NON CALVINISTS AMONG THE REGULAR BAPTISTS

 In my research, I would venture to say that 30% to 40% of Regular Baptists would not be considered Calvinists today by the modern usage of the term. One example is the Ketoctin (sometimes spelled Ketocton) which can be read here . In that article, we see that the Ketoctin Association, was so close to the beliefs of the Sandy Creek Association, that they inquired about a possible union between the two. 

 In Robert Boyle C. Howell’s 1857 "History of Early Baptists in Virginia" he records that as early as 1769 the "Ketocton, a Regular, or Calvinistic Association in Northern Virginia, addressed the Sandy Creek, a Separate, or Arminian Association" in Southern Virginia and North Carolina about a possible union. (Robert Boyle C. Howell, The Early Baptists of Virginia (Philadelphia: The Bible and Publication Society, 1857), 45-46. This is further proof that the Ketocton Assn. wasn't Calvinist by today's usage of the term. They obviously thought their theology was so close to that of Sandy Creek, that they inquired about a union between the two associations. For those who claim Howell, the second president of the SBC was a staunch Calvinist, remember it was he wrote that Sandy Creek was "Arminian".

Further evidence comes from the Kentucky Baptist History by William D. Nowlin, chapter 4 , The Campbellian Split 1830. (pg 94) The North District Association was plagued by Campbellite infiltrators trying to steal churches and take them into the Restoration Movement. (Can't imagine anyone trying to steal churches!) The North District Association was Regular Baptist. They were plagued by Campbellites trying to seduce churches. First, we might ask how a totally Arminian group, could pose such a threat to a Calvinist association. Why could their churches so easily be swayed to reject Calvinism if it was so firmly held? According to the official statement of the North District Association, no church was ever rejected for rejecting the Philadelphia Confession! 

" As an association we shall deem it our duty to drop correspondence with any and every association or church where this heresy  (Campbellism) is tolerated. Those who say they are not Campbellites, and yet, countenance and circulate his (Alexander Campbell) little pamphlets, are insincere -- they are to be avoided. When they say they are persecuted because they "will not swallow the Philadelphia Confession of Faith," you are not to believe it, for no church has called one of them in question on that point, so far as we know. It is not so much their objection to this book as our objection to their confession of faith that makes the difference. " 

Whether or not those referred to were Campbellites or not, this still shows that there were more than a few Baptists within Calvinist associations who could not "swallow" the Philadelphia Confession and  were not "called into question". Whether these churches were falsely accused of being Campbellites in order to force them out of the association we cannot know. But we CAN know that the Calvinists within this association at least claimed they did not so much as utter a word against churches who refused to accept the Philadelphia Confession. Further proof that many Non Calvinists existed among those associations that officially adopted the Philadelphia Confession.



 

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