Sam Waldron – Reformed Baptist History in America

Two lectures from Dr. Sam Waldron on the history of Reformed Baptists in America:

Reformed Baptist History in America (Part 1):

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Reformed Baptist History in America (Part 2)

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Dr. Waldron’s book “Baptist Roots in America: The Historical Background of Reformed Baptists in America” is available from Grace Immanuel Reformed Baptist Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan’s SermonAudio page.

See Dr. Jeffrey T. Riddle‘s review at Christ Reformed Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Virginia:

Waldron concludes: “Any church, therefore, determined to preach and practice the whole counsel of God in American today must be ready for war. It must be ready to be called many things by those who believe in autonomous freedom and worship at the shrine of individual liberty! Even those who should know better may be alienated by the spirit of the age. Yet the war is not unwinnable…. The secret of winning the war is not compromise with the spirit of this age. It is uncompromising obedience to God which holds the promise of his blessing.”

Closing Reflection:

Samuel Waldron has given us some keen insights on understanding not just the state of Baptists in America but of contemporary evangelicalism in general. Every Virginia Baptist, in particular, should read this booklet. True to Waldron’s thesis, Calvinistic Virginia Baptists (born of the merger of Regular and Separate Baptists in the early 19th century) loosened their doctrinal convictions in the post Civil War era. One can clearly trace this if he goes back and reads the articles in the Religious Herald, the newspaper of Virginia Baptists. J. B. Jeter (1802-1880) was the last Calvinistic editor of the Religious Herald. With the transition to R. H. Pitt a period of doctrinal decline was hastened. Pitt used the pages of the Herald, for example, to speak out against the adoption of the Baptist Faith and Message in 1925 (the SBC answer to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy). “Freedom” became more important than “purity.” “Anti-creedalism” has subsequently led to liberalism. Waldron offers a compelling analysis of the Baptist trajectory, and a stirring challenge for faithful living in these days.

April 4, 2013September 20, 2014

Charles Spurgeon’s “Puritan Catechism” App for Android Devices

The “Puritan Catechism” is now available for Android devices.

From Spurgeon’s introduction:

I am persuaded that the use of a good Catechism in all our families will be a great safeguard against the increasing errors of the times,and therefore I have compiled this little manual from the Westminster Assembly’s and Baptist Catechisms, for the use of my own church and congregation. Those who use it in their families or classes must labour to explain the sense; but the words should be carefully learned by heart, for they will be understood better as years pass.

May the Lord bless my dear friends and their families evermore, is the prayer of their loving Pastor.
C. H. Spurgeon

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. II Timothy 2:15

Published about October 14, 1855, when Spurgeon was 21 years old. On October 14, Spurgeon preached Sermon No. 46 to several thousand who gathered to hear him at New Park Street Chapel. When the sermon was published it contained an announcement of this catechism. The text that morning was, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.” Psalms 90:1.

Get it here.

April 1, 2013August 18, 2014

Andrew Fuller and the Evangelical Renewal of Pastoral Theology

Keith Grant’s has a new book entitled Andrew Fuller and the Evangelical Renewal of Pastoral Theology (Paternoster, 2013).

This is the latest addition to Paternoster’s acclaimed series Studies in Baptist History and Thought. It is the third volume in the series dedicated to Fuller; earlier contributions were made by Peter Morden (Offering Christ to the World: Andrew Fuller 1754 – 1815 and the Revival of Eighteenth Particular Baptist Life) and Michael Haykin (At the Pure Fountain of Thy Word: Andrew Fuller as an Apologist).

Description:

An exploration of the pastoral theology of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) suggests that evangelical renewal did not only take place alongside the local church – missions, itinerancy, voluntary societies – but also within the congregation as the central tasks of dissenting pastoral ministry became, in the words of one diarist, ‘very affecting and evangelical’.

How did evangelicalism transform dissenting and Baptist churches in the eighteenth century? Is there a distinctively congregational expression of evangelicalism? And what contribution has evangelicalism made to pastoral theology? renewal did not only take place alongside the local church – missions, itinerancy, voluntary societies – but also within the congregation as dissenting pastoral ministry became, in the words of one diarist, ‘very affecting and evangelical’.

Endorsements:

This solidly researched and clearly developed study rescues an important eighteenth-century evangelical leader from undeserved obscurity. Andrew Fuller was the key figure in delivering English Baptists and a wider circle of nonconforming Protestants from the intellectual dead-ends and spiritual immobilization of rigorously high Calvinism. Keith Grant’s investigation of key terms like affections, voluntarism, and congregational ecclesiology shows how important Fuller’s pastoral theology was in turning evangelicals outward to the world and for giving them spiritual confidence in the converting power of the Gospel. This is a very good book on a very important turning point in Baptist and Calvinist history.

Mark Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame

In this lucid and learned study, Keith Grant explains how Andrew Fuller, one of the leading English Baptists of his generation, developed “affecting and evangelical” principles of pastoral theology in order to advance heartfelt piety in the church. Anyone interested in the history of Anglo-American evangelicalism will want to read this book.

Thomas S. Kidd, Associate Professor of History, Baylor University

In this book Keith Grant shows that Andrew Fuller was a creative writer of pastoral theology, forging a fresh understanding of ministry for his age. It was Fuller’s achievement to reconcile the ordering of Dissenting congregations with the imperatives of Evangelical Revival.

David Bebbington, Professor of History, University of Stirling, Scotland