Baptists in America: A History

by Thomas S. Kidd

BUFFETED BY CROSSCUTTING theological winds generated by Freewill Baptists, Campbellites, antimission movements, and others, many Baptist churches embraced the new statement of faith published by the New Hampshire Baptist Association in 1833. This statement moderated the Calvinism of older statements such as the Philadelphia Confession of 1742, but just how moderate it was stood open to debate. The statement remained elusive on the thorniest questions of limited atonement and God’s immutable decree of election, allowing a range of Baptists to interpret those matters as they wished. Some strong Calvinists did see the New Hampshire Confession as too moderate, or possibly even free-will Arminian. In the 1840s, for example, the Florida Association of Baptists, having once accepted the New Hampshire confession, on second thought rejected it in favor of articles affirming “the doctrine of eternal and particular election.”45 The New Hampshire confession also declined to use the term “elders” when describing biblical church officers but only mentioned the synonymous terms “bishops or pastors.” (The term “elders” reappeared in the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message, which dropped the word “pastors.”) Over time the term “pastor” became more conventional in pro-missionary Baptist congregations, while Primitive churches continued using the term “elder.”