Southern Baptists and Calvinism: A Historical View

This brief post is taken from David S. Dockery’s chapter “Southern Baptists and Calvinism: A Historical Look,” in the book, Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue, edited by E. Ray Clendenen and Brad J. Waggoner, published by B&H Academic. The book is a collection of essays presented at the 2007 Building Bridges conference, hosted by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. While, clearly, not all Baptists are Calvinists, are all Southern Baptists Calvinists? Were all Southern Baptists Calvinists historically? David Dockery will attempt to answer these questions.

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Let us think together in this chapter about our heritage, our history, and the traditions that have shaped Southern Baptist life. Many of those traditions are wonderful, and we need to hold on to that which is good (1 Thess 5:21). Not everything that is a part of our history is something we want to reclaim and carry forward, yet many aspects of it are good and helpful. We need to carry forward the good for the cause of Christ, for the advancement of His kingdom, and for His glory. . . .

Our question . . . for this chapter is, Are Southern Baptists Calvinists, or have Southern Baptists been Calvinists? And the answer is yes and no. If you ask our Wesleyan and Arminian friends, they say yes without hesitation, for the dividing line for them is [mostly] the issue of eternal security [though other Arminians would admit that it is the doctrine of Unconditional Election]. . . . On the other hand, if by that question we mean, Are the majority of Southern Baptists or have the majority of Southern Baptists been consistent, five-point Calvinists? I think the answer is no. . . .

[T]he early Baptists under John Smyth and Thomas Helwys gathered together a group committed to the New Testament, its teachings about congregationalism, and believer’s baptism. At this time the General [Arminian] Baptists were birthed. About 30 years later a completely different group called Particular [Calvinist] Baptists developed in London and put together the First and Second London Confessions between the 1640s and 1670s. By 1644, England had seven Particular Baptist churches, and by 1689 most Baptists in England were Particular Baptists. General Baptists tended to ebb and flow. Many of them fell into a heresy of deism or rationalism. But by the end of the seventeenth century, England had large numbers of Particular Baptists. [See footnote for the heresy which Calvinist Particular Baptists "fell into" while their movement experienced their own "ebb and flow."¹]

Baptist churches were started in America in Rhode Island during the mid-seventeenth century. The Philadelphia Confession, which became the theological framework for early Baptists in America, was developed in 1707, about 70 years after the founding of the first Baptist church in this country. The Philadelphia Confession, the first important confessional statement for Baptists in America, was largely a restatement of the Second London Confession. Baptists early on in this country were Calvinists, and the early confessions expounded these convictions. . . .

Southern Baptists’ first writing theologian was John L. Dagg (1794-1884). His Manual of Theology is still worth reading today. He taught at Mercer University for many years. He stood in the reformed tradition of earlier Baptist theologians such as Bunyan, Keach, Gill, Fuller, and Backus. Almost all of Dagg’s theology was a study in the grace of God. He was a consistent Calvinist, and the early Southern Baptists who read theology were shaped and influenced by Dagg’s consistent Calvinism. [Dockery goes on to mention the influence of such Calvinist Baptists as James P. Boyce, J. M. Frost, B. H. Carroll, and E. Y. Mullins; but he notes the changes which developed in Southern Baptist life and education through "non-Calvinists" such as Herschel H. Hobbs, Dale Moody, and Frank Stagg.]

We must acknowledge that the ultimate danger to the gospel lies not in the nuances of our differences but in the rising tides of liberalism, neo-paganism, and postmodernism that threaten to swamp Southern Baptist identity in cultural accommodation. We need to look for common ground with those who share commitments to biblical authority, to the gospel, and to Baptist congregationalism. . . .

Perhaps we can find a model of cooperation in the eighteenth-century awakenings with George Whitefield and John [and Charles] Wesley. . . . Whitefield was a consistent Calvinist; Wesley, a consistent Arminian. . . . Yet they were best friends, colleagues, [co-laborers] for the cause of the gospel. Perhaps we can all agree with John Leland, the champion of religious liberty in Virginia. He claimed Baptists are people who hold to the sovereignty of God [which needs defining] and the promiscuous preaching of the gospel. Let us also hear the words of Iain Murray, a Calvinist, who warns that when Calvinism ceases to be evangelistic, when it becomes more concerned with theory than with the salvation of men and women, when acceptance of doctrines seems to become more important than acceptance of Christ, then it is a system going to seed and will invariably lose its attractive power.

Let those who have differing convictions about these matters grasp hands. We need not compromise our own convictions. We need to seek togetherness for the right reasons; we need to remember that doctrinal matters are important. We need to know how to distinguish between primary and secondary matters of faith. . . . We must recognize that Calvinism is not necessarily a key Baptist distinctive; it is not a primary doctrine. We can join hands as Calvinists, as modified Calvinists, as lenient Calvinists, as modified Arminians, working together to advance the cause of the gospel. . . . Let us not be sidetracked by secondary or tertiary matters where we might have disagreements. Instead, let us focus on primary matters where we seek to frame our message by biblical, historical, and theological understandings. . . .

In conclusion, as we seek to build a theological consensus around the gospel for the good of our work together, let us ever be humble, and not arrogant, when dealing with these sacred matters. Moreover, we commit ourselves afresh to the good news of salvation by faith in Christ. We heartily confess and gladly affirm that Jesus Christ, as the God-man, has fully revealed God to men and women. Having lived a sinless life, Christ, as our substitute, died a death for the sins of the world. Having been raised from the dead, He now sits exalted at God’s right hand, a position of honor and exaltation, exercising His rule and dominion. In Jesus Christ we place our trust and hope, offering our thanksgiving, praise, and worship for the gift of salvation He has provided for us by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9). In this gospel, the one true gospel, we place our hope and ground our unity for service together. And we proclaim this gospel to the world to disciple the nations, with confidence in the promise that Christ will be with us even to the end of the age (Matt 28:18-20).²

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¹ Dockery conveniently fails to inform his readers that in the Calvinistic Particular Baptist churches “there developed among them an extreme form of Calvinism [i.e., hyper-Calvinism] which blighted their evangelistic vigor. The extremists became antinomian; they overemphasized the biblical injunction that Christians ‘are not under law, but under grace,’ to the exclusion of the idea that sin in their lives was a menace to their salvation. The effect of Arianism was felt slightly in some of the churches.” See Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists, third edition (Valley Forge: The Judson Press, 2000), 63. Hence the heresies of hyper-Calvinism, antinomianism and Arianism were propagated by some Calvinist Particular Baptists during this troubling era.

² David S. Dockery, “Southern Baptists and Calvinism: A Historical Look,” Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue, eds. E. Ray Clendenen and Brad J. Waggoner (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2008), 29-46.