoples lives not just my wife and I. The following months would test my metal, and would ultimately pave the way to changing my life and opening up a world of possibilities, but none realized, just dreamed.
It was right after my wife and I had been married. We were living our dream. In our months prior to marriage, we dreamed about going to church together since we were hours apart from each other in our relationship. Just spending that kinda time with each other. Going out after church with other couples. Not leaving church when it was over, just organic, clean fellowship and friendship. Oh the dreams we had. And the dreams we were told.
At the church, after everything was said and done and the chips fell, everyone was in damage control mode. This lasted for about 3 months. It was a weird time. The pastor had to make house calls to every family. One family had been effectively churched. The husband simply decided to stand by his wife and not divorce her. Who can blame him. He is a valiant man. The pastor made the hard choice, right or wrong, he too is still a decent, Bible preaching pastor and I consider him to be a man of honor as well. Stuff just happens. Choices were made, tight friendships and bonds of fellowship were severed permanently and never again to be fully repaired into we are all translated. Families were affected and ministries as well.
There was no restoration or even serious attempts in the spirit of meekness as far as I knew. There was never a round table discussion with all the people involved. It was a total separation by many in the church. Buck stops here kinda stuff. Many were already itching for someone to fight with due to the oft-militaristic styles of preaching found in such churches. The other side would see the other side and they would walk the other way. In retrospect, it is so sad, not to the point of pity, but tears.
None of this is airing dirty laundry or said to cast blame at anyone. This stuff happens all over America in Independent Baptist churches because of the local autonomy of it and all. Sometimes that attracts men who get carried away and lord over the flock, worse, men transform into dictators and become pastoral popes. It happens everyone knows it and has experienced it at some point. Even good men get consumed with a small portion of power from their preconceived authorities.
I have been a believer for almost 20 years now, and I have only found this common bond, and unity of faith and spirit in a small, scattered group of believers who have remained close friends since the days I first believed in on Jesus. But I can’t find that same unity with a core, local group.
I have never understood why there is so much struggle and strife among Christians. Even to a point of being more average then normal lost folk. Christians are always bickering and skirmishing aren’t they?
Strivings, traditions, inventions of men, doctrines of men, contentions, disputings, emulations, babblings, clamour, discord, dissimulations, guile, frowardness, extortion, fraud, comparing, gloating, backbiting and the list can literally go on and on.
Now, I ask you, how in the world can we invite friends and family to churches like this? What does it matter? I know Christ is the compelling factor and all that, but the twisting of the revered AV is to common now by those who boldly defend. Its mind jarring and puzzling.
Men from the pulpit, in missions conferences, revivals, on the streets, in homes of others, using the authority of the AV to destruction saying some of the most head scratching statements. The same pattern of stripping verse out of context, half verses, or no verses at all that we see showcased in cults and fanatical sects are now clearly and blatantly being used by men who claim to protect it.
This is common place now. We have the same flesh. “Let him that standeth, take heed lest he fall”. Our knowledge of having the truth of the word of God has puffed us up so much with pride, that we have been doing things wrong for years, decades and even centuries, and not even stopping to consider our ways. This fact is evident from our own scattered Baptist history, and our divisive Baptist present.
When I say Baptist History, I am talking about real Baptist history. Not just those early exceptional, medieval groups who had one or 2 traits of being distinctively Baptist such as the baptism of the believer. And I am certainly not talking of the Baptist history contained in a 70 page book written by J.M. Carrol that many Baptist foolishly adhere to.
There were groups that J.M. Carrol writes about in his famed “Trail of Blood” who held to Catholic statements of faith until the late 16th century. How can we call them Baptist? Know one seems to know this or will admit this and many other problems with the publication. No one will critique this Southern Baptist, Carrol, who was stepped into Landmarkism himself?
We just accept his history lessons, without studying for ourselves. This is our fault. It happens to the best of us. It is how we have become they way we are. We are taught the doctrinal position, and then we find the verses to support it. It should be the other way around. It should be wholly biblical, more specifically, NT. Lets be real! The Baptist are a divisive bunch, but I’m beginning to think it is not because of our standards and separations, but our egomaniacal attitudes and our tradtions and doctrines of men we would rather adhere to.
I’m not ashamed of my Baptist doctrines. Im ashamed of the present day Baptist. It is the word of God that makes me want to associate with Baptist doctrine. They are bible doctrines, and not just biblical occurrences. They are Bible doctrines and not Baptist doctrines. It is just the Baptist that adhere to most of the bible doctrines found in the book, so I overall align with them on most.
This is not to say that Baptist have the “whole truth” or “all the councel”. The largest organized group during the rise of fundamentalism within Protestantism was the Baptist. Not the general Baptist, but mostly John Calvin’s Baptist followers. We forget this. It wasn’t the Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodist, and Presbyterians, it was the Baptist who ruled the clans so to speak. This should tell us something right away.
The Methodist, Presbyterians, and Lutherans were leaving the Baptist in droves because of their treatment of other Christians and Sinners. This mistreatment of others, and the continually scoffing of the Pauline Epistles and their doctrine were seen in Christians since Paul’s day. The Baptist church, unfortunately still continues to scoff Pauline Christianity, replacing it with a Great Commission theology that borders on Kingdom doctrine. Why? Because it lines the pockets quicker! Yeah, I said it!
Anyways, We can still see the Baptist hierarchy today. The only denominational group in the 1920‘s when the word “Fundamentalism” was coined, that did not pull out of mainstream Protestantism were the Southern Baptist. Not too many have ever heard this little fact. Which is important, because the Southern Baptist, which became the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), made the big push in the 60’s and 70‘s for inherency and rule in the Church, along with a large political push.
Just one example, in 1970, the SBC in Denver dealt with “At least seventeen Baptist state papers that questioned editorially the "unchristian, " "bitter, " "vitriolic, " "arrogant, " "militant" spirit and attitude of some of the messengers” in the Southern Baptist Convention. Many of these labeled “messengers” who later pulled out of the Convention in the early 70‘s were who we now call, the “Independent Baptist”.
These are our forefathers from previous generations. We are their fruit. We are the seed of their planting. The work of their generations. The Baptist Successionism taught in churches and institutes, the pastoral authority commanded in our assemblies, the improper using of passages to solicit funds for the work, the full tilt false and many other off base doctrines and commandments of men.
Our manners in preaching, our conduct in outreach and public ministry, our jackboot street preaching goons, our ways of soliciting for the work, our hardness and cultishness we see popping up all over the place, our in correct tendencies to over emphasis repentance and law, and to forget grace completely, we have just carried those banners and made them worse. But hey, at least we are independent right.
Our ways of worship, the acts of our church workers, staff, deacons, offerings, and all that other stuff, it IS the modern mode of worship. We are following men and not the book. I just don’t get it. Why are we afraid of Pauline doctrine, that fell to us from the order of Jesus Christ our Lord? It’s the hand we were dealt! Why do we muck it?
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