Baptists and "Calvinism": discerning the shape of the question: Baptists and "Calvinism" is an important topic. Much is at stake, if for no other reason than it concerns yet another fault line through Christ's people, sadly divided in their endeavor to be faithful.

Yet, important questions have not received due attention in the current debate between those who would at least ideally locate Baptist identity in a large area of overlap between Baptists and "Calvinism" and those who would minimize the normativity of the undeniable overlap of the two categories. (1) Indeed, the terms of the debate thus far actually prevent important questions from being asked and important testimony from our Baptist heritage from being received. Yet, these questions may provide a sounder approach than either major option presently advocated.

Basic Observations on the Debate over "Calvinism" (2)

Significant agreement exists among the participants in this debate. First and most basically, both those who wish to locate Baptists in the orbit of "Calvinism" and those who would keep these two orbits largely distinct value personal, experiential regeneration and embrace Christ as Savior and Lord. Both further hold the tasks of missions and evangelism to be central. Both affirm that the Baptist past is important not only for understanding the Baptist present, but even for giving it shape. Both sides grant the connection of past and present in formulating identity.

Among those who favor a more "Calvinist" understanding of Baptist identity, Timothy George, writing in First Things, demonstrated how Baptists' various understandings of their history have influenced their sense of identity.(3) Tom Nettles, likewise, yoked concern for origins and present identity.(4) Among critics of close identification of Baptists with "Calvinism," Fisher Humphreys described contemporary Baptist identity in light of The Way We Were, and Walter Shurden stated in the context of another discussion that for Baptists "theological identity ... is inevitably related to historical origins and subsequent history." (5) Indeed, even dismissals of tradition as constitutive Baptist identity sometimes find ironic articulation in terms of "what Baptists have always believed." (6) In other words, tradition is important for Baptists on both sides of this issue. Granting this basic agreement, however, differing judgments of what Baptists are and should be arise from various readings of Baptist tradition.

Contributing to the divergences in interpretation of the Baptist past in this debate are certain complicating factors arising from the rhetoric employed in the debate itself. These make even more difficult the task of navigating the relation of Baptists to "Calvinism" through appeal to the Baptist past. Two chief factors are those of narrowness of focus and imprecision of terminology.

Both sides in the discussion acknowledge that the Baptist past shows both a dominant theme and considerable variety. For example, there is strong evidence of a predominantly Calvinistic orientation among our Baptist forebears. John Asplund's Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination (1790) showed that in the late eighteenth century, of thirty-five associations in the United States and frontier territories, seventeen formally subscribed to the Westminster Calvinism of the Philadelphia Confession, and nine more held to the "Calvinistic system" or "Calvinistic sentiment." By the same token, Asplund showed that while there was a dominant pattern of Baptist life and belief, there was variety. Of the nine other associations, three each embraced "General Provision," the "Bible alone," or did not adopt a confession because Calvinist and Arminian views existed together among the ministers. Significant among the latter group was the Sandy Creek Association. Of this association, Asplund reported it "Holds to no confession of faith, as the generality of them hold to general provision [i.e. an Arminian view of the atonement]." (7)

Rather than interrogating the dynamics of this reality for the sake of better understanding, however, both sides in the debate rest content with simply acknowledging it. One side downplays the dominant Westminster/Philadelphia Calvinism of the Baptists of the late eighteenth century. The other does not give this "Calvinism" sufficient attention as it moves to a nineteenth-century Princeton Calvinism as its chief frame for articulating issues. This latter "Calvinism" itself took a more Zwinglian turn due to the debate between theologians of Princeton and Mercersburg seminaries. (8) There are significant differences between Westminster/Philadelphia Calvinism and the Princeton variety of roughly five decades later, a matter that has not been given adequate attention.

Another complicating factor is the lack of precise definitions, a difficulty primarily with those who argue against "Calvinism" as the proper lens through which to understand Baptists. An example of the lack of precision in scholarly works is J. Terry Young's comments in his review of Fisher Humphreys' and Paul Robertson's God So Loved the World: Traditional Baptists and Calvinism: "The Calvinism most often encountered among Southern Baptists today is hyper-Calvinism, the more rigid form that is based upon the Canons of the Synod of Dort.... " Since God is love, Young continued, this sort of Calvinism "fails to say clearly and unequivocally that God loves the whole world." (9) These statements are not entirely faithful to what the authors of the book contend, (10) and the statements are inaccurate in that while the "Canons of Dort" do indeed manifest what we might call a "scholastic" or "orthodox Calvinism," they bear but the faintest resemblance to hyper-Calvinism, a phenomenon that arose roughly a century later in England, among Independents and Baptists. Recent study indicates that, contrary to the widely-held understanding, hyper-Calvinism was never dominant among Baptists in England, but was a phenomenon more confined to the precincts of London. (11) Hyper-Calvinism was characterized by, among other things, "no offers of grace" preaching, the lack of evangelism, and antinomianism, which is not an accurate depiction of even the "orthodox Calvinism" of Dort. Articles 2 and 3 of the Canons of Dort read in part:

   But this is how God showed his love: he sent his only begotten Son
   into the world, so that whoever believes in him should not perish
   but have eternal life. In order that people may be brought to faith,
   God mercifully sends proclaimers of this very joyful message to the
   people he wishes and at the time he wishes. By this ministry people
   are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified. (12)

Young's statements demonstrate the emptiness of the blanket charge that some nebulous "Calvinism" (or even the particular Calvinism of Dort, itself not the full equivalent of Baptist belief at any point) minimizes or eliminates God's love, faith, or proclamation of "this very joyful message" of God sending the Son.

Such rhetorical tactics impede rather than assist serious engagement of the relation of Baptists to their past. They circumvent awareness of and engagement with the richness of the Baptist past.

A Quest for the "Traditional Baptist"

Perhaps the most intriguing term utilized in the debate has been the recently introduced figure of the "traditional Baptist." (13) The current debate is in a sense a quest for historical Baptist identity. One might rightly call it an attempt to define a normative Baptist tradition. It constitutes the chief rhetorical strategy of those who are opposed to "Calvinism" as the proper orientation for Baptists. Those who argue in favor of a "Calvinistic" Baptist reading can rightly point to the largest strain of Baptist thought from the second half of the seventeenth century through the eighteenth on both sides of the Atlantic up to the chief figures in founding and defining the beliefs of the early Southern Baptist Convention.

What sort of response is possible before such a historically rooted claim about so many figures of the past? One response has claimed, "They are not 'traditional Baptists.'" This response is founded secondarily on the assertion that most Baptists of the past century have not been Calvinists. (14) This argument should be at most secondary because traditions wax and wane with time, and the degree of prevalence of a view among contemporaries is no basis to say whether it is traditional or not. The professed primary basis of the claim is that the earliest Baptists were not "Calvinists." (15) This claim is indisputable if "Calvinism" is equated with the doctrinal positions of Dort. Hence, the early General Baptists are privileged as "traditional" in a signal way.

Yet, such a figure, this "traditional Baptist," is complex and derives her content largely from contemporary visions of Baptist life. Thus, the secondary rationale may silently have become dominant. Today's "traditional Baptist" may not bear much resemblance to Baptists of the past, even the Generals. For this figure to be useful, it must be given content drawn from historical evidence. Once this effort is made, we may realize that we often fail to appreciate the tensions among earlier Baptists that they did not attempt to resolve. Indeed, the tensions themselves are quite revealing, and should give pause to those who quickly invoke the General Baptist strain as "traditional."

Complexities in Historical Baptist Views

The first Baptists, the Helwys group of the Amsterdam Separatist community, were Arminian in theology, and were so in large part through their contact with the Dutch Mennonites. This fact is regularly noted in refutation of "Calvinist origins" of Baptists. Still, by the time the Helwys group returned to England, they had defined themselves in a way that indicates the theological rationale for their decision not to join the "Smyth group" in becoming Mennonite. A comparison of the confessions by Smyth and his group, "A Short Confession of Faith" (1610) (16) and "Propositions and Conclusions concerning the True Christian Religion" (1612-1614), (17) and that of the Helwys group, "A Declaration of Faith of English People Remaining at Amsterdam in Holland" (1611), (18) shows that while the latter had become more Arminian in their view of the extent of the atonement, they had not moved to the same degree on the doctrines of sin and free will. (19) On these doctrines, the earliest Baptists did not embrace Arminianism as fully. They were not as "vigorously anti-Calvinistic" as they have been portrayed. (20)

Even the earliest General Baptists showed willingness to move in directions more usually associated with "Calvinism." This tendency took on even greater refinement as the first Baptist century progressed. The article on "Predestination and Election" in the most mature confession of the General Baptists, The Orthodox Creed, is an example of Generals drawing closer to Westminster Calvinism than many Arminians would allow. (21)

Still, General Baptist bishop and theologian Thomas Grantham offered a robust rejoinder to those who would make too compact a system of predestination. In Grantham's day, there existed great admiration among English Calvinists for the work of Puritan divine William Perkins, designer of "A Golden Chain" that purported to show "the order of the causes of Salvation and Damnation." (22) While not naming Perkins explicitly, Grantham commenced his discussion of the knowledge of God, in his Christianismus Primitivus, by considering, "in what respect we ought to be ignorant of him" (23) because God has "reserved the discovery of himself in great measure." (24) Since humans lack comprehensive knowledge of God, the Baptist bishop counseled that we be "humbly content with that measure of the Knowledge of God, which his Word accommodates us with." To speculate on matters that are shrouded in mystery is to risk the "neglect [of] the grace held forth." (25) Christians should "strive to be religiously inquisitive after what is knowable only, and then to glorifie God according to what we know of him and be thankful." (26) Such humility, according to Grantham, was requisite to sound piety.

Grantham was not the first to offer such counsel, and even more arresting is that one may hear echoing through his words Calvin's own themes concerning predestination. (27) In his own treatment of predestination, Calvin cautioned:

   Human curiosity renders the discussion of predestination, already
   somewhat difficult of itself, very confusing and even dangerous....
   First, then, let them remember that when they inquire into
   predestination they are penetrating the sacred precincts of divine
   wisdom. If anyone with carefree assurance breaks into this place,
   he will not succeed in satisfying his curiosity and he will enter
   a labyrinth from which he can find no exit....
   And let us not be ashamed to be ignorant of something in this matter
   wherein there is a certain learned ignorance. Rather, let us
   willingly refrain from inquiring into a kind of knowledge, the
   ardent desire for which is both foolish and dangerous, nay,
   even deadly. (28)

An even more remarkable convergence comes when the General Baptists and Calvin moved to speak of justification by faith in light of the mystery of predestination. The Orthodox Creed declared that:

   For until we do believe, the effects of God's displeasure are not
   taken from us; for the wrath of God abideth on all them that do
   not believe in Christ; for the actual declaration in the court of
   conscience, is by faith as an instrument, not for faith as a
   meriting cause: for Christ is the meriting cause of
   eternal life for all that believe, but not of God's will to give
   eternal life to them, nor yet of God's decree to save us, albeit
   we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
   Now faith is necessary as the way of our salvation.... (29)

Calvin had himself commented with regard to the same matter:

   Since God wills that his elect be saved by faith, and ratifies
   and executes his eternal decree in this manner, anyone who is
   not content with Christ, and pries into eternal predestination,
   takes it upon himself to be saved apart from God's eternal
   counsel.... Those who seek their or others' salvation in the
   labyrinth of predestination, while they move out of the
   way of faith set before them, are insane. By such absurd
   speculation, they even try to do away with the power and effect of
   predestination. For, if God elected us for faith, take away faith,
   and election itself is mutilated.
   ... Therefore faith is strong enough proof of God's eternal
   predestination. It is a sacrilege to inquire further, because he
   who refuses simply to accept the testimony of the Holy Spirit, offers
   him insult with injury. (30)

I wish neither to state, nor even imply, that Grantham or other General Baptists had Calvin explicitly in mind as they wrote. Suffice it to say that we find complexity in both Baptists' and Calvin's theology on so many levels that sorting them out and identifying one as being characteristic of "traditional Baptists" is an effort that is certain to come to naught.

In like manner, we find a complexity among Particular Baptists that defies oversimplification. Lest we think that one must hold all five points articulated at Dort in order to be a faithful "Calvinist," much less a faithful Baptist, we would do well to remember the great Baptist leader Andrew Fuller. Fuller, who wrote that if he was ever disowned by the Calvinists, "I should rather choose to go through the world alone than be connected with [the Arminians]," (31) denied the doctrine of limited atonement for the sake of remaining faithful to insight of Calvin and "Calvinism."

Accused of being a "Baxterian" (32) by other Particular Baptists, Fuller argued that the logic of Calvinism required denial of particular atonement, though not Baxter's affirmation of universal redemption. Fuller reasoned that if, as Calvinists of his day asserted, salvation was entirely of God while there was full human responsibility for refusal to believe, then only the "objective fulness (sic)" of Christ's atonement sufficient for any number who believe would satisfy both conditions. (33) As he noted in The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, no one was to be reproved for not doing what was naturally impossible, but sinners were reproved for not believing. Hence, for this reproof not to be a divine deception when the fact was really that belief or its lack was really irrelevant, Christ's atonement must be general. No inconsistency existed, he maintained, between this account and the claim that no one can come to faith in Christ unless the Father drew that person, for no one can choose that to which the heart is averse. (34) To support his position, Fuller noted Calvin's commentary on John 3:16 and the Canons of Dort, which direct that the call to repent and believe in Christ ought to be "promiscuously and indiscriminately published to all nations and individuals." (35)

No doubt, the evidence Fuller marshaled in support of his case is not irrefutable. Yet, what this shows is that Calvin and "Calvinism" could be cited against "Calvinism." Thus, "Calvinism" itself was not received by our forebears, and indeed is not to be received, as a seamless body of doctrine demanding a lock-step adherence with no room for variation or interpretation. Human insights into Christian faith are to be received as just that--human insights. They are to be interpreted and these interpretations can be debated. Fuller commented of his interlocutors, who were influenced by what may rightly be called hyper-Calvinism, "The writings of Calvin himself would now be deemed Arminian by a great number of our opponents." (36) To locate our forebears in this tradition is to place them in the midst of a vibrant and living, serious engagement with Christian faith and faithfulness.

Why did Fuller adopt the position he did, and what may this teach us in our conversation on similar issues? Humphreys' and Robertson's location of the essence of the matter in the love of God shows great prescience. Soteriological reflection must give account at some point of the difficult question of why some accept Christ in faith and others do not. The answers in some sense rest upon the exclusion of a position deemed intolerable. For Humphreys and Robertson, and for Fuller, the love of God must not be limited. They all would agree with Calvin when he said, "Faith looks to Christ rightly when it sees in him the heart of God overflowing with love. ... [God] shows himself gracious toward the whole world, and he invites all men without exception to faith in Christ, which is nothing less than entering into Life." (37) Yet, not all accept the invitation. Humphreys and Robertson deemed that it is intolerable that the God who loves the entire world would decree who will and who will not accept. They thus accept a generous estimation of human ability to respond to God, and corresponding divine self-limitation to make this freedom possible. (38)

Fuller, on the other hand, found it equally intolerable to destroy the equality of human beings before God, which was the price he saw in giving up the doctrine of predestination. The Arminian position, he asserted, could not answer the difficult question of why some people do in fact believe in Christ without making them somehow humanly different from those who do not. There must be some goodness that enables them to accept God's grace, if the grace of God is equally extended to all. Yet, this goodness gave human beings reason to set themselves apart--to boast, and so was intolerable to Fuller. (39) He concluded that "Arminians seem to undermine the doctrine of salvation by grace only and to resolve the difference between one sinner and another into the human will, which is directly opposite to all my views and experience." (40) In this soteriological logic, I find myself, with Fuller, preferring to rest the determining mystery finally upon God's grace rather than upon human distinction. Throughout the history of the people called Baptists, we find various patterns of negotiating difficult questions of Christian life and belief. It is not right to label only one as "traditional."

The Theological Crux

As much as this is a debate about Baptists' relation to "Calvinism," it is a debate over the normativity of tradition in Baptist life and identity. Both sides in the debate over "Calvinism" invoke a particular aspect of Baptist history as holding some form of normative claim over how Baptists should understand themselves today. Both realize that there needs to be something to adjudicate the argument. Yet, there is precious little in recent

Baptist life that offers wisdom on the matter.

I will offer yet another, I hope more comprehensive, way of understanding early Baptists and will urge that it hold normative status in the same sense the interlocutors in the present debate do. In a Baptist context, there is--and truly can be--no juridical normativity to which I can appeal. The most a Baptist can hope to do is articulate what we might call a "moral rather than legal" normativity. (41)

Paul M. Harrison noted in the late 1950s that Baptists are not accustomed to thinking in terms of a "classical" or "normative" phase in their history. He concluded, though, that the period in which a group sets itself apart as a distinct witness must in some sense become a norm against which later developments are judged. Thus, we ought to listen carefully to the forebears of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, because they were the first to speak the native language of Baptist identity. (42) What we find them affirming is a rich and complex offering of surprising witness for we later Baptists.

A Better Question, A Better Way

Both parties to the current debate make valid points and evoke Baptist heritage in defensible ways. Both likewise present interpretations incomplete in their consideration of the complexities of Baptist life, and so they often offer distorted interpretations. Yet, both place great importance upon tradition. The most important question rising from the debate is whether a better understanding of Baptist tradition is possible. I contend that it is.

While I have used the terminology of "Calvinism" as a convention, I do not think that it is helpful. More helpful is the more diverse term "Reformed." While some read the two as strict synonyms, I do not. Various Calvinisms are part of the Reformed heritage as are views relying more upon Zwingli, Bucer, or other, lesser known, humanistically influenced reformers of Switzerland, southern Germany, and Holland. Arminian theology fits in this broad grouping. Indeed, the Dutch Remonstrant Brotherhood, the heirs of Arminius, is a member organization of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Karl Barth and Friedrich Schleiermacher were both theologians of the Reformed tradition. Monolithic this Reformed tradition manifestly is not. Baptists, in both of their major early forms of General and Particular, may be interpreted as Reformed. While a comprehensive case lies beyond the bounds of this study, a brief explanation that demonstrates the propriety of this designation is necessary.

Presbyterian theologians John H. Leith and William Stacy Johnson have identified emphases upon the majesty of God, sanctification, and the human community under the authority of God as generative of the distinctive character of Reformed theology not specific to one person, time, or movement. (43) To these, the Baptists of the seventeenth century attest with one voice, and do so in a way that shows a distinctive Baptist character within Reformed Christianity. They do so even while diverging on certain points of theology (e.g., predestination) and polity (e.g., the General Baptists' episcopal office).

The early Baptists' thoroughgoing commitment to the majesty of God is embodied in what I have called the "two-fold freedom of God." Most basically, this is: 1) God's freedom from any human control or usurpation; and 2) God's freedom for the use of creation to mediate salvation and form a people under God's gracious rule. (44) From this divine freedom came the Baptists' convictions regarding the shape of Christian life and faith. Both aspects of God's freedom were necessary lest the early Baptists appear so inconsistent as to render their present usefulness nil.

Stemming from God's "freedom from" was their opposition to religion established by the state and sacramentalism. "[A]ll the power on Earth cannot make one Institute or Divine ceremony in Religion," asserted Grantham. The reason was not the violation of human conscience. Rather, it was "because (as we conceive) God's Authority is then usurped by Man, and Mens (sic) Fear towards him is then taught by the precepts of Men." (45) The Second London Confession (1677) affirmed this same insight by retaining the language of the Westminster Confession, "God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the Doctrines and Commandments of men." (46) The Baptists included among these "Doctrines and Commandments" those concerning the sacraments. "But shall they be my God?" John Bunyan wondered, "or shall I have of them so foul and impious a Thought, To think that from the Curse they can me save?" (47) Bunyan elsewhere commented that "It is possible to commit idolatry even with God's own appointments." (48) Infant baptism, as we might expect, came under particularly harsh criticism. Grantham castigated paedobaptists for acting as if God's salvation of the world's infants rested upon a human ceremony, so binding God's freedom. (49)

From God's "freedom for" came the Baptists' genuinely sacramental understanding of baptism and the Lord's Supper and an avowal of the church as the locus of God's saving work. (50) Bunyan said of the things with which one could commit idolatry when binding God with them, the laver and Table, that by the free grace of God, "Here's such as helpeth Man's Salvation." (51) The Orthodox Creed confessed of these rites, "And as they (Israel) had the manna to nourish them in the wilderness to Canaan; so have we the sacraments to nourish us in the church, and in our wilderness condition...." (52) Particular Baptist William Kiffin stated that the sacraments were important for early Baptists. The one who cares not for "Christ sacramental," he declared, cared not for "Christ God," for in the former the latter comes near. (53) Because God thus comes near in the true church, as Baptists conceived it, and not in an idolatrous state church, their sacramental practices also constituted a profound critique of the state and the state church.

The church, according to the early Baptists, was the realm of God's sovereign freedom in salvation. It was to the church "and not elsewhere, all persons that seek for eternal life, should gladly join themselves." (54) As such, one could not claim human freedom against church doctrines and practices. While civil authorities could not impose doctrine or practice, Fuller averred, to reject the claims of the church on matters of proper life and belief, including sacraments and creeds, on the grounds of religious liberty was to renounce the name of Christian. (55) This assertion rested upon a corporate locus in matters of salvation, even that of individuals, for our forebears and was affirmed in both predestinarian and non-predestinarian expressions of Baptist conviction. Grantham chose as the definition of religion Titus 2:11-14, which speaks of the formation of a people in the image of Christ. (56) Likewise, while individual election is certainly not absent in the Particular Baptist writings, there were striking depictions of election as being primarily a corporate reality. For example, The Baptist Catechism (1683/84) was patterned closely after The Westminster Shorter Catechism, rarely deviating from verbatim quotation in the shared articles. One of these deviations, noteworthy because atypical, was the affirmation of election. Westminster said of election, "God having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life...." The Baptist Catechism read, "God having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected a people to everlasting life...." (57)

The Baptists' pressing of this vision of a people under a sovereignly free God constituted their true distinctiveness. We find it among Generals and Particulars. Together, they show a logic we might call "radically Reformed." God is free. God's people are free under God, but not free from the means God has chosen to save them. Apart from this understanding, the earliest Baptists seem quite self-contradictory; now denying, now affirming sacraments and creeds and church tradition. In the dynamic of God's freedom, our forebears found room for a creative tension richer than many contemporary Baptist visions.

Two crucial points rise from this location of both major groups of early Baptists in the Reformed tradition. First, neither of these major groups may be labeled as legitimately representative of a "traditional Baptist." Both groups spoke often, though not always, with a common voice. Yet both are the Baptists of tradition. Second, neither of the major Baptist groups may be invoked as "traditional" and so somehow normative for understanding contemporary Baptist life when only a narrow part of their witness is utilized--that of their divergence on matters of soteriological doctrine. How can we claim to orient ourselves toward either expression of Baptist life and not embrace, for instance, a sacramental understanding of baptism and the Supper, or the creeds?

The debate over "Calvinism" thus far has given some help toward the goal of articulating a faithful Baptist vision. It has raised difficult, yet necessary questions. The debate has not yet, however, provided good answers. That task yet remains. In seeking those answers, we will do well to keep in mind that it may well be that "Baptists of tradition" have much yet to teach us, if only we will listen.

Thanks to Lance Clay for research assistance.

(1.) The boundaries are not extremely clear, hence my vagueness of reference. The first group for our purposes exists primarily within the Southern Baptist Convention and is most basically the Southern Baptist Founders organization and their sympathizers. The second group is a strange coincidence of Southern Baptists who believe Calvinism's greatest liability is primarily a dampening effect on missions and evangelism and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Baptists for whom the primary threats are the denial of human freedom and the universal love of God.

(2.) Although I employ the term "Calvinism" in this essay, it is a matter of convention. Taken generically, the term is not entirely helpful for the reason that it closes off questions prematurely. Unless I am referring to a specific form of Calvinistic theology (e.g., Westminster Calvinism), I will place "Calvinism" in quotes.

(3.) Timothy George, "Southern Baptist Ghosts," First Things 93 (May 1999): 17-24.

(4.) Tom Nettles, "How Do We Know Who We Are?" Founders Journal 49 (Summer 2002): 1-4.

(5.) Fisher Humphreys, The Way We Were: How Southern Baptist Theology has Changed and What it Means to Us All (New York: McCracken Press, 1994); and Walter B. Shurden, "The Baptist Identity and The Baptist Manifesto," Perspectives in Religious Studies 25, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 321.

(6.) gee Robert E Jones, "Revisioning Baptist Identity from a Theocentric Perspective," Perspectives in Religious Studies 26, no. 1 (spring 1999): 37-46, who claims that for Baptists "tradition has no inherent authority qua tradition" and then bases his argument for a certain position on the fact that "Baptists have always understood" it.

(7.) John Asplund, The Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination in North America to the First of November, 1790 (n.p.: n.p., 1791), 48-53. Despite the claims of Tom Ascol, "Calvinism, Evangelism & Founders Ministries," Founders Journal 45 (Summer 2001): 1-21, that the Sandy Creek Principles of Faith (1816) were Calvinistic, they were quite brief and appear to have been left undefined enough to allow latitude of interpretation of certain points, such as predestination and effectual calling. While they do not dictate Arminian interpretation, they certainly allow it to a greater degree than the Philadelphia Confession. See William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969), 358.

(8.) See Linden J. de Bie, "Real Presence or Real Absence? The Spoils of War in the Nineteenth-Century American Eucharistic Controversy," Pro Ecclesia IV (Fall 1995): 431-41. The effects of the turn the Princeton theologians made in this controversy may be seen clearly in Baptist theology from the period.

(9.) J. Terry Young, "Review of Fisher Humphreys and Paul Robertson," God So Loved the World: Traditional Baptists arm Calvinism (New Orleans: Insight Press, 2001), in Christian Ethics Today: Journal of Christian Ethics online, The Christian Ethics Today Foundation (April 2003), http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/035 /God%20So%20Loved%20The%20World%20-%20Traditional%20Baptist%20and%20Calvinism %20By%20Fisher%20Humphreys%20and%20Panl%20Robertson_035_20_.htm

(10.) Fisher Humphreys and Paul Robertson, God So Loved the World: Traditional Baptists and Calvinism (New Orleans: Insight Press, 2001), 96. The authors do not refer to the Calvinism of Dort as hyper-Calvinism. They do, however, level against "Calvinism" the charge of failure to affirm God's love. They also tend to confine their depiction of "Calvinism" to a rather compact trajectory from Calvin to Dort.

(11.) A helpful study of hyper-Calvinism is Peter Toon, The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity 1689 1765 (London: The Olive Tree, 1967).

(12.) "The Canons of Dort," Psalter Hymnal (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1988), 927.

(13.) We may see this explicitly in the work of Fisher Humphreys and Paul Robertson, God So Loved the World: Traditional Baptists and Calvinism (New Orleans: Insight Press, 2001), but it is also at least strongly implied in the work of Walter Shurden, "The Baptist Identity;" and The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 1993), Gary Parker, Principles Worth Protecting (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 1993); and Frank Louis Mauldin, The Classic Baptist Heritage of Personal Truth, Foreword by John R New-port (Franklin, TN: Providence House Publishers, 1999). These latter deal with other facets of the debate over Baptist identity than the one concerning Calvinism. Still, the rhetorical strategy of laying claim to faithfulness to the earliest Baptist identity is the same.

(14.) Humphreys and Robertson, Gad So Loved, 2, note that their claim is "warranted for two reasons, one historical and the other demographic."

(15.) Ibid., 2-3. Humphreys utilizes this term regularly in a variety of forums, Cf. Fisher Humphreys, "Calvinism and Traditional Baptist Theology," www.mercer.edu/baptiststudies/HotIssues/Fisher/CandTBT.htm: and "Calvinism and the Bible," www.mercer.edu/baptiststudies/HotIssues/Fisher/CandB.htm.

(16.) Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 102-13.

(17.) Ibid., 123-42.

(18.) Ibid., 114-23.

(19.) See Ibid., 115.

(20.) See Humphreys and Robertson, God So Loved, 30, 13. Humphreys and Robertson also distance "traditional Baptists" from Arminianism as well, thus begging the question of just how normative the earliest Baptists are for identity.

(21.) See Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 296, 302-04.

(22.) See William Stacy Johnson and John H. Leith (eds.), Reformed Reader. A Sourcebook in Christian Theology, Volume I Classical Beginnings 1519-1799 (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 113.

(23.) Thomas Grantham, Christianismus Primitivus: or The Ancient Christian Religion (London: n.p., 1678). Because the pagination of Grantham's work is internally inconsistent, my references will indicate book/part, chapter, and section. This quote is found in II/1.ii.1.

(24.) Ibid.

(25.) Ibid., II/1.iii.2.

(26.) Ibid., II/1.ii.14.

(27.) For the theme of accommodation in Calvin's thought, see William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 113-27, et passim; and Serene Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety, Columbia Series in Reformed Theology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995), passim.

(28.) John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 922-23 (III.xxi.1-2).

(29.) Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 303. Italics added.

(30.) John Calvin, Commentary on John 6:40, in Calvin: Commentaries, ed. Joseph Haroutunian, The Library of Christian Classics Ichthus Edition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), 302-03.

(31.) Andrew Fuller, "Letters to Dr. Ryland Concerning Controversy with Rev A. Booth," in The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller With a Memoir of His Life by Andrew Gunton Fuller in Two Volumes, vol. I (Boston: Lincoln, Edmans & Co., 1833), 679.

(32.) Puller denied being Baxterian, so called after the Independent divine Richard Baxter. Fuller said that Baxter went too far and held not just general atonement, but general redemption that can only be forfeited by willful sin. Fuller argued rather for the general sufficiency of the atonement, but did not accept Baxter's moral argument for reasons concerning the grounds of salvation.

(33.) Fuller, "Letters to Dr. Ryland," 674-79.

(34.) Andrew Fuller, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, in The Complete Works, vol. I, 387-89.

(35.) Fuller, "Letters to Dr Ryland," 676-77.

(36.) Fuller, The Gospel Worthy, 397. My own sense is that Fuller was right to assert that Calvin did not teach particular atonement, though i am aware that many Calvin scholars would, now as then, take exception to this.

(37.) John Calvin, commentary on John 3.16, in Calvin's Commentaries, 193-94.

(38.) Humphreys and Robertson, God So Loved, 90-94.

(39.) Andrew Fuller, "Reply to the Observations of Philanthopos," in The Complete Works, vol. I, 479; and Fuller, "Letters to Dr Ryland," 679.

(40.) Fuller, "Letters to Dr Ryland," 679.

(41.) I take this language from William Lumpkin's discussion of the normativity Baptists have accorded their confessions of faith. William L. Lumpkin, "The Nature and Authority of Baptist Confessions of Faith," Review and Expositor, 76 (Winter 1979): 27-28.

(42.) Paul M. Harrison, Authority and Power in the Free Church Tradition: A Social Case study in the American Baptist Convention (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 36. Cf. for the analogy of native language, Robert Louis Wilken, "Historical Theology," in Donald W Musser and Joseph L. Price (eds.), A New Handbook of Christian Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 227-29.

(43.) Johnson and Leith, Reformed Reader, xxiii-xxv; on pages xx-xxiii, they have identified more broadly still certain characteristics of Reformed theology. They describe Reformed theology as catholic; Protestant; committed to the scriptures as the final authority in the church's faith and practice; contextual, practical, and edifying rather than speculative and timeless; and emphasizing the Christian experience of regenerating grace. Our early Baptist forebears demonstrate each of these quite clearly. While not addressing Johnson and Leith's characteristics specifically, I have accentuated these themes in my articles, "People of the Free God: The Passion of Seventeenth Century Baptists," American Baptist Quarterly XV (September 1996): 223-41; and "A New Question in Baptist History: Seeking a Catholic Spirit Among Early Baptists," Pro Ecclesia VIII (Winter 1999): 51-72.

(44.) See Philip E. Thompson, "People of the Free God: The Passion of Seventeenth Century Baptists" American Baptist Quarterly XV (September 1996): 223-41; "A New Question in Baptist History: Seeking a Catholic Spirit Among Early Baptists," Pro Ecclesia VIII (winter 1999): 51-72; and "Practicing the Freedom of God: Formation in Early Baptist Life," in David M. Hammond (ed.) Theology and Lived Christianity, The Annual Publication of the College Theology Society, vol. 45 (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 2000), 119-38.

(45.) Thomas Grantham, Apology for the Baptized Believers (London: Thomas Grantham, 1684), 8, 10.

(46.) Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 279-80.

(47.) John Bunyan, A Book for Boys and Girls (1686), in The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan, ed. Graham Midgley, vol. VI, The Poems (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1980), 212.

(48.) John Bunyan, A Confession of My Faith and A Reason of My Practice--or--With Who, And Who Not, I Can Hold Church Fellowship, in The Works of John Bunyan, ed. George Offor, vol. II (Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1853), 604.

(49.) Grantham, Apology, 38.

(50.) See Philip E. Thompson, "Re-envisioning Baptist Theology: Historical, Theological, and Liturgical Analysis," Perspectives in Religious Studies 27, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 288-302; "Sacraments and Religious Liberty: From Critical Practice to Rejected Infringement," in Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson (eds.) Baptist Sacramentalism, studies in Baptist History and Thought, vol. S (Carlisle, Cumbria, UK: Paternoster Press, 2803), 36-54; and "Seventeenth-Century Baptist Confessions in Context," Perspectives in Religious Studies 29, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 335-48.

(51.) John Bunyan, A Discourse on the Building, Nature, Excellency and Government of the House of God, in The Miscellaneous Works, vol. VI, 276.

(52.) Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 311-12.

(53.) William Kiffin, A Sober Discourse on the Right to Church Communion (London: George Larkin, 1681) 42-43.

(54.) Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 319.

(55.) See Andrew Puller, Essays on Ecclesiastical Polity, in The Complete Works, vol. 11, 628-31.

(56.) Grantham, Christianismus Primitivus, II/1.i.1.

(57.) The Westminster Shorter Catechism, in The Book of Confessions (Louisville: The Office of the General Assembly, 1994), 182; and The Baptist Catechism (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1952/1683/4), 20. Tiffs piece has been variously attributed to both Benjamin Keach and William Collins.

Philip E. Thompson is assistant professor of systematic theology and Christian heritage, North American Baptist Seminary, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.