Baptists in America: A History

by Thomas S. Kidd

With this phenomenal growth among frontier Baptists, distinctively Calvinist theology began to wane. Often this was just a matter of things no longer said. In 1785, the Elkhorn Baptist Association had adopted the robustly Calvinist Philadelphia Confession of 1742. But when it united with two other Kentucky associations in 1802, they agreed that “the preaching Christ tasted death for every man [general atonement], shall be no bar to communion.” Some Baptists may have felt that they had more fundamental theological challenges with which to contend than the division between Calvinists and Arminians. In 1804, the Elkhorn Association took action against two member churches in which significant portions of the congregation, and probably at least one pastor, had begun denying the doctrine of the Trinity and contending that “Jesus Christ is not truly God.” The nearby Bracken Association was also troubled by this news and reminded its member churches that “the Christian religion stands or falls with the doctrine of the Trinity.”32 As Baptists battled these threats, rigorous Calvinism became less of a priority. The doctrine of limited atonement seems to have become particularly muted after 1800. We should not overstate the rapidity of Calvinism’s decline, however, as Calvinist doctrines such as total depravity and the chosen elect remained standard Baptist fare through the nineteenth century. Moreover, many Baptists still defended a limited atonement. In 1808, for instance, the Bowd...