Baptist

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Arminianism versus Calvinism (General Baptists uphold Arminian theology while Particular Baptists teach Reformed theology).^[4]
The doctrine of separation from "the world" and whether to associate with those who are "of the world"
Belief in a second work of grace, i.e. entire sanctification (held by General Baptists in the Holiness tradition)
Speaking-in-tongues and the operation of other charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit in the modern church^[67]
How the Bible should be interpreted (hermeneutics)
The extent to which missionary boards should be used to support missionaries
The extent to which non-members may participate in the Lord's Supper services
Which translation of Scripture to use (see King-James-Only movement in the English-speaking world)^[68]
Dispensationalism versus Covenant theology
The role of women in marriage.
The ordination of women as deacons or pastors.^[69]
Attitudes to, and involvement in the ecumenical movement.

Controversies that have shaped Baptists
Some doctrinal issues on which there is widespread difference among Baptists are:
Baptists have faced many controversies in their 400-year history, controversies of the level of crises. Baptist historian Walter Shurden says the word "crisis" comes from the Greek word meaning "to decide." Shurden writes that contrary to the presumed negative view of crises, some controversies that reach a crisis level may actually be "positive and highly productive." He claims that even schism, though never ideal, has often produced positive results. In his opinion crises among Baptists each have become decision-moments that shaped their future.^[70] Some controversies that have shaped Baptists include the "missions crisis", the "slavery crisis", the "landmark crisis", and the "modernist crisis".

Missions crisis

Early in the 19th century, the rise of the modern missions movement, and the backlash against it, led to widespread and bitter controversy among the American Baptists.^[71] During this era, the American Baptists were split between missionary and anti-missionary. A substantial secession of Baptists went into the movement led by Alexander Campbell, to return to a more fundamental church.^[72]

Slavery crisis

See also: Christian views on slavery

United States

First Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia where the Southern Baptist Convention was founded

Leading up to the missions movement, and the backlash against it, led to widespread and bitter controversy among the American Baptists.^[71] During this era, the American Baptists were split between missionary and anti-missionary. A substantial secession of Baptists went into the movement led by Alexander Campbell, to return to a more fundamental church.^[72]

Slavery crisis
Leading up to the American Civil War, Baptists became embroiled in the controversy over slavery in the United States. Whereas in the First Great Awakening Methodist and Baptist preachers had opposed slavery and urged manumission, over the decades they made more of an accommodation with the institution. They worked with slaveholders in the South to urge a paternalistic institution. Both denominations made direct appeals to slaves and free blacks for conversion. The Baptists particularly allowed them active roles in congregations. By the mid-19th century, northern Baptists tended to oppose slavery. As tensions increased, in 1844 the Home Mission Society refused to appoint a slaveholder as a missionary who had been proposed by Georgia. It noted that missionaries could not take servants with them, and also that the board did not want to appear to condone slavery.^{[citation needed]}
The Southern Baptist Convention was formed by nine state conventions in 1845. They believed that the Bible sanctions slavery and that it was acceptable for Christians to own slaves. They believed slavery was a human institution which Baptist teaching could make less harsh. By this time many planters were part of Baptist congregations, and some of the denomination's prominent preachers, such as the Rev. Basil Manly, Sr., president of the University of Alabama, were also planters who owned slaves.
As early as the late 18th century, black Baptists began to organize separate churches, associations and mission agencies. Blacks set up some independent Baptist congregations in the South before the American Civil War. White Baptist associations maintained some oversight of these churches.
In the postwar years, freedmen quickly left the white congregations and associations, setting up their own churches.^[73] In 1866 the Consolidated American Baptist Convention, formed from black Baptists of the South and West, helped southern associations set up black state conventions, which they did in Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. In 1880 black state conventions united in the national Foreign Mission Convention, to support black Baptist missionary work. Two other nat
The Southern Baptist Convention was formed by nine state conventions in 1845. They believed that the Bible sanctions slavery and that it was acceptable for Christians to own slaves. They believed slavery was a human institution which Baptist teaching could make less harsh. By this time many planters were part of Baptist congregations, and some of the denomination's prominent preachers, such as the Rev. Basil Manly, Sr., president of the University of Alabama, were also planters who owned slaves.
As early as the late 18th century, black Baptists began to organize separate churches, associations and mission agencies. Blacks set up some independent Baptist congregations in the South before the American Civil War. White Baptist associations maintained some oversight of these churches.
In the postwar years, freedmen quickly left the white congregations and associations, setting up their own churches.^[73] In 1866 the Consolidated American Baptist Convention, formed from black Baptists of the South and West, helped southern associations set up black state conventions, which they did in Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. In 1880 black state conventions united in the national Foreign Mission Convention, to support black Baptist missionary work. Two other national black conventions were formed, and in 1895 they united as the National Baptist Convention. This organization later went through its own changes, spinning off other conventions. It is the largest black religious organization and the second-largest Baptist organization in the world.^[74] Baptists are numerically most dominant in the Southeast.^[75] In 2007, the Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Survey found that 45% of all African Americans identify with Baptist denominations, with the vast majority of those being within the historically black tradition.^[76]
A healthy Church kills error, and tears evil in pieces! Not so very long ago our nation tolerated slavery in our colonies. Philanthropists endeavored to destroy slavery, but when was it utterly abolished? It was when Wilberforce roused the Church of God, and when the Church of God addressed herself to the conflict—then she tore the evil thing to pieces! -- C.H. Spurgeon an outspoken British Baptist opponent of slavery in 'The Best War Cry' (1883)^[77]

Elsewhere in the Americas, in the Caribbean in particular, Baptist missionaries and members took an active role in the anti-slavery movement. In Jamaica, for example, William Knibb, a prominent British Baptist missionary, worked toward the emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies (which took place in full in 1838). Knibb also supported the creation of "Free Villages" and sought funding from English Baptists to buy land for freedmen to cultivate; the Free Villages were envisioned as rural communities to be centred around a Baptist church where emancipated slaves could farm their own land. Thomas Burchell, missionary minister in Montego Bay, also was active in this movement, gaining funds from Baptists in England to buy land for what became known as Burchell Free Village.

Prior to em

Prior to emancipation, Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe, who served with Burchell, organized a general strike of slaves seeking better conditions. It developed into a major rebellion of as many as 60,000 slaves, which became known as the Christmas Rebellion (when it took place) or the Baptist War. It was put down by government troops within two weeks. During and after the rebellion, an estimated 200 slaves were killed outright, with more than 300 judicially executed later by prosecution in the courts, sometimes for minor offenses.

Baptists were active after emancipation in promoting the education of former slaves; for example, Jamaica's Calabar High School, named after the port of Calabar in Nigeria, was founded by Baptist missionaries. At the same time, during and after slavery, slaves and free blacks formed their own Spiritual Baptist movements - breakaway spiritual movements which theology often expressed resistance to oppression.^[78]

In the American South, the interpretation of the American Civil War, abolition of slavery and postwar period has differed sharply by race since those years. Americans have often interpreted great events in religious terms. Historian Wilson Fallin contrasts the interpretation of Civil War and Reconstruction in white versus black memory by analyzing Baptist sermons documented in Alabama. Soon after the Civil War, most black Baptists in the South left the Southern Baptist Convention, reducing its numbers by hundreds of thousands or more.^{[citation needed]} They quickly organized their own congregations and developed their own regional and state associations and, by the end of the 19th century, a national convention.^[79]

White preachers in Alabama after Reconstruction expressed the view that:

God had chastised them and given them a special mission – to maintain orthodoxy, strict biblicism, personal piety, and "traditional" race relations. Slavery, they insisted, had not been sinful. Rather, emancipation was a historical tragedy and the end of Reconstruction was a clear sign of God's favor.

Black preachers interpreted the Civil War, Emancipation and Reconstruction as: "God's gift of freedom." They had a gospel of liberation, having long identified with the Book of Exodus from slavery in the Old Testament. They took opportunities to exercise their independence, to worship in their own way, to affirm their worth and dignity, and to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Most of all, they quickly formed their own churches, associations, and conventions to operate freely without white supervision. These institutions offered self-help and racial uplift, a place to develop and use leadership, and places for proclamation of the gospel of liberation. As a result, black preachers said that God would protect and help him and God's people; God would be their rock in a stormy land.^[80]

The Southern Baptist Convention supported white supremacy and its results: disenfranchising most blacks and many poor whites at the turn of the 20th century by raising barriers to voter registration, and passage of racial segregation laws that enforced the system of Jim Crow.^[81] Its members largely resisted the civil rights movement in the South, which sought to enforce their constitutional rights for public access and voting; and enforcement of midcentury federal civil rights l

White preachers in Alabama after Reconstruction expressed the view that:

Black preachers interpreted the Civil War, Emancipation and Reconstruction as: "God's gift of freedom

The Souther

On 20 June 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to adopt a resolution renouncing its racist principles and apologizing for its past defense of slavery. More than 20,000 Southern Baptists registered for the meeting in Atlanta. The resolution declared that messengers, as SBC delegates are called, "unwaveringly denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin" and "lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest." It offered an apology to all African Americans for "condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime" and repentance for "racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously or unconsciously." Although Southern Baptists have condemned racism in the past, this was the first time the convention, predominantly white since the Reconstruction era, had specifically addressed the issue of slavery.

The statement sought forgiveness "from our African-American brothers and sisters" and pledged to "eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry." In 1995 about 500,000 members of the 15.6-million-member denomination were African Americans and another 300,000 were ethnic minorities. The resolution marked the denomination's first formal acknowledgment that racism played a role in its founding.^[82]

Southern Baptist Landmarkism sought to reset the ecclesiastical separation which had characterized the old Baptist churches, in an era when inter-denominational union meetings were the order of the day.^[83] James Robinson Graves was an influential Baptist of the 19th century and the primary leader of this movement.^[84] While some Landmarkers eventually separated from the Southern Baptist Convention, the movement continued to influence the Convention into the 20th and 21st centuries.^[85] For instance, in 2005, the Southern Baptist International Mission Board forbade its missionaries to receive alien immersions for baptism.^[86]

Modernist crisis

Further information: theological modernism in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries also greatly affected Baptists.^[87] The Landmark movement, already mentioned, has been described as a reaction among Southern Baptists in the United States against incipient modernism .^[88] In England, Charles Haddon Spurgeon fought against modernistic views of the Scripture in the Downgrade Controversy and severed his church from the Baptist Union as a result.^[89]^[90]^[91]

The Northern Baptist Convention in the United States had internal conflict over modernism in the early 20th century, ultimately embracing it.^[92] Two new conservative associations of congregations that separated from the Convention were founded as a result: the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches in 1933 and the Conservative Baptist Association of America in 1947.^[92]

Following similar conflicts over modernism, the Southern Baptist Convention adhered to conservative theology as its official position.^{The Northern Baptist Convention in the United States had internal conflict over modernism in the early 20th century, ultimately embracing it.^[92] Two new conservative associations of congregations that separated from the Convention were founded as a result: the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches in 1933 and the Conservative Baptist Association of America in 1947.^[92]}

Following similar conflicts over modernism, the Southern Baptist Convention adhered to conservative theology as its official position.^[93]^[94] In the late 20th century, Southern Baptists who disagreed with this direction founded two new groups: the liberal Alliance of Baptists in 1987 and the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991.^[95]^[96]^[97]^[98] Originally both schisms continued to identify as Southern Baptist, but over time "became permanent new families of Baptists."^[95]

In his 1963 book, Strength to Love, Baptist pastor Martin Luther King criticized some Baptist churches for their anti-intellectualism, especially because of the lack of theological training among pastors. ^[99]

In 2018, Baptist theologian Russell D. Moore criticized some American Baptist churches for their moralism emphasizing strongly the condemnation of certain personal sins, but silent on the social injustices that afflict entire populations, such as the racism. ^[100]