An introduction to the Baptists.

by Erroll Hulse

This is simply the clearest, most brief and accurate Baptist history available, in the English language. All misconceptions are cleared up and it even includes an excellent fold-out timeline of the maze of Baptist movements in Church history.

Genres: Church History, History

Unknown Binding

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

a useful primer on baptist history. The focus is primarily on Baptist history in England and the U.S., but there is also a helpful chapter about Baptists in Russia and Eastern Europe. The book is only 125 pages, so serves as a short primer, yet provides useful details and some short biographies on important historical figures such as C.H. Spurgeon and John Gill.

For my paedobaptist brothers in Christ, Hulse does discuss the use of the term "reformed baptist". He explains that the term emerged in the 1970's and explains that in England calvinistic baptists were called particular baptists or strict baptists (not to be confused with some calvinistic baptists today who only accept TULIP but deny any historic confessional standard such as John MacArthur, a dispensationalist, or John Piper, a New covenant theology proponent and charismatic).

Unfortunately Hulse only briefly mentions that Baptists have a heritage of covenant theology on pg. 22, but does not elaborate further on this point. This does make a distinction between many modern calvinistic baptists who hold to either dispensationalism or new covenant theology, but deny a more traditional covenant theology as expressed in the 1677 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 7.

The author Describes three different baptist groups and traces their historical heritage (see the chart on pg. 41 of the book):

1. The General Baptists (Arminian Baptists), who descend from the Anabaptists.

2. The Particular Baptists (Calvinistic baptists) who descend from reformed congregational churches and hold to the First and Second London Baptist Confessions of Faith (1644/1677).

3. The strict Baptists (Hyper Calvinists). Erroll Hulse gives three distinctives of this third group:

1. Denial that saving faith is the duty of unbelievers
2. communion restricted to believers of the same faith and order -"strict" communion
3. the Gospel, not the moral law as the rule of life for believers are found characterizing the Gospel Standard Strict Baptists.

The chapter on American Baptist history is brief, but points out many declines in doctrinal standards in the US such as a shift away from confessional standards, an emphasis on "making a decision for Christ" that started with Charles G. Finney and continues to the present with the history of the Billy Graham Crusades and modern evangelical trends. Hulse properly diagnoses the problem as flowing from a shift away from a robust doctrinal standard as found in our confessional baptist heritage that has opened the church to attacks from modernism and has increased doctrinal decline in many non-confessional churches.

The final chapter gives an overview of several chapters from the 1677 London Baptist Confession showing the importance of Baptist confessional heritage, especially for the particular baptists, and why it is important to recover this rich confessional heritage to strengthen local church and return to a focus on the means of grace with a focus on preaching the Gospel and sound doctrine via expository preaching rather than seeking entertainment, experiences, or other cultural means to grow the church.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first half but only skimmed the final few chapters. Helpful as an overview of Reformed Baptist history. Writing could be better.