Baptists in America: A History

by Thomas S. Kidd

JUST AS THE revivals of the 1740s had spun off the Separate Baptists, the New Light Stir also fostered more radical, visionary sects. The Shakers, led by the messianic visionary Mother Ann Lee, traced their public ministry in America to the Dark Day of 1780. Among the Baptists, the most important offshoots of the New Light Stir were the Freewill Baptists, who combined the evangelical zeal of the Separate Baptists with a trenchant critique of Calvinist theology. The Freewill Baptists’ leader was Benjamin Randel, a New Hampshire tailor who was one of the very last converts of the great revivalist George Whitefield. The unconverted Randel was skeptical about evangelical piety, but he grudgingly agreed to hear Whitefield preach in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1770. Soon thereafter, the aging Whitefield died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and the news of his demise tormented Randel with thoughts of his own eternal destiny. Soon Randel experienced conversion, and he also became convinced that believer’s baptism was the only proper mode. In 1776, he received baptism by immersion and began preaching.33