In recent years, African American Calvinists have published important texts that have brought attention to this small but growing movement among African American Protestants. In 2003, Anthony Carter published On Being Black and Reformed that has become a widely read text arguing that while there is no need for a Black Theology that denies the historic Christian faith, there is still a need for African Americans to apply and even interpret the faith through a black lens in keeping within the traditional and historic framework of Christianity. Carter argues further that Reformed theology offers African Americans the best framework for understanding biblical faith and their experience as Americans of African descent. [1]
In 2007, Thabiti Anyabwile wrote a critical text on African American historical theology from the late eighteenth century to the present. Anyabwile contends that African American theology was at its best during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century when African Americans articulated a robust Calvinism and embraced what he terms “Orthodox Christianity.” [2] One important feature of these texts is that both Carter and Anyabwile are baptistic. Is this aberrational? Are some African American Baptists discovering Calvinism in the early twenty-first century, or is this a re-discovery?
The foundation of African American Baptist theology is Calvinistic, based on the general, historical, and theological context of African American slave conversions during the eighteenth century and into the early nineteenth century, which also coincides with the emergence of African American independent Baptist churches in the South and North. Within this general context, white Calvinistic Baptists ordained the first generation of African American Baptist ministers, and independent African American Baptist churches freely chose to associate with predominantly white Baptist associations that outwardly confessed a Reformed and Baptist faith. Recognizing that Calvinism or Reformed theology is thoroughly biblical and embraces more than the “five points” of Calvinism, the focus of this paper will be on African American Baptist articulation of specific Calvinistic doctrines on salvation. Evidence to support this argument comes from letters, narratives, and various Baptist confessions of faith extant during the period 1750-1900.
The historical context of the advent of American Baptist history supports this argument. During the colonial period of American history, African American Baptist theology emerged within the context of American Baptist theology. In general, American Baptist theology during this period was Calvinistic. The first American Baptists were English and mostly Calvinist. Roger Williams, the first recorded Baptist in America and founder of Rhode Island, was a Puritan Separatist before becoming a Baptist, and founded what the majority of historians believe was the first Baptist church in America. By the late seventeenth century, Philadelphia and its environs became the center for Baptist growth. A number of churches sprang up in Philadelphia and New Jersey, eventually organizing into an association in 1707—the Philadelphia Baptist Association—which was the first Baptist association in America. In 1742, this association adopted the 1689 London Baptist Confession. Thoroughly Calvinistic, this confession is based upon both the Savoy Declaration of English Independents and the Presbyterians’ Westminster Confession of Faith.
After 1750, Baptists began spreading throughout the Southern colonies and as they spread, they made new disciples. The migration of revivalistic, Separate Baptists from New England facilitated this growth. Separate Baptists, like their Regular Baptist counterparts, were staunchly Calvinistic. Eventually, strong churches grew in the Carolinas and Virginia. In 1751, churches in South Carolina would form the Charleston Baptist Association that adopted the Philadelphia Confession. By the mid-eighteenth century, the majority of American Baptists were Calvinistic. This was especially the case in the southern colonies, where dense slave populations existed. [3]
The consensus among historians of African American religious and church history is that large numbers of slaves became Christian converts during the Great Awakening, which began in 1726 in New England and blossomed during the 1730s and 1740s. Renowned African American historian Carter G. Woodson labels this period in terms of slave conversion as “the dawn of a new day.” [4] Revivalist preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield preached indiscriminately to African slaves. Edwards reported that “many of the poor negroes” had experienced a great change “wrought upon” them by the preaching of the gospel and the Holy Spirit. [5] Whitefield noted the presence of African Americans in the crowds that came to hear his preaching. He reported that on one occasion in Philadelphia, “near fifty negroes came to give me thanks for what God had done to their souls.” [6] Revivalistic Baptists who migrated to the southern colonies continued this practice of preaching to mixed audiences of people; African American slaves thus found themselves converted under the preaching of the gospel and joined Baptist churches.
It was during the eighteenth century that African Americans began to join Baptist churches in fairly large numbers, especially in the South. By 1796, First Baptist Church of Charleston, South Carolina, had 248 members, the majority of whom were African American slaves. According to Baptist historian Leon Mc Beth, First Baptist was the leading Baptist church in South Carolina owing to its size, its location in the capital city of the colony (and later state), and the ministry and influence of its pastors such as William Screven, Oliver Hart, and Richard Furman. At the end of a pivotal century in American history, this leading Baptist church in South Carolina was committed both to Calvinism and slavery with most of its members in bondage. These bondspersons heard preaching and teaching from a Calvinist framework. [7]
During the end of the Great Awakening, as it moved southward, the story emerged of the first ordained African American Baptist minister who was also a self-confessed Calvinist. George Liele was instrumental in the advent of the African American independent church movement in the South that began in the 1770s. Not only does Liele’s significance lie in helping to found independent African American Baptist churches during the late eighteenth century, but he is also considered to be the first American-born Baptist foreign missionary, founding the first Baptist church on the island of Jamaica in 1784. [8] Liele was born around 1750 in Virginia but moved with his master, Henry Sharpe, to Burke County, South Carolina, around 1772. Sharpe taught his slaves, including Liele, to read and write, which transgressed the Negro Act of 1740 that forbad slaves to read in English. [9] During this time period, missionaries, catechists, and Christian slave-owners were able to circumvent the legal stricture against slave literacy under the assumption that Christianity taught under the direct supervision of whites tended to ensure slave capitulation to due order. For example, in 1743, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the foreign missionary arm of the Church of England at this time, inaugurated a school for the Christianization of slaves in Charleston called the Charleston Negro School. One of the aims of the school was to teach slaves sent to the school by their masters to read the Bible. [10]
Liele’s conversion typified many slave conversions during this stage of the First Great Awakening as he heard preaching from a revivalistic white preacher. Liele’s master, Henry Sharpe, served as deacon at Buckhead Creek Baptist Church, which was led by New Light Baptist Matthew Moore. It was Liele’s custom to attend worship with his master, and through attending worship Liele turned from his sins and believed the gospel of Jesus Christ through Moore’s preaching. In her work on the development of “Afro-Baptist” faith, Mechal Sobel dates Liele’s conversion in 1773; he received baptism the following year. [11] Liele had an undeniable gift of preaching, and the church allowed him to preach to slaves on the neighboring plantations. Eventually, Sharpe emancipated Liele so that he could preach full-time.
Though now experiencing the joy of freedom from chattel slavery, Liele’s life would take an unexpected turn. Only a few weeks after emancipating Liele, Henry Sharpe died. Sharpe’s children planned to re-enslave Liele and actually had him imprisoned. [12] Liele eventually found himself released from prison, and realized that he and his family would have a better chance at a more free life if he re-settled in the English colony of Jamaica. The ship upon which Liele and his family would travel across the Caribbean was in the Savannah harbor for a few weeks. While he waited departure, Liele visited one of the plantation missions where he had preached during his time as a plantation traveling evangelist. Liele had baptized these converts in the Savannah River, and these Christians would become the founding members of the First African Baptist Church of Savannah. [13]
When Liele left America, he indentured himself to an English Army colonel named Kirkland. According to National Baptist historian Lewis Jordan, when Liele arrived on the island the sad spiritual condition of enslaved Jamaicans and other persons of African descent deeply moved him. As a result, Liele began to preach the gospel at the race tracks. Later, he rented a room and organized a Baptist church consisting of four people. From these humble beginnings, the church experienced tremendous growth. In less than eight years, Liele baptized 500 people. In 1789, he built a chapel despite persecution from the colonial officials including prison time and a trial for preaching “sedition.” [14]
As Liele’s Baptist church was in its infancy in 1791, Liele wrote a letter to Dr. John Rippon of London, a leader among British Baptists. In the letter, Liele offered a brief autobiography and a description of the ministry he had undertaken in Jamaica. He wrote honestly that his primary occupation was farming so he led the church in a part-time capacity. Liele also wrote that most of the church members were slaves; therefore, the financial condition of the church was tenuous at best. The letter was essentially an appeal for financial support in order to complete the worship building, or “meeting house,” as Liele termed it. As Liele described himself, he included details indicating that he was a Calvinist: “I agree to election, redemption, the fall of Adam, regeneration, and perseverance, knowing the promise is to all who endure, in grace, faith, and good works, to the end, shall be saved.” [15] It can be safely assumed that he learned and embraced these truths in the New Light Baptist context from which he received Christ; as an ordained Baptist minister, he preached these doctrines to his slave audiences in America and in Jamaica. [16]
Related to Liele’s story is the story of David George. George was a slave in South Carolina and became a Christian during the time of Liele’s ministry on American plantations. George provided a first-hand account of his conversion that shows his theological understanding. George indicates that he became a Christian through the warning of a fellow slave; the preaching of George Liele and a Brother Palmer offered assurance of his salvation. [17] George described his conversion in typical, New Light Baptist fashion:
Here I lived a bad life, and had no serious thoughts about my soul; but after my wife was delivered of our first child, a man of my own color, named Cyrus, who came from Charlestown, South Carolina to Silver Bluff told me one day in the woods, That I lived so, I should never see the face of God in glory (Whether he himself was a converted man or not, I do not know.)… I did not think of Adam and Eve’s sin, but I was sin. I felt my own plague; and I was so overcome that I could not wait upon my master…. I felt myself at the disposal of Sovereign mercy. [18]He knew he was unable to save himself, and that if he was to be saved it must be done by God’s grace and power alone. This is consistent with evangelical testimony of his day. George would become a member of the first African American Baptist church, Silver Bluff Church, right on the plantation on which he lived, organized between 1773 and 1775. [19]
The conversion of the slave Andrew Bryan in the Savannah area during the late eighteenth century and the founding of the First African Baptist Church of Savannah also connect with George Liele’s ministry, and to the strong Calvinism among white Baptists in the Lower colonies. As mentioned above, Liele’s plantation mission work brought him to plantations in Georgia along the Savannah River. Jonathan Bryan, a New Light Presbyterian, owned one of these plantations located in Yamacraw, Georgia. After a number of Bryan’s slaves became Christians through Liele’s preaching, Bryan allowed his slaves to build a meeting place for worship. This group of slave converts became First African Baptist Church. One slave, Andrew Bryan, had preaching gifts and eventually received ordination into the gospel ministry by two white Baptist ministers, Thomas Burton and Abraham Marshall. [20] When he arrived in North Carolina, Marshall joined a Particular Baptist church. Eventually Marshall established the Kiokee Baptist Church near Augusta, Georgia, which became the “mother church of Calvinism in Georgia,” according to Southern Baptist scholar W. Wiley Richard. [21] Since Marshall was the pastor at the Kiokee church, he was part of the presbytery that ordained the slave preacher, Andrew Marshall, who became the first pastor of First African Baptist in 1778. The church experienced disruption during the British occupation of Savannah, but re-organized in 1788. In 1790, the church joined the Georgia Baptist Association, which was an association of Calvinistic Baptist churches. It would be the only African Baptist church in the association for years. When First African grew so large that two other churches emerged from it—Second African in 1802 and Ogeechee Baptist in 1805—they, too, joined the Georgia Baptist Association. Both Andrew Bryan and the First African Baptist Church were heavily influenced by Calvinism. [22]
One other individual who was Calvinist was a slave preacher by the name of Uncle Jack who lived in Virginia. Though he was a self-proclaimed Baptist, toward the end of his long life he attended a Presbyterian Church from 1828-1836. Presbyterian minister William S. White wrote a biography of Uncle Jack called The African Preacher, published in 1849. According to White, Jack was born in Africa and captured and enslaved at seven years old; he arrived in Virginia and spent his days as a slave in Nottoway County. [23] When he was forty years old, he became a Christian through the preaching of J. B. Smith, the president of Hampden-Sydney College, along with William Hill and Archibald Alexander, who were theological students at the time, all from Prince Edward County, which was thirty miles from Nottoway County. [24] Jack stated, “These were powerful preachers too, and told me all about my troubles; and brought me to see, that there was nothing for a poor, helpless sinner to do, but to go to the Lord Jesus Christ, and trust Him alone for salvation.” [25] According to the late African American historian Luther Jackson, Jack “learned to read under the tutoring of his master’s children.” [26] This was so important for a man who would soon realize his gift for preaching and leading God’s people.
After his conversion he joined a Baptist church in his home county and became a licensed preacher. This is an interesting occurrence, and something worth inquiry: why did Jack unite with a Baptist church? Historians have failed to explain this occurrence; however, they have written that African Americans favored joining Baptist churches during this period, especially in Virginia. According to Luther Jackson, there were at least eight thousand African American Baptists in Virginia by 1787, compared to a little more than twenty thousand Baptists overall; this was only five years before Jack’s preaching ministry commenced. [27] African American Baptists in Virginia accounted for more than half of all African American Christians at this time. [28] Baptist churches did license African American men to preach without them having to undergo formal training, unlike Presbyterians and Anglicans. [29]
In order to answer the proposed question, two simple explanations may be that Jack believed in some of the nuances of Baptist doctrine such as believer’s baptism and local church autonomy, or the Baptists were closer to his home since the Presbyterians who preached to him had come from another county. There seemed to be no Presbyterian church nearby. Regardless, Jack did lead his own church from the 1790s until the early 1820s, according to Jackson and Frey and Wood. [30] This would have been highly unlikely among Presbyterians in the South during this time. Regarding the proclivity of Baptists to allow slave men to preach, Raboteau writes that “[a] converted heart and a gifted tongue were more important than the amount of theological training received.” [31]
Regarding what Jack believed and preached, White stated that “Jack’s views of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible, were thoroughly evangelical.” [32] Quoting Jack, White wrote that he loved the “preaching which makes God everything, and man nothing.” [33] White explained:
The total depravity of man—the absolute sovereignty of God in electing him to salvation through the imputed righteousness of Christ—the necessity of regeneration by the Spirit, through the belief of the truth—the growth in grace and final salvation of all who truly repent and believe the gospel; these were his favorite themes both in his sermons and conversation. [34]These doctrines were not only evangelical, but historically Calvinistic and as such agreeable to White’s Presbyterian beliefs.
Uncle Jack’s doctrinal tenets reveal something quite significant about Calvinism among Baptists in the South during the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century. Jack heard and believed the gospel through the preaching of Presbyterians. Despite being convinced of believer’s baptism and the autonomy of the local church, Jack never jettisoned all Reformed beliefs. The reason for this is simple: Baptists in the South during this time period were predominately Calvinistic. Jack’s persistence in holding to Calvinist tenets supports this observation; as a slave preacher preaching to slaves, he felt no need to preach any other body of beliefs, seemingly because he believed that the system of belief called Calvinism was sufficient and biblical.
When free African American Baptists in the North founded independent churches during the early nineteenth century, they, like their southern brethren, connected themselves with sister churches that were Calvinistic through district or regional associations. The independent churches organized in Philadelphia and other areas of the mid-Atlantic came under the theological influence of the Philadelphia Association. Facing a growing tide of racial discrimination at the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia, African Americans left to form the African Baptist Church in 1809. [35] In 1816, Second African Baptist formed. What is significant about the formation of these churches is that they both became part of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, which confessed historic Baptist Calvinism articulated in the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. [36] Eventually there would be other African Baptist churches founded that would be part of this association: Blockley Baptist of Philadelphia, founded in 1827; First African of Washington D.C., organized in 1838; Third African of Philadelphia, founded in 1841; and Shiloh Baptist, also of Philadelphia, founded in 1842. These churches would have never been admitted to this association without giving outward acquiescence to the Philadelphia Baptist Confession with its Calvinism. Though free African Americans had serious problems with the prejudice and discrimination they faced in biracial churches, they were able to distinguish sound doctrine from what they perceived to be unsound practice. These churches freely associated themselves with other Calvinistic Baptist churches while advocating African American freedom.
Despite their Calvinism, African American Baptists held firmly to Baptist doctrine and practice. A landmark publication appeared in 1890, demonstrating that Calvinistic African American Baptist ministers were still orthodox in their Baptist faith. The Negro Baptist Pulpit, published by the American Baptist Publication Society (ABPS), was an effort by Northern Baptists to demonstrate their support of the cadre of African American Baptist leaders who desired to maintain fraternal and cooperative ties with them. The ABPS knew that many African American Baptist pastors during the 1880s were eager to write Sunday school literature and other doctrinal work. Even though African American Baptists at this time began to build their own associations and conventions, many remained complacent regarding the production of their own literature. The ABPS had provided literature since Reconstruction, and the American Baptist Home Mission Board (ABHMB) had employed African American Baptists as missionaries and colporteurs; for those African American Baptists who desired to maintain ties with their white Baptist brethren, this was a matter of gratitude and loyalty. The publication of this book reaffirmed the doctrine of the Scriptures, the doctrines of grace, and distinct Baptist tenets. [37]
In the preface, E. M. Brawley, a leading African American Baptist pastor in North Carolina, explained the impetus of The Negro Baptist Pulpit. He made a general statement regarding African American Christians, stating that they were loyal to their denominations. For this work, he refers to African American Baptists. At the same time, Brawley revealed his belief in the sufficiency of Baptist doctrine. He stated that if there is any ignorance of the doctrines on the part of African American Baptists, it is because of ignorance and not deficiency with the doctrines themselves. [38]
This book served to motivate broad-based doctrinal familiarity among African American Baptist pastors. According to Brawley, the great need of the African American ministry was instruction in Baptist doctrine. African American Baptists needed to know why they were Baptists; their understanding of Baptist faith had to go beyond the Baptist doctrine of baptism. In a sense, this stern assertion is in accord with much of the mission of the ABHMS; but it also reflects what leaders like Brawley desired through the National Baptist Convention. [39] He contended that “our trained leaders must write.” [40] Through the writing of trained leaders, ministers who lacked training could be built up and be of better service to their churches.
Contributors to The Negro Baptist Pulpit received their training and education, according to Brawley, at Baptist schools such as Bucknell, Kalamazoo College, and Denison. These were (and still are) predominantly white schools, all in the North; he thus assumed that these men had top-notch educations. Other than those who attended Ivy League schools, these men were among the best educated men in the African American community, able to assume leadership among African American Baptists owing primarily to their education. [41]
Brawley identified the two purposes of The Negro Baptist Pulpit: to offer brief expositions on different articles of the Confession of Faith held to by the majority of American Baptists, the New Hampshire Declaration of Faith; and to highlight the work of denominational societies operating among African American Baptists. [42] The volume also highlights the great work done on behalf of the denomination by the American Baptist Publication Society and the American Baptist Home Mission Society. The work by these various African American Baptists demonstrates their deep knowledge of Baptist faith and practice, on par with any of their American Baptist counterparts. [43]
It is interesting to note that by the late nineteenth century, American Baptists in general had adopted the New Hampshire Declaration of Faith rather than the various adoptions of the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. The New Hampshire Declaration of Faith dates from 1830 and represents a compromise between Calvinist and Arminian Baptists in New Hampshire thought. The text retained important Calvinistic teachings, especially regarding the doctrines of grace. The renowned Baptist Edward Hiscox claimed the New Hampshire Declaration asserted that Baptists during this day were Calvinistic in doctrine. [44]
One doctrine of grace highlighted in The Negro Baptist Pulpit is the doctrine of regeneration; this doctrine is found in the New Hampshire Declaration of Faith, article VII, titled, “Of Grace in Regeneration,” written by Reverend E. K. Love. [45] This article is more of a sermon, and probably was a sermon. In it, Love argued from John 3:7 (“Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again”) that the new birth is absolutely necessary if one is to enter the kingdom of heaven. Love also asserted “that the new birth, spiritual generation, must precede citizenship in the kingdom of our Lord.” [46] To buttress his argument, Love presented three major points with a general point of application: “The necessity of the new birth,” “The character of the new birth required,” and “By whom is this new birth effected?” He applied these points by looking at “[t]he effects of the change.” [47]
In his first point, Love analyzed and discussed what lies at the root of the great need of regeneration. Love’s contention is that the total depravity of humanity is the cause of the new birth’s absolute necessity. By making this assertion, Love connected two of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith as understood in the Protestant order of salvation. The implication here is that without proper knowledge of humanity’s sinful condition there will be a lack of understanding humanity’s greatest need: spiritual life. [48]
In discussing human sin and its most salient need, Love spoke with a Baptist accent in the midst of his concurrence with Protestant orthodoxy. Love stated, “Only regenerated persons should compose the church of Christ, for only such are called ‘saints.’” [49] With this statement, Love clasped hands with the vast body of Baptist belief in its insistence that the Scriptures teach that only those who have been regenerated can become members of the church. This statement simultaneously affirms believer’s baptism because only those regenerated are eligible to become members of a Baptist church—that is, only the regenerate are proper candidates for baptism. To support this implication, Love equated the Old Testament practice of circumcision that ushered a Hebrew boy into the covenant people of God with the New Testament ordinance of baptism that essentially marks one as a member of the New Covenant people of God. Love also maintained that faith is the product of the new birth; therefore, with just one statement regarding the new birth’s necessity, Love linked the doctrines of total depravity, the church, baptism, and faith, demonstrating the connection among these biblical teachings according to Baptists. [50]
In the second point of this article, Love offered his definition of the new birth by offering various descriptions: “The new birth is a change of heart, a change of disposition, a change of affection, a renewing of the mind, and a beginning of a new life.” [51] This is a rather mainstream Protestant definition reflective of the definition found in the New Hampshire Declaration, which states that “regeneration consists in giving a holy disposition to the mind.” [52] Such a definition argues that the experience of the new birth stands as the ground of the entire Christian life.
Following up on this definition of the new birth, Love gave multiple descriptions of the new birth, offering more clarity. He stated that one who is born again is born of the Spirit of God; it is solely the work of the Holy Spirit. The new birth is also the renewal of a person’s mind, spirit, etc.; it causes a general re-orientation in a person “to operate in another direction more pleasing, more righteous, more blessed, more lovely, and more divine.” [53] Regeneration changes the heart and causes the sinner to live righteously. [54] In this sermon, Love exhibited a solid understanding of this doctrine with clarity and precision. It is in agreement with confessional Baptist faith, which on this point of doctrine was Calvinistic.
Another great doctrine of grace included in this volume is repentance and faith, commented on by Rev. G. W. Raiford, pastor of Bethesda Baptist Church, Georgetown, South Carolina. This article is more than likely another sermon and demonstrates that educated African American Baptist pastors tended to preach expository sermons on the fundamentals of the faith. In this sermon, Raiford held that the importance of these two doctrines is “second to none among the doctrines of Christianity.” [55] He believed this because of humanity’s sin and its great need of forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God as well as the good effects these occurrences have on human life. The biblical basis of the sermon is a portion of Mark 1:15: “repent ye, and believe the gospel.” The content and claims of this sermon are in concert with Article 8 of the New Hampshire Declaration, “Repentance and Faith.” [56]
At the outset, Raiford offered a general overview of the importance of the preaching of repentance by highlighting key passages from the New Testament. In particular, he cited three passages: Acts 20:21; Acts 2:38; and 2 Corinthians 7:10. These three passages teach the necessity of preaching repentance to non-Christians and the absolute need for them to repent from sin in order to receive salvation from Christ. [57]
The heart of the sermon deals with what repentance is. How does one know if he or she is repentant or experiencing true repentance? Raiford gave four responses:
- A deep and genuine sense both of sin and God’s infinite love and righteousness;
- Repentance must be attended both with sorrow and shame;
- There must be a hatred of sin;
- In true repentance there must be a fixed purpose to forsake our sin. [58]
In keeping with the doctrine of saving faith, Raiford espoused that faith is a gift of God, something sinful human beings can never possess innately. Basing this assertion on the doctrine of total depravity, this faith must come from without because all human beings are dead in their sins, rendering them totally incapable of exercising a spiritual grace such as faith in the gospel. Faith that is a gift of God reaches out only to Christ; it trusts in the person and work of Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners. Raiford wrote that “[f]aith must unconditionally and unreservedly look to the Lord Jesus Christ; must trust him for his promises.” [60] Raiford’s sermon clearly articulated a Reformed understanding of this doctrine.
The final doctrine of grace highlighted in this collection is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, or as it is called in this collection, “Final Perseverance of the Saints.” In this volume, Rev. A. W. Puller, president of Curtis Memorial Seminary in Staunton, Virginia treats this doctrine and basically offered a commentary on Article 10 of the New Hampshire Declaration. [61] Though the majority of Baptists confessed this particular doctrine in the late nineteenth century, there were others were rejected it and believed that Christians could forfeit their salvation through neglecting holy living.
The basis of Puller’s exposition is on some individual clauses within the article of faith itself. Using Scripture to analyze and support the points, he submits the following as his exegetical headings: 1) only real believers persevere; 2) God’s “special Providence” is over them; and 3) God keeps them through faith. All three of these points represent an orthodox Calvinistic treatment of this doctrine. [62]
Both Puller and the writer of the article of faith argue that in order for Christians to reach their goal of attaining eternal life, they must “strive.” The other part of the argument is that they are assured of reaching this goal even if they lack assurance at times. The overall thrust of this essay is on God’s preservation of his saints in addition to the saints’ perseverance. Puller contended that Christians persevere and possess security “because of God’s purpose and pledged power to keep them.” [63] He based this also on God’s power to keep His saints as he pointed to historical examples of the perseveration of the church amidst persecution; but most importantly, Puller drew from the Holy Scriptures and reason to support this point. [64]
As African Americans emerged from slavery after the Civil War and independent Baptist churches began to flourish, the educated (even if informally educated) among African American Baptist leaders commenced to preach and write from a clear theological framework. For the most part, these Baptist leaders during Reconstruction operated from the Calvinistic framework they learned and had been taught during slavery. Placed alongside Calvinism was Landmarkism; this doctrinal nuance helped to define African American Baptist theology well into the twentieth century. Historian Paul Harvey labels Landmarkism a “more theologically developed form of Protestant primitivism.” [65] According to the African American Baptist historian Wilson Fallin, Landmarkism deals with “the nature of the true church.” In brief, Landmarkism held that the true church was a Baptist church in both doctrine and polity. Fallin also mentions that Landmarkism’s spread among African American Baptists is owed to James M. Pendleton, who helped to found Crozer Seminary in Pennsylvania, though he was a Southerner who was also pro-Union. Northern African American Baptist ministers who studied at Crozer and other Northern Baptist schools received this doctrine gladly. [66]
Though Pendleton upheld Landmarkism, he maintained a Calvinistic belief on the doctrines of grace, especially regarding divine election. He evinced this in his chapter 7, “The Purposes of God,” in Christian Doctrines. Quoting from an unnamed source, Pendleton asserted that election is God’s choice of certain persons out of the masses of people to be His own people. From this general definition of election, Pendleton stipulated that election is personal and based on God’s free and sovereign good pleasure rather than on the foreseen faith of the one who believes in Jesus Christ and His gospel. Regarding the extent of the atonement of Christ, Pendleton agreed with Andrew Fuller, an English Baptist of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, who argued that Christ’s death was for all sinners without distinction. This means that Christ’s death was for all classes of sinners, but not for all sinners indiscriminately. Again, on these all-important doctrines, Pendleton was solidly Calvinistic. [67]
One of the more prominent African American Baptists of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was Elias Camp Morris, and it is evident from his writings and sermons that he was both a Calvinist and Landmark Baptist. Morris was the first president of the National Baptist Convention (NBC) organized in September 1895, and remained in that office until his death in 1922. Morris was born a slave in Georgia in 1855, but following his Christian conversion in 1874, he moved to Arkansas and there entered the gospel ministry. [68] During the 1880s and 1890s, Morris was quite active as a pastor, convention leader, college president, and leader in various small, national conventions before assuming the presidency of the NBC. In 1900, he gave a sermon entitled “Origins of the Baptists” in which he demonstrates his Landmarkist and Calvinistic sentiments.
Regarding Calvinism, Morris quoted a Calvinist theologian who claimed the existence of the covenant of grace in which Christ serves as the representative of the elect of God whom God elected according to foreknowledge. This is clear Calvinist language, and Morris supported such a statement of faith. [69] The Calvinist understanding here is that the triune God planned from all eternity to save His people from sin, and Christ would come into the world with the mission to save them and them only. In this section of the sermon, Morris indicated that he is a historic Calvinist as well as a Landmark Baptist. [70]
During the 1880s, Dr. W. Bishop Johnson, a key leader among African American Baptists, stated “Colored Baptists are Calvanistic [sic] in doctrine.” [71] From this exploration of the general context from which the first African American Baptist preachers and churches emerged, statements from African American Baptist preachers, and associational connections, a good case can be made supporting this statement by Johnson. In addition, there is compelling evidence that suggests that African American Baptist theology has Calvinistic roots. Within this context, the assertions that Anthony Carter and Thabiti Anyabwile advocate in the early twenty-first century are nothing novel.
Conclusion
It is important to include African American slaves and free persons as part of the history of Calvinism in the United States because it demonstrates that even those relegated to the lowest levels of American society in colonial, antebellum, Reconstruction, and post-Reconstruction America embraced Calvinistic theology. This evidences that Calvinism was for everyone who saw their need for God’s grace. As argued by Anyabwile, African American theology has experienced a downgrade moving away from solid Evangelicalism informed by Reformed theology to heterodoxy represented by Liberation Theology and Word of Faith teaching.
To reiterate what Carter argues, the black experience in America is best viewed through the “most legitimate lens available, theology—in particular, biblically-based and historically grounded Reformed theology.” [72] This is because Reformed theology presents God as sovereign over all events, including slavery; but He is also the Redeemer of those enslaved. This is what African American Baptists expressed both as slaves and as free persons; they were able to view God’s providential hand in their enslavement, but they also saw it in their emancipation from slavery. For pastors like Carter, other theological systems are unable to present clear biblical treatments on God’s absolute sovereignty and human responsibility owing to their departure from a high view of biblical authority, as he claims Liberation theology has done. [73] This makes it critical for historians to peer more closely into African American articulation and applications of Reformed theology to understand how their providential situation enabled them to confess the hope of the gospel but also the hope they envisaged in overcoming societal injustices perpetrated against them.
Notes
- Anthony J. Carter, On Being Black and Reformed: A New Perspective on the African-American Christian Experience (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R Publishing, 2003).
- Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2007), 20. Orthodoxy according to Anyabwile refers to beliefs expressed in the catholic creeds such as the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds as well as doctrines articulated in Reformed Protestant confessions.
- Robert Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 2000), 216; H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness (Nashville, Tenn.: Boardman Press, 1987), 219-20; Tom Nettles, The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, vol. 2, Beginnings in America (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 77-78, 94-95.
- See Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, 1921). Woodson entitled chapter 2, “The Dawn of the New Day.”
- Jonathan Edwards, Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England in The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Volume 1 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 375.
- Quoted in Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 128-29.
- Mc Beth, Four Centuries of Baptist Witness, 217, 220.
- Lewis G. Jordan, Negro Baptist History USA: 1750-1930 (Nashville, Tenn.: Townsend Press, 1995), 6-7.
- Alfred Lane Pugh, Pioneer Preachers in Paradise: The Legacies of George Liele, Prince Williams, and Thomas Paul in Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Haiti (N.p.: Paradise Publications, 2003), 3. See also Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), 324. Wood mentions the Negro Act of 1740 that stipulated the prohibition against slaves’ reading in English. The South Carolina assembly passed this law in the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion, a slave revolt that occurred in 1739.
- For a summary of this school, see Lawrence Jones, African Americans and the Christian Churches 1619-1860 (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press), 46-47.
- Mechal Sobel, Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 104-105.
- There are two possible reasons why Sharpe’s children imprisoned Liele: first, because Liele was a British sympathizer during this period of revolution; or the children wanted the economic benefits of possessing a slave. Jordan, Negro Baptist History USA, 6-7.
- Woodson, History of the Negro Church, 43-45; Jordan, Negro Baptist History USA, 7.
- Jordan, Negro Baptist History USA, 7.
- George Liele, et al., “Letters Showing the Rise and Progress of the Early Negro Churches of Georgia and the West Indies,” The Journal of Negro History 1, No. 1 (Jan 1916), 73.
- Jordan, Negro Baptist History USA, 8-9.
- This “Brother” was Wait Palmer, who was a New Light pastor in South Carolina. David George, An Account of the Life of Mr. David George, from Sierra Leone in Africa; Given by Himself in a Conversation with Brother Rippon of London, and Brother Pearce of Birmingham (1793) in “Face Zion Forward”: First Writers of the Black Atlantic, 1785-1798, ed. Joanna Brooks and John Saillant (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002), 180-89; Sobel, 105-106.
- George, An Account of the Life of Mr. David George, 180.
- Eventually, George would become a minister, fleeing South Carolina to Nova Scotia, where he founded a Baptist church. George later immigrated to Sierra Leone and founded the first Baptist church in Africa in 1792.
- Abraham Marshall was the son of Daniel Marshall, who had migrated from Connecticut to North Carolina after a brief stay in Virginia.
- W. Wiley Richards, Winds of Doctrine: The Origin and Development of Southern Baptist Theology (Lanham, Md.; University Press of America, 1991), 13, 17.
- Jordan, Negro Baptist History USA, 22; Leroy Fitts, A History of Black Baptists (Nashville, Tenn.: Boardman Press, 1985), 33, 36-38; James Melvin Washington, Frustrated Fellowship: The Black Baptist Quest for Social Power (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1986), 10-11; Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 107; Charles Elmore, First Bryan 1788-2001: The Oldest Continuous Black Baptist Church in America (Savannah, Ga.: First Bryan Baptist Church, 2002), 1-2.
- William S. White, The African Preacher in The African Preachers (Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle Publications, 1998), 11.
- White, The African Preacher, 13-14; Luther P. Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia From 1760-1860,” Journal of Negro History 16 (April 1931), 184; Sylvia Frey and Betty Wood, Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 156.
- White, The African Preacher, 14. See also Woodson, The History of the Negro Church, 47.
- White, The African Preacher, 15; Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia,” 184-85.
- Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia,” 180. Woodson, Raboteau, and Frey and Wood write that Jack began his preaching ministry in Nottoway County in 1792. See Woodson, The History of the Negro Church, 47; Raboteau, Slave Religion, 135; and Frey and Wood, Come Shouting to Zion, 156. Frey and Wood also assert that African Americans in Virginia preferred to join Baptist churches. See Frey and Wood, Come Shouting to Zion, 153.
- Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia,” 179-80.
- Raboteau, Slave Religion, 133.
- Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia,” 185; Frey and Wood, Come Shouting to Zion, 156.
- Raboteau, Slave Religion, 133.
- White, The African Preacher, 23.
- White, The African Preacher, 23.
- White, The African Preacher, 23.
- Woodson, History of the Negro Church, 86-87.
- See the Philadelphia Confession of Faith: being The London Confession of Faith Adopted in 1742 by The Baptist Association with Scripture References and Keach’s Catechism (Sterling, Va.: G.A.M. Publications, 1981).
- E. M. Brawley, ed. The Negro Baptist Pulpit: A Collection of Sermons and Papers by Colored Baptist Ministers (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971).
- Brawley, “Preface,” in The Negro Baptist Pulpit, 7.
- It had been organized in 1895 as the major national association of African American Baptists.
- Brawley, The Negro Baptist Pulpit, 7.
- Brawley, The Negro Baptist Pulpit, 8.
- The most popular extant version of the New Hampshire Declaration of Faith is in J. Newton Brown’s A Baptist Church Manual: Containing the New Hampshire Declaration of Faith, Suggested Covenant, Rules of Order, and Forms of Church Letters, rev. ed. (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1994).
- Brawley, The Negro Baptist Pulpit, 8.
- Edward T. Hiscox, Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1980), 538, 541-42.
- Love was a prominent pastor of the historic First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia. For a brief biography of Love, see Simmons, Men of Mark: Progressive, Eminent and Rising (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, 1970), 321-22.
- E. K. Love, “Regeneration,” in The Negro Baptist Pulpit, ed. E. M. Brawley (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 66.
- Love, “Regeneration,” 66ff.
- Love, “Regeneration,” 66.
- Love, “Regeneration,” 69.
- Love, “Regeneration,” 69-70.
- Love, “Regeneration,” 70.
- See New Hampshire Declaration of Faith, Article 7.
- Love, “Regeneration,” 71.
- Love, “Regeneration,” 72-83.
- G. W. Raiford, “Repentance and Faith,” in The Negro Baptist Pulpit, ed. E. M. Brawley (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries, 1971), 81.
- Raiford, “Repentance and Faith,” 81.
- Raiford, “Repentance and Faith,” 81-82.
- Raiford, “Repentance and Faith,” 82ff.
- Raiford, “Repentance and Faith,” 85.
- Raiford, “Repentance and Faith,” 85.
- A. W. Puller, “Final Perseverance of the Saints,” in The Negro Baptist Pulpit, ed. E. M. Brawley (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971).
- Puller, “Final Perseverance of the Saints,” 107ff.
- Puller, “Final Perseverance of the Saints,” 105.
- Puller, “Final Perseverance of the Saints,” 105-107.
- Paul Harvey, Redeeming the South: Religious Cultures and Racial Identities Among Southern Baptists 1865-1925 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 8.
- Wilson Fallin, Jr., Uplifting the People: Three Centuries of Black Baptists in Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2007), 100-101.
- See Pendleton, Christian Doctrines: A Compendium of Theology (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1957), 105-108; 241-45. Judson Press originally published this work in 1878.
- R. M. Caver, “Biographical Sketch,” in E. C. Morris, Sermons, Addresses, and Reminiscences and Important Correspondence (Nashville, Tenn.: Townsend Press, 1993), 174-75.
- E. C. Morris, “Origins of the Baptists,” in E. C. Morris, Sermons, Addresses, and Reminiscences and Important Correspondence, 50.
- Morris, “Origins of the Baptists,” 50.
- N. H. Pius, An Outline of Baptist History: A Splendid Reference for Busy Workers: A Record of the Struggles and Triumphs of Baptist Pioneers and Builders (Nashville, Tenn.: National Baptist Publishing Board, 1911); Documenting the American South, http://www.docsouth.unc.edu/church/pius/pius.html (accessed March 22, 2010), 80. Pius quotes Dr. W. Bishop Johnson, who was an early leader within the National Baptist Convention.
- Carter, On Being Black and Reformed, 15.
- Carter, On Being Black and Reformed, 15-16.
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