August 7, 2017 Show with Kurt M. Smith on “The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists (1772-1830)”

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you a happy Monday on this seventh day of August 2017, and I am delighted to have returning to the program

Kurt M. Smith who is an author and pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Pine Mountain, Alabama.

Today we are discussing his book, The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists Between 1772 and 1830, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Kurt M.

Smith. Thank you brother Chris, it is good to be back with you. Well before we get into the topic at hand tell our listeners about Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Pine Mountain, Alabama.

Providence Reformed Baptist Church is a new Reformed Baptist Church. We constituted, it'll be a year, exactly a year,

August 31st, and the church as I have shared before, originally it was a

Southern Baptist Church, a church that had dated back to the year of 1899, and when they called me

I had actually come into what was already a reforming work by a previous pastor there, and they wanted to call another pastor to continue that work of Reformation, and so last summer,

June of 2016, was when I came here to Pine Mountain, Alabama, and came to what would become in just three months after I arrived,

Providence Reformed Baptist Church. And so we're very, very happy, very humbled about what the

Lord has been doing in our midst and how he is working, just not only within the church family that's there, but also to the mediums of outreach that he has given us, and so we're very thankful for what

God is doing. Amen. And this is more controversial than listeners may think, this subject today.

They may be thinking, well, Georgia and Baptists, it's kind of like vanilla ice cream with hot fudge on top.

I mean, it's like a hot dog with mustard on it. I mean, it doesn't seem to be anything that would earth -shattering or even fascinating, but the very fact of the matter is that, as you know, and I'm sure you're going to share a bit more about this with our listeners, but there are quite a number of Southern Baptists and Baptists in general that live in Georgia and live in the

Deep South and live in the Bible Belt who are vehemently opposed to the theology not only embraced by you personally, but by Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Pine Mountain, Alabama, that they think is not only unbiblical and heretical, but they think it is not even historic nor even connected in any meaningful way to Baptists and even

Baptists in the South and even Baptists in Georgia. So if you could just comment on that statement

I just made. Yeah, it is true that there have been many

Southern Baptists, many Southern Baptists in the last probably 30 years or more that have come to this belief that, and I'll just stick with Southern Baptists, that the

Southern Baptist theological heritage has had absolutely no ties whatsoever to Calvinism or Reformed theology, and if it did have any such ties to it, it was very far in the background.

It was, to use some of their terms, it was very moderate, very mild, but strong, confessional,

Calvinism. For many Southern Baptists, they believe, because of what they've been taught, that that's just historically, that that's not

Southern Baptists and never has been. So over this book, in particular, the

Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists that I co -authored with Brandon Smith, who pastors

Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Jackson, Georgia. Brandon and I, we set out in 2010 to uncover just strictly the first generation of Georgia Baptists, uncover what they really did believe theologically, confessionally, and of course to do that, you got to do what any good, honest historian will do, you got to go back to what's called the primary source materials, and that's what we did.

We went to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, which houses the largest Baptist archives in the world, and of course they house all the

Baptist archives related to Georgia Baptists. And we went, started just started our work there, and it took us five years to write the book.

Brandon actually had the hardest task than I did, because my portion of the book was biographical.

His portion was the doctrinal aspect, so he focused on each of the so -called five points of Calvinism, and just went back into circular letters that were written during this period, 1772 to 1830, looked at sermons that had been preached and printed during that time, and then of course there was the

Christian Index, which is the Georgia Baptist state paper that Jesse Mercer, who's one of the subjects in our book that I write a whole chapter about, he brought into Georgia, and just in what, you know, what that paper was saying about the doctrines of grace,

Calvinism, and everything. And so what we discovered by looking at the primary source materials is that that entire first generation of Georgia Baptists were, in fact, confessional

Calvinists. The associations that were founded, that were started, were confessional

Calvinists, and then the over 400 churches, Baptist churches that were represented during that period of Georgia Baptist history, were confessional

Calvinists. I'm assuming you're referring to either the first or second London Confession?

Well, what they used was an, it was called an abstract of that.

Okay. As an abstract, for our listeners, it's simply an abridgment.

So for instance, the Georgia Baptist Association that was formed in 1784, in the year of 1790, they put together what would be their official confessional statement, and that confessional document we actually have printed in the book, it's the first appendix in the back of the book, and it was called the

Georgia Baptist Association Abstract in Decorum, and the first part of that particular document is actually a confessional statement that holds eight different articles of doctrinal belief, and among these eight articles, you see the five points of Calvinism standing out in bold relief.

And then, of course, I'll say, maybe I can talk about this a little later in our time together, but what's very interesting and very significant is that what prompted the writing of this confessional statement was two very controversial matters that had pressed upon these early

Georgia Baptist churches. The controversial matter was doctrinal, and it had to do with Wesleyan Methodists that had entered into Georgia, and they had in their crosshairs the

Baptist churches that were there, and they their whole purpose was to basically annihilate the

Calvinism that was propagated by those Baptist churches. And then on the other front, there was actually a pastor among those early

Georgia Baptist churches that defected from confessional Calvinism, went toward Arminianism, and that stirred up a bunch of controversy within that little association, and the association ended up actually defrocking that pastor and some of his followers, but it was all over the fact that he was embracing

Arminian theology. And so the response of the association to both this pastor that had defected from the faith and to the

Wesleyan Arminians, the Wesleyan Methodists, their response was this confessional statement that would be a confessional statement used by many other

Baptist associations following them. And it had the doctrines of grace right there in plain sight.

Hmm. Now, just so our audience or our listeners in our audience who may be new

Christians or they may just be unfamiliar with the tension that exists and has existed for centuries between those that would identify themselves as either

Calvinists or Reformed or Sovereign Grace believing Christians and those that would either just say that they were opposed to that or they might even, a minority, would actually consistently identify themselves as Arminians or Wesleyan Arminians.

But the tension, would it not involve the fact that there are

Christians who think wrongly that because of the truth that Reformed Christians or Calvinists teach the truths,

I should say, that God has elected a certain number of people before the foundation of the world to be his children, to become

Christians, to be added to the body of Christ, that he has unconditionally elected them and them alone and has bypassed the rest of humanity who will die in their sins, willfully die in their sins, and that Christ died to atone or to redeem those people alone, to pay for the sins of those people alone because his atonement was perfect and complete and therefore actually accomplished what he had intended his death to provide on Calvary.

It saved every single person for whom he died. Therefore, those outside of that system of belief, including many

Georgia Baptists or many Southern Baptists, would wrongly conclude from those truths that Christians are not going to evangelize the lost with passion, they will not seek out every individual that comes providentially in their path to give them the gospel of hope, the only hope for eternal life, that we will somehow treat people differently who perhaps are living in open rebellion against Christianity.

We will think of them as hopeless causes if they are not already showing signs of life, perhaps, or perhaps they're in some non -Christian religion and we will totally just abandon all hope for these people.

Those are the wrong conclusions that they derive from truths that I mentioned earlier. Is that really where the tension is?

Largely speaking, it is. What you find when conversing with fellow

Christians about Calvinism is you find that for those who have not been taught correctly as to what true historic evangelical

Calvinism really is, they have been sold a bad bill of goods, which you would call a straw man version of it.

And the straw man version of it draws a lot of the conclusions that you just mentioned, that Calvinism is the great killer of evangelism, when historically speaking, the first great modern missionary movement was a missionary movement made by Calvinists.

And in fact, it was the doctrines of grace, it was, to be even more specific, the doctrine of unconditional election, the electing grace of God, that motivated

William Carey and those who would follow him, that the Lord, because he has chosen a people out of Adam's fallen race and chosen therefore a people out of every nation, tribe, tongue, and people group, to be redeemed, to be saved, to be rescued, that therefore there is a people, there is an elect people in every country, in every nation.

And therefore missions and evangelism is a guaranteed success because of this doctrine, this truth of Scripture called electing grace.

And that's what moved men like William Carey to, you know, sacrifice their lives in going to places like India and spending the next 40 years there, taking the gospel to everyone there.

I mean, you know, we don't know who the elect are. I mean, all we know is there are sinners who need to be saved, and Jesus Christ is the only way for them to be saved and to be put right with God, and it's our responsibility as the

Church to take the gospel to every man, woman, and child and proclaim Christ to them. So that's our responsibility, the

Church's responsibility, that's our commission, and the Lord has not let us know, you know, who those are that he has chosen out of Adam's fallen race, but the fact that we know from Scripture that those who are saved are those whom the

Father has chosen from before the foundation of the world and has given to his Son to come into the world to save, that therefore we know that in all of our efforts of evangelism and in doing missions, this is a guaranteed success.

God will have all his people saved, redeemed, they will be brought into his kingdom, and he will do it through the means of bringing the gospel to them.

Yes, and when you said that evangelism or evangelistic and missionary efforts to a

Calvinist, they are a guaranteed success, that doesn't mean that that will come about quickly, nor does it mean that will be demonstrated in massive amounts of converts.

That's right. That just means that for the Calvinist, he knows that there are an elect people, as is promised in the book of Revelation and other places, from out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

So he knows that they're out there somewhere. Yeah, and in fact, in the first chapter to the

Gospel Heritage of George the Baptist, the very first chapter is concerning the life and the labors and ministry of a man named

Daniel Marshall. Daniel Marshall, he was a church planter, and he actually planted and started the very first continuing

Baptist Church in Georgia in 1772. Now, what do you mean by continuing

Baptist? What I mean by continuing Baptist is that this was the first Baptist Church established in the state of Georgia that would be constituted and that would thereby continue.

There was a smaller group, a much much smaller group, earlier in 1772 that were

Baptists, but they never actually formed a church. Okay. And so yeah, and that's why the church that Daniel Marshall started, which is called

Keokie Baptist Church, which is in a place called Aplin, Georgia, and it's still in existence today.

Historically, that church has been called the first continuing Baptist Church in Georgia. So in the closing of this chapter,

I give five different practical lessons for us to learn and glean from the life and labors of Daniel Marshall, and the last of these lessons speaks very directly to what we're talking about here in regards to missions and evangelism in relation to Calvinism, and if I may, let me read to you from this, because it just it will just add more layers and hopefully even a little more light to what we're talking about.

And by the way, you can give all five lessons if you'd like to. That's up to you. Okay, all right.

Well, this lesson reads that the theology of true historic Calvinism has never been the killer of missions and evangelism.

As it seems to be the case on so many fronts, the most common slander against Calvinism is that it destroys zeal and effectiveness for evangelism and missions.

But the facts of church history say something entirely different, and Daniel Marshall is certainly one case in point.

Let us remember, Marshall was a confessional Calvinist. He held to the essential tenets of the

Philadelphia Confession and its expression of the doctrines of grace. However, such strong convictions in God's sovereignty to save never put out

Marshall's fire to reach every person he could with the gospel. Why?

Because Daniel Marshall understood, as every consistent

Calvinist does, that God has ordained the means as well as the ends to his eternal redemptive purpose.

Evangelism is the means God has ordained to accomplish his saving purpose in bringing his elect to the salvation for which they have been divinely chosen.

We therefore preach the gospel with the confidence that those whom God has chosen to save will be saved.

Consider what Charles Spurgeon once said on this very same point. If there are so many that will be saved, says one, then why do you preach?

That is why we preach. If there are so many fish to be taken in the net, I will go and catch some of it.

Because many are ordained to be caught, I spread my nets with eager expectation.

I never could see why that should repress our zealous efforts. It seems to me to be the very thing that should awaken us to energy, that God has a people and that these people shall be brought in.

So then, true historic Calvinism is not the killer of evangelism and missions, but it is rather what emboldens us to go out and proclaim

Christ to all men everywhere with this assurance from our Lord Jesus Christ himself.

All the Father gives me will come to me. And that's John 6 37.

Amen. However, underlining this blessed promise is a searching question for every

Christian whose confessional identity would be Calvinistic, knowing that all of God's elect will be saved, and knowing that God saved his elect through the means of evangelism, how earnest and bold and deliberate are we to proclaim

Christ to all men? The point is, while believers may be evangelical Calvinists in their confession, yet they must always guard themselves from becoming hyper -Calvinists in their practice.

May God therefore use Daniel Marshall as both a model and a witness to preach Christ to all men with the undergirding confidence that God will save his elect to the praise of the glory of his grace.

Amen. And isn't that proven out from history and even going up to the modern day, to our present day, that statistically and what is commonly known, according to what is commonly known, many

Reformed and Calvinistic missionaries are not only much more patient when they go out into a foreign mission field where the population seems to be hardened towards Christianity.

There is a historic fact that those

Calvinistic missionaries, knowing that God has promised that his people are from out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, that they are more patient to see the seeds that they planted and watered bear fruit from God himself.

That they are laboring in those lands perhaps for longer periods of time before either abandoning those efforts or perhaps they even remain there until they die, because not only are they more known for persevering in this, but the churches and organizations that send them out who also believe in the doctrines of grace are more patient with them as well.

Yeah, absolutely, because we know and we are assured of what

God tells us in his word in 1st Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 6, that while Paul planted and Apollos watered, it's

God who gives the increase, but God giving the increase is done in his way, in his time.

Therefore, you know, we scatter seed, we sow the seed, but we do so waiting patiently upon the

Lord to bring about the harvest that he's going to choose to bring. And let me add to that that the kind of harvest that God brings is going to be different for every local church that is faithfully carrying out the work of evangelism.

And for Reformed Christians, for Reformed Baptists, since we're talking in a

Baptist context, for Baptists that are Reformed, that are Calvinistic in their convictions, this is most definitely something that we understand, and I think we understand this even better than those that are not of a

Reformed conviction, because those that are not of a Reformed conviction, they therefore do not see the sovereignty of God as it is revealed in Scripture, as it is taught in Scripture, as being what is the controlling principle in all our labors and all our efforts.

You know, that it is the Lord, as Revelation 3, 7 says, it's the Lord who opens the doors that no man can shut, and he closes the doors no man can open.

You know, so for a Reformed believer, for an

Evangelical Calvinist, we see this, we understand this, and we do our ministry based upon this truth about God and his sovereignty.

If I can, to go back to this chapter about Daniel Marshall, one of those five lessons that I give at the end of that chapter, this is another one of those lessons that speaks directly to this matter as well,

I say that as we preach the gospel, we must always be aware and confident that it is

God alone who gives the increase, and I go on to explain that. I say, think about the circumstances in which

Daniel Marshall preached the gospel. Were they really favorable to ushering people into God's kingdom?

What we have seen from Marshall's life was a culture that, for the most part, was hostile to biblical

Christianity. Marshall faced the depravity of man in his day, just as we do in our own.

He faced hearts that were essentially dead to God wherever and whenever he ministered.

He even encountered a religion in early America that had the face of Christianity, but neither the heart nor the power.

So how then do we explain the multiple conversions and mushrooming of new churches across the

South? There's only one explanation. God gave the increase. This truth is the flip side to the first lesson.

As Daniel Marshall preached in the power of the Spirit, God worked that same power in the hearts of the people, which produced genuine conversions.

But the big point here is that it was God alone who did this, not Daniel Marshall. Regarding this same matter,

Dr. Tom Nettles observed, Marshall gives flesh to the reality that God does not delight in the legs of a man.

He is not dependent on human talent or ingenuity, but on his own determination to build his church and to use whatever instruments he desires.

The application for us is that we must not put competence in the flesh to build the church.

Jesus is building his church. What we do is preach and pray, knowing and resting in the fact that God, in his way and in his timing, will give the increase.

Bringing greater light to this truth, Roger Ellsworth mused, this understanding of the minister's work is sorely needed.

We are inclined to think the minister is responsible for the increase. This thinking has practically turned our churches into business institutions with the people as stockholders, committees as boards of directors, and the minister as the chief executive officer.

Sadly enough, pastors have been so consumed with growing large prestigious churches that they have actually encouraged the business pattern.

As far as the Bible is concerned, the minister's job is not to be successful, but to be faithful in spreading the gospel.

Some will be more adept at planning while others will be better at watering, but whatever his role, the minister is to be faithful and simply trust

God for the results. Amen. Well, that is a profound statement, and I'm going to have you pick up where we left off when we return from our station break.

If anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA, and you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable, if it is in regard to a personal and private matter, for instance if you disagree with the theology of your own pastor and congregation or something like that, but if it's not about a personal and private matter, please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

And by the way, Brother Kurt, I forwarded an email with a question to you from Joe in Slovenia, so you'll be able to mull that question over over the break before we get back, and we can have you answer it after we get back.

Okay. And don't go away. We'll be right back, God willing, with more of Kurt M. Smith and our discussion on the

Gospel of Georgia Baptists. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in today, our guest for the full two hours, with about 90 minutes to go now, is

Kurt M. Smith, author and pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Pine Mountain, Alabama.

Today, we are discussing the Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists from 1772 to 1830.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com,

and please give us your first name, city and state, and country of I go to our listener in Slovenia, Joe, before I go to his question, do you have anything that you wanted to add to that lesson that you learned from Daniel Marshall from your book?

Well, just that when it comes to the ministry of the

Word, and very specifically, the local church carrying out the

Great Commission, that we do all of that with all of our faith and all of our hope, trusting in the

Lord to give the results that He's going to choose to give. What we will see in every local church, as I said before, we're going to see the results differently.

And when I say the results, what I mean very specifically is the additions that God will choose to make. One of the things that we pray as a church, where I pastor now,

Providence Mormonist Church, we pray every week that the Lord will add His number.

He will add His number. His number may not be very many people for the work of His kingdom that is on Pine Mountain in Alabama at Providence Mormonist Church.

And then again, it may be many people, but that's God's call. That's His prerogative. That's what

He will choose to do. So we pray that He will add

His number. And I'll also say that another thing we pray every week is that He'll protect

His number that's already here. Because as Paul told the

Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, He warned them against ravenous wolves that would come in and not spare the flock.

And He also warned them against those who would rise up among their own number and lead the disciples astray by speaking twisted things.

So we pray for the Lord to add His number on the one hand and on the other hand to protect

His number that's already here from those that would seek to divide and destroy.

Amen. And it's interesting how there are churches that want so desperately to fill their membership roles with people, and those people have been very often enticed into their fold with worldly methodology.

And you have membership roles filled with, therefore, very often unregenerate people.

Now even the best of churches, obviously, can have unregenerate people and do all the time have a number of unregenerate people on the membership roles.

But it seems that the sheer desperation, if you will, of many churches to just grow and grow and grow, even if they're already large, because they want warm bodies in that building, it's very dangerous to the church itself when you have wolves or goats roaming around among the sheep, and especially if they are in places of membership, and especially if they are being appointed to positions of leadership.

Yeah, very much so. And that is even a dangerous thing that we're seeing among what is called the

New Calvinists, that's among your younger generation, your 20 -somethings, your early 30 -somethings, who are brothers that are very

Calvinistic, they hold to the doctrines of grace, but yet they want to take the methods of the so -called church growth movement, you know, coming from the 1990s with Bill Hybels and all of that, they want to take the pragmatism of the church growth movement and they want to marry that to the sound theology of Calvinism.

And so what ends up happening, and this is always going to end up happening, because pragmatism is a worldly philosophy, and therefore the methodology of pragmatism is never going to agree with, it's never going to be united with what the

Word of God regulates and commands as to how the church is to do ministry. And so what ends up happening in a lot of these churches, and I'm even thinking right now,

Calvinistic Baptist churches in Georgia that have taken this particular pathway where their worship services, the way they do ministry, their methodology, it really looks no differently in many respects to what we see in your stereotypical church growth, seeker -sensitive, user -friendly kind of church that is more worldly than biblical.

You know, the only difference is that you've got a pastor or pastoral staff there that would say, but we are

Calvinistic. The unfortunate thing, though, is that in that context, their theology is really not driving their methodology.

They're using the methodology of the world through the philosophy of pragmatism to drive how they minister and what they do, all for the purpose of adding more people in the pews.

And that is very dangerous, that is spiritually dangerous, because they're really not trusting

God to add His number, because that's what you see when you read the book of Acts. God was adding

His number to the church, and there's not a real strong trust in the

Lord in those particular churches of where, okay, you know, we're going to believe

God to add His number, and to add His number, He's going to do it in His time and His way, but we're just going to be faithful to do what

He has called and commanded us to do, preach and pray. Amen. All right, before we return to any more lessons that you have learned from not only

Daniel Marshall, but also Abraham Marshall and Jesse Mercer, let's go to the question that we received from Joe in Slovenia.

Dear Brother Chris, many thanks for having Brother Kurt back on your show. As you know, I have friends and relatives in the

Georgia Baptist Convention. Some of them are not theologically reformed. Please ask your Brother Kurt to summarize for us what is the short answer that we should give to loved ones in our convention who are not

Reformed when we have opportunities to speak about our decidedly Reformed Baptist heritage in the

Southern Baptist Convention. What are the one, two, or three things that we should all know and have ready to explain to those who are unaware that Reformed theology is the historical position of the founders of the

Southern Baptist Convention? And obviously the very brief sentence that I would offer them is read

Kurt Smith's book, because they all have a copy of it.

It's all been mailed out, right, to all of the Baptist pastors in Georgia, or at least in your convention, right?

Well, yeah, as a matter of fact, through some very, very gracious donations through several local

Baptist churches, the 3 ,600

Southern Baptist pastors in Georgia are presently receiving a free copy of this book that Brandon Smith and I co -authored,

The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists. And so we are very, very thankful that the Lord has opened this door and that all of these

SBC pastors, all of them in Georgia, will be getting their own personal copy.

And so we hope, we pray that God will be pleased to use this little work to turn these men, you know, take them back to the

Bible, rethink a lot of things scripturally, theologically, concerning the doctrine of salvation, but also too concerning, you know, what we've just been talking about regarding methodology, regarding how we do ministry biblically.

So we're very thankful. And, but if you could seriously respond to, even though that was a serious answer that I gave, but to directly respond to Joe in Slovenia about a three or four word sentence,

I don't know if that's possible, but... Yeah, I don't know if that's possible either, but his question has two parts.

The first part of it, getting me to summarize in, you know, what is the short answer that we should give to loved ones in our convention who are not reformed when we have opportunities to speak about our decidedly reformed

Baptist heritage in the SBC? Okay. My short answer to that would be put two questions to them.

We've got to get these dear brethren to start thinking about what they really believe.

Put two simple questions to them. Question number one, do you give

God thanks for saving you? Now, I think every honest

Christian and hopefully every Christian would be honest, but if they're, you know, truly honest with themselves,

I mean, really honestly thinking about what they believe, I believe they would answer in the affirmative. Absolutely, I give

God thanks for saving me. Okay, so you don't give yourself any credit.

You give all the credit and the glory to God for saving you. Yes, I do. Okay, then that's good.

That's good. Here's the next question. Do you pray for God to save others?

And I would say, I would guarantee that nine out of ten of them, probably ten out of ten

I hope, would say absolutely, I pray for God to save other people. Well, the affirmation they would give to those two questions would basically sum up what

Charles Spurgeon once said is the whole summation of Calvinism. Quoting from Jonah 2 and verse 9, salvation is of the

Lord. You thank God for saving you?

Well, of course you thank God for saving you, because only God can save. He's the only one who saves sinners.

And so therefore, you're giving the credit where it belongs, to God and God alone.

Okay, well, that's Calvinism, all right? Do you pray for God to save other people?

And if you answer yes to that, then I would say, well, of course you pray for God to save other people, because nobody else can save sinners but the

Lord. And not only that, but praying for God to save sinners, you're also affirming that God is in control of who will be saved and who will not be saved.

Now, I'm sure they probably haven't thought that far ahead, but that's where I would begin with these brethren who are not

Reformed in the SBC, and you've got an opportunity to speak about them, about your Reformed Baptist heritage in the

SBC. I would just begin with those two questions. Do you give God thanks for saving you, and do you pray for God to save others?

Because the affirmative in both of those questions is affirming the sovereign, omnipotent grace of God in salvation.

Now, to the next question, he says, what are the one, two, or three things that we should all know and have ready to explain to those who are unaware that Reformed theology is the historical position of the founders of the

SBC? Okay, here are three things, three things very quickly.

Number one, when the Southern Baptist Convention was formed on May the 8th, 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, 293 delegates, as they were called, signed a paper forming the

SBC. Those 293 delegates, they all came from associations across the

South, churches and associations, which held to either the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 or the

Philadelphia Confession as their own doctrinal standard. That is a fact of history.

We cannot change the facts. So that's number one. So when we say that the

SBC was rocked in the cradle of Calvinism, that at its root, doctrinally, it came from Calvinistic theology, that is an absolute fact.

That's an absolute fact. So that's number one. Number two, number two is that the first five presidents of the

Southern Baptist Convention were all confessional Calvinists. The first five presidents of the

SBC were all confessional Calvinists. That covers a period of 43 years.

So that means that the driving theology for the first generation of SBC presidents were

Calvinistic, was Calvinistic. That's the second thing. The third thing is this, and this is actually something that I address in the book that Brandon and I co -authored.

It is in my chapter on Jesse Mercer, which is chapter three in the book, and it's towards the end of the chapter.

It's, again, one of these lessons that I give, and the lesson is this.

We must guard against one Bible doctrine eclipsing the rest of Scripture. Okay, now that's the lesson, and that really doesn't have anything to do with this third thing that we should all know and have ready to explain to those about the historical position of the founders of the

SBC. The third thing we need to know and be and have ready to explain is this.

The first 80 years of the SBC's history, theologically, was Calvinistic.

All right, we're going to pick up right where you left off there. The first 80 years of Southern Baptist history was

Calvinistic, because we have to go to a break right now. If anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisorenson at gmail .com.

Chrisorenson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back at Welling with Kirk M. Smith. Hi, I'm Chris Orenson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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That's chefexclusive .com. Welcome back. This is

Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with about an hour to go, is

Kurt M. Smith, author and pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Pine Mountain, Alabama.

We are discussing one of his books, The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists from 1772 to 1830.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Hopereformedli is standing for longisland .net. Then, following that, coming up in November, from the 17th through the 18th, our friends at the

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Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania, and the theme is

For Still Our Ancient Foe, a line from Martin Luther's classic

Reformation hymn, A Mighty Fortress, which is obviously, our ancient foe is obviously referring to Satan, and if you would like to register for that conference, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org. The conference features such speakers as Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, who we just mentioned moments ago, who wrote the foreword to the book that we are addressing,

Dennis Cahill, Peter Jones, and Scott Oliphant, and I mentioned Peter Jones twice,

I think. Again, that's November 17th through the 18th at Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

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Then coming up in January, from the 17th through the 20th, the

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Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. January 17th will be exclusively a Spanish -speaking edition of the conference, and from the 18th through the 20th, the conference will be conducted exclusively in the

English language, featuring Stephen Lawson, Vody Balcom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.

Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Methenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, who is my guest, one of three guests tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and others.

If you'd like to register, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

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And we are now back with our guest, Kurt M.

Smith, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Pine Mountain, Alabama, and we are going to continue to discuss the gospel heritage of Georgia Baptists from 1772 through 1830, a book that has just recently come out and is made available through solid -ground -books .com.

That's the website of Solid Ground Christian Books. solid -ground -books .com.

Right when we were going to the break, Kurt, as you may remember, you were saying that for the first 80 years of the

Southern Baptist Convention, one of the clear hallmarks of the convention was thoroughgoing

Calvinism. If you could continue that thought. Yes, yes, that is right. And just, you know, just to use the

Georgia Baptist Convention and Georgia Baptists as an example to that, in Georgia Baptist history, while there were,

I mean, there were certainly pockets, very, very small pockets of Baptist churches in Georgia that were moving away from confessional

Calvinism, but the large majority, the large majority of them to the end of the 19th century were confessionally

Calvinistic. In fact, even in 1899, the

Christian Index, I mentioned about that, that was the Baptist state paper for still is the Baptist state paper for Georgia.

But in 1899, they had actually published a whole series of articles that were promoting, that were advocating the doctrines of grace or the five points of Calvinism.

And that was in 1899. So, you know, yes, the first 80 years of the

SBC's history, confessionally speaking, was very, very much Calvinistic and strongly so.

So, going back to Brother Joe Kelly's original question, you know, three things that we can remember, historically speaking, to be able to have ready to give to our brethren in the

SBC who are questioning or wondering of, you know, the theological heritage of Southern Baptists in relation to Reformed theology.

Just to repeat myself, number one, the 293 delegates who formed the

SBC, May the 8th, 1845, all came from churches and associations, which held the

Second London Baptist Confession or to the Philadelphia Confession, or I could even add to that two abstracts of those confessions.

But all of those confessions stating very plainly the doctrines of grace.

Number two, the first five presidents of the SBC, comprising 43 years, were all confessional

Calvinists. And then lastly, the first 80 years of the

SBC's history, historically, theologically, was confessional Calvinism. So those are three good, solid facts of history, facts that cannot be changed, because you can't change the facts of history.

You might have many opinions about those facts, but you can't change the facts. And so those are the facts, and you can just, you know, share those with brethren in the

SBC who are having those kind of questions. Now, what are Paige Patterson and many of the anti -Calvinist members of the

Baptist Convention saying about that very thing? Are they saying those are not the facts? Are they saying that they're exaggerated facts?

What are they saying about these facts? Well, what they're saying,

Paige Patterson in particular, because you mentioned his name specifically,

Dr. Patterson has said through the years that the

SBC basically comes from two different streams of thinking, of theology.

He relates one of those streams to the Sandy Creek Association out of North Carolina, and the other stream to the

Charleston Association, obviously out of Charleston, South Carolina. The Charleston Association, they were what's called the regular

Baptists. They were strongly confessional Calvinists. They were, like, more than that, they were

Reformed. The Sandy Creek Association, which I write about and write about this whole thing in the first chapter of this book,

Paige Patterson and those that have followed him have tried to do their very best to basically soften or either flat out deny the confessional

Calvinism of the Sandy Creek Association. But what they focus on more than anything regarding the

Sandy Creek Association is to say that the Sandy Creekers were revivalistic, they were evangelistic, and if they were

Calvinist, it was very, very mild to actually go to that part of the book where I talk about this.

It's on page 20 in the book, and what I say regarding this is that the passion for evangelism in Sandy Creek did not diminish or weaken their

Calvinistic convictions. Why do I make this a major point? The reason for this emphasis is due to a theory which has circulated for the past 30 years within the

Southern Baptist Convention about Sandy Creek. The theory claims that the Sandy Creek Association was a revivalist movement which was anti -credal and opposed to the doctrines of grace as expressed in historic evangelical

Calvinism. The rationale for advocating this supposition is due largely to the resurgence of Calvinism in the

SBC, which has highlighted the fact that the founding leaders of the convention were Calvinist.

Those who do not like this history or would like to soften its hard facts have tried to circumvent it by the aforementioned theory or some version of it.

But the truth is, history is clearly on the side of Calvinistic Southern Baptists when it comes to the theology of Sandy Creek.

To prove this further, in the light of what we have already seen as to the Calvinism of Marshall and Stearns, consider this quote from the official doctrinal statement of the

Sandy Creek Association which was written in 1816. In Articles 3 and 4 we read this, that Adam fell from his original state of purity and that his sin is imputed to his posterity, that human nature is corrupt and that man of his own free will and ability is impotent to regain the state in which he was primarily placed.

So right there in that statement you see the doctrine of original sin, you see the doctrine of moral inability and total depravity.

Article number four says, we believe in election from eternity, effectual calling by the

Holy Spirit of God and justification in his sight only by the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

And we believe that they who are thus elected, effectually called and justified, will persevere through grace to the end, that none of them will be lost.

So then I go on to say, moreover, if we may add one more document which bolsters the case for Sandy Creek Calvinism, consider the first article of the

Church Covenant written by Daniel Marshall himself in 1772 for the

Baptist Church he would plant in Georgia, Keokie Baptist Church. And this is what Daniel Marshall wrote for their first church document.

According to God's appointment in his word, we do hereby in his name and strength covenant and promise to keep up and defend all the articles of faith according to God's word, such as the great doctrine of election, effectual calling, particular redemption, justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ alone, sanctification by the

Spirit of God, believer's baptism by immersion, and the saint's absolute final perseverance in grace, also denying the

Aryan, Socinian, and Arminian errors and every other principle contrary to the word of God.

And so I say, there is simply no question or doubt if we are honest with the facts of history as to the confessional

Calvinism of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church and its association. They were great evangelists and great

Calvinists at the same time, diminishing neither their mission nor their doctrine.

But you see, Paige Patterson and those who follow in his train, they have done everything they can to completely deny that.

But then when the facts of history have been put into print about Sandy Creek, like what

I've done here in this book, and others even before me have done this, I think of Tom Nettles in particular, now the direction that men like Paige Patterson are taking is now they're saying that the roots of the

SBC instead go back into Anabaptism, Anabaptists.

And so now the doctrinal theological roots of Southern Baptists, well, they're actually

Anabaptists. And that is a complete and total revision of the historical facts.

In fact, it is just completely throwing away what are the facts of the theological history of the

SBC and trying to simply impose another part of church history onto SBC history that has no business being there whatsoever.

Yeah, in fact, aren't the Anabaptists and haven't the Anabaptists throughout history actually been a very mixed group of people anyway, ranging from extremely heretical to what we would find among the

Mennonites today? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, it's the

Mennonites and it's the Amish. They are the true spiritual heirs and the doctrinal heirs of the

Anabaptists. You know, when the Baptists that we're all a part of, when they emerged in church history, it was in Great Britain.

It was in the 17th century. And when the first Baptist association ever in Baptist history was formed, there in Great Britain, those that would write the first London Baptist confession of 1644, they would make it very clear in the introduction to their confession and the preamble that they were not

Anabaptists, because that was a slur against them. It was a slander that was being made by the other separatist groups,

Protestant groups, that were emerging at that time, as well as the Anglican church. They were saying, well, these are

Anabaptists. And so they went out of their way to say, no, we're not. We are not

Anabaptists. And of course, when you say that Baptists such as we are today emerged from Great Britain in the 17th century, you're really, don't you believe, and I'm assuming you do, that they recaptured, recovered, and restored teachings that are the teachings of the ancient church in the

New Testament. These aren't novel inventions that arose in that era.

These are teachings that have been restored and recovered and put back into practice and belief.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely, I do. In fact, in the introduction to the third chapter of our book, the

Gospel Heritage of George the Baptist, the chapter on the life and labors of Jesse Mercer, I actually go so far as to say that it is the

Baptists who actually hold to the

Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura more truly than any other Protestant group.

Yeah, what I point out in that, as I say this, is that from a historical standpoint, Baptists have always been known as people of the book.

By this identification, Baptists from their emergence in 17th century England had gained the reputation of being that Christian body within Protestantism whose declaration of doctrine and practice was solely governed and ruled by the

Word of God. In fact, the Great Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura by Scripture alone can be argued as finding its fullest expression with Baptists than with any other

Protestant group. This is why church historian Robert G. Torbett in his History of the

Baptists made the case that Baptists to a greater degree than any other group have strengthened the protest of evangelical

Protestantism against traditionalism. This they have done by their constant witness to the supremacy of the

Scriptures as the all -sufficient and sole norm for faith and practice in the

Christian life. And then I come back, following that quote, I come back and say this. So then, from this

Baptist conviction that the Word of God is all -sufficient and the sole norm for faith and practice in the

Christian life, it would therefore be Baptists who would hold forth such biblical doctrines as baptism for believers only, a regenerate church membership, liberty of conscience, and the separation of church and state.

By these teachings, Baptists took the principle of Sola Scriptura to its logical and inevitable conclusion.

They would seek to assemble local churches made up of only believers, where Christ ruled as the head of his church by the revelation of his

Word, liberated from any human tradition or government who would seek to lord over their conscience.

Amen. And I'm assuming you would also agree that we should not totally discount the bravery and the courage and the conviction of Anabaptists who lost their lives defending things that we do agree with them on, like believers' baptism and like the autonomy of the local church and things like that.

Yeah, of course. In fact, it would be those principles, those biblical principles, that we can say honestly that we stand with Anabaptists upon.

But as you said earlier, the Anabaptists, they were a very mixed group, and in a mixed group doctrinally as well.

But it is, you know, it is a sad part of history. And again, if you're going to be a good historian, you got to be honest with the facts, even the facts maybe that you don't like.

But, you know, there were Anabaptists that did literally lose their life over believers' baptism, of all things, and even lost their life not just at the hands of some of the

Protestant reformers. So, that's a sad part of history.

Yes. Well, I've got to say that something providential happened today, and I'm going to let you know why

I think it has relevance to our discussion, something about what you were just speaking on.

I saw that my friend Micah Burke, who is a graphics designer—in fact, if anybody is looking for a graphics designer for your website or anything else you're doing, this brother is absolutely phenomenal.

In fact, he has helped out James White, our mutual friend of Alpha Omega Ministries, on many occasions with graphics.

But I saw that he responded on Facebook to a question that somebody asked, what was the scariest movie that you've ever seen?

And Micah Burke hearkened back to my childhood in the early 1970s, and he said that the scariest movie that he had ever seen was

The Legend of Boggy Creek. And so, this is how I'm bringing it home here to our discussion.

I think that you should write a sequel to this book that we're discussing today titled

The Legend of Sandy Creek. And perhaps you could have emerging from a swamp a creature with the likeness of Jacob Arminius.

Yes. I just thought

I'd throw that in there, and I will expect some kind of an honorarium or commission on this. But before—

Yeah, that probably would get a lot of feedback, especially from those in the

SBC that are part of the 316 Connect organization. Before we go to the break, our last break,

Joe in Slovenia has one final additional question. He says, please ask

Brother Kurt, what about the IMB missionaries? Could he get a copy of his book to all of them?

Think about how all the same issues that he has described about the local church's loss of scriptural methodology for ministry affects the nature of the church at home is magnified on the mission field by those missionaries that they send abroad.

The IMB, I'm not sure what that is. Is that Independent Missionary Baptist? No, no, that's the

International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Oh, okay. Any comments on that?

Obviously, you're not a millionaire, I know that, so... Right, yeah.

I love the idea, and I wish that we could get a copy of this book into the hands of every

IMB missionary. That would be wonderful. But yeah, I would just say, Brother Joe, you need to be praying that the

Lord would raise up some very independently wealthy donors who would give to that.

I'm praying the same thing for Iron Trump and Zion. Yeah, right, right. So, but that, yeah, a great idea.

Well, if anything, you know, find out the churches where these IMB missionaries are coming from, and you know, get it in the hands of their pastors, because those are the first ones that really need to have their minds changed about all this.

All right, I'm going to read a question for you that you can answer when we get back from the break. This is from Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York.

He says, Did the Southern Baptist Convention become predominantly Arminian due to the influence of the heretic

Charles Finney in the Second Great Awakening? You can answer that when we come back from our final break. If anybody would like to join us with a question as well, our email address is

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Kurt M.

Smith. One sure way all

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes and for the next half hour to come, our guest has been and will continue to be

Curt M. Smith, author and pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Pine Mountain, Alabama.

We are discussing his book, The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists from 1772 through 1830, a book which is available at solid -ground -books .com.

Solid -ground -books .com. That's the website of our sponsor, Solid Ground Christian Books.

If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. And as you know,

Pastor Curt, our friend Tyler from Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, wants to know if Charles Finney had anything to do with theologically polluting the

Southern Baptist Convention, which is why it is Arminian today in its dominance.

I want to answer that question on two different fronts. First, in answer to that question regarding Finney's influence, yes,

Charles Finney definitely had an influence on Baptists in the

South in the 19th century, but his influence at first was resisted.

It was not taken in hook, line, and sinker. I know in Georgia, Charles Finney's new measures, as they were called, that's what

Finney actually called them, they were just simply new methods that Finney had introduced to the churches in America in the early 19th century.

Those new methods did not come into Georgia until 1820 through a man by the name of Adele Sherwood.

And it would not be until 1825 that Finney's new methods would be seen in Georgia, in a

Georgia Baptist church, in fact it was the First Baptist Church of Edenton, Georgia, where they would be used in such a way that in Georgia Baptist history, what happened there in the

First Baptist Church of Edenton in 1825 would be called the Great Revival of 1825.

But really and truly, it was really just the great work of Finney's new measures that were bringing in many, many people into the churches.

The numbers were increasing in a very fast way, and that was something that was seen for the first time in the mid -1820s in Georgia.

But even at that time and that period, men like Jesse Mercer, who were living at that time, and of course

Jesse Mercer was one of the great Georgia Baptist leaders at that time, they strongly resisted

Finney's new measures. And it would not be until following the Civil War that the new measures of Charles Finney would start gaining more traction among Baptists in the

South, and then of course among SBCers, where you would have what they called protracted meetings, which today we would know those as revival meetings.

And through those protracted meetings, you would see the methods of Finney where evangelists, or revivalists as they were called, these

Southern Baptists would be calling for decisions to be made at the end of the services, and you know, to come forward.

And you know, Charles Finney called it the anxious bench, it is called today the altar call, or the invitation system, and anyway, all of that practice that you see, which of course is just standard staple practice in most

SBC churches, all of that of course comes from Charles Finney. So in that way,

I would say that Finney's methods most definitely corrupted and has corrupted one of the, you know, what is now one of the staple methodologies in SBC ministry, regarding the invitation system or the altar call.

I can remember years ago, in my very first pastorate, the chairman of the deacons confronting me one

Sunday morning in the foyer asking and demanding to know why I did not give an altar call.

And I said, well, for one thing, it's not warranted by Scripture. That answer should be sufficient enough.

Not even suggested in Scripture. Right, not even suggested in Scripture, yes. I said, but then on the other hand,

I said, the gospel is sufficient. You know, Romans 116,

Paul saying, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation to them, to everyone who believes, to the

Jew, first also to the Greek. So it is through the preaching of the gospel that God saves sinners.

It is not through this method, this invention of man that is called the invitation.

And I even went on to tell him that actually, actually I said, I give the free offer of the gospel every week when

I call sinners to believe on Christ and repent. And that's the only call of the gospel to sinners is not to come forward and pray a sinner's prayer or to make a decision.

But all of that, all of that is the fruit, that's the legacy of Charles Finney within the

Southern Baptist Convention. My other response to this question is in regards to identifying or describing the theology that we see today in the

SBC as Arminian, there needs to be a correction there.

We've got to be fair to those that are not Calvinist in the SBC by not describing them as Arminian.

They are not Arminians. They are semi -Pelagian. Oh, that's better!

Well, you know, I mean, you know, we've got to be fair and honest with theologically what they really are.

Because, you know, Arminianism, of course, would be, would certainly be the child or the cousin to semi -Pelagianism.

Semi -Pelagianism, as we know from church history, goes back to fourth, fifth century.

The founder, the father of semi -Pelagianism was a man named John Cassian, who was a contemporary of Augustine.

And Cassian, while he affirmed the biblical doctrines of universal sinfulness of men, its introduction by the fall of Adam, combined with the necessity of divine grace and salvation, yet he flatly rejected the scriptural truth of sovereign election and the effectual call of God to save.

Moreover, John Cassian, for him, in his belief, man as a sinner is merely sick but not dead.

And even after the fall, the sinner retains the ability within himself to choose what is spiritually good as well as choosing spiritual evil.

And so the leading principle of semi -Pelagianism is that divine grace and the human will jointly accomplish the work of conversion, but man must take the first step.

And so that's why you would always hear Billy Graham at the end of his crusades,

Billy Graham would always say, you know, if you take the first step,

God will do the rest. And that's just semi -Pelagianism.

The antithesis of the biblical order of salvation. The antithesis of it, absolutely.

But to say that... Even Roman Catholics don't believe that. Right. But you know, to say that SPCers are

Arminians, they would only be Arminians if they denied the doctrine of, you know, what they call eternal security.

I mean, they are very, very adamant in maintaining that the Christian cannot lose their salvation, whereas true classic

Arminianism denies any eternal security whatsoever for the believer. So therefore, you know, what we see largely as far as the soteriology, the doctrine of salvation among SPCers, is that they are semi -Pelagian.

And that, of course, is what, you know, the organization I mentioned a moment ago, 316 Connect, those

SPCers, they want to maintain, and rightly so.

I mean, they maintain very strongly, we are not Arminians. Well, that's true, they're not Arminians, but they are semi -Pelagian.

Now, by the way, do they admit to being semi -Pelagian? Is that something that they're proud about?

Well, you know, what they call themselves is traditionalists. That's the label they use, but you read their doctrinal statement on their website, and it is just historic semi -Pelagianism.

That's all it is. Yeah, and not to sidetrack us too much, but I had heard that Arminius did not come to a definitive conclusion on the ability for a regenerate person to lose his or her salvation.

I thought that that was something that was, like, left open to interpretation. Maybe I'm wrong. Well, that's a good question.

I'll need to go back and check that out. I really don't know. And regarding Finney, people may not even be aware of how seriously heretical he was.

He was more Pelagian than the Roman Catholic churches. He didn't even believe in the necessity of provenient grace.

And if you go to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio archive, you can find an interview I did with Jerry Johnson, who actually produced a documentary, a

DVD, on Finney, who really, it's interesting how

Jerry Johnson, I think, very accurately described Finney as a monergist, and people may be shocked hearing that right now.

Not a good kind of monergist, but he did not believe that Finney was a synergist, because he believed that Finney clearly taught, and he made a very good case for it, that man was totally responsible from beginning to end for his salvation, and God had nothing to do with it other than responding to man's will.

So he said that Finney was so Pelagian that he wouldn't even be rightly called a synergist.

He would be a monergist of a polar opposite degree to a biblical

Christian monergist. I would totally agree with that.

I would, yes. Charles Finney, he was not an

Arminian. He was not a semi -Pelagian. No, he was a pure Pelagian.

And yeah, he taught that regeneration was not necessary. He taught that justification by faith alone was not necessary.

He taught that the atoning work of Christ was not necessary.

Yeah, the man was a heretic. I believe Christ's death, according to Finney, was only to show

God's hatred towards sin or something to that effect. Right, yeah. He believed in some, well, his own version of what is called the moral government theory, as far as the atonement was concerned.

But yes, Finney was a heretic. He wasn't just a false teacher.

He wasn't just an aberrant teacher. He was an absolute heretic. But it was the sensationalism of the immediate results that he got from his methods that just took so many churches by storm.

They're looking at what this man, who was a very charismatic man. He was a very charismatic man in his preaching.

And so he could draw a crowd very easily. And because he was such a domineering personality, he had the charisma just to really impose himself upon the will, the emotions of people.

People, sadly, many of them who were not just, they just were not well taught in scripture. And what came out of Finney's own ministry, the fruit of his ministry, really turned out to be years later and proved to be many, many false conversions.

And Charles Finney himself, in his own words, would actually confess to that many years later, near the end of his life.

He would admit that many of those conversions were not true. And we have

Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks, Jesse Mercer wrote a hymnal titled

Cluster of Spiritual Songs and started what would become the newspaper for the

Georgia Baptist Convention called Christian Index. Please share some of the issues discussed in the

Christian Index and the focus of the songs in the hymnal he compiled. The Christian Index was actually a paper that Jesse Mercer had purchased.

It was originally called the Columbian Star, and it is the oldest religious paper in the

United States that of course is still being published today.

Jesse Mercer, when he purchased the Columbian Star, which he would call the

Christian Index, it is very important, very significant to our conversation here as to the reason that he purchased that paper and brought it to Georgia.

He brought it to Georgia in 1833, and he purchased this paper because he had, it was due to a concern that the paper remained within the bounds of regular

Calvinism. That is a direct quote from the book on page 71, and I have that documented.

For the seven years that Jesse Mercer served as both owner and editor of the

Christian Index, articles on predestination, effectual calling, election, and other similar themes appeared with great frequency by Jesse Mercer and also contributing authors as well.

I go on to say that in one particular article, which Mercer published in the Christian Index during 1836, the writer's sentiments concerning the value of Calvinism echoed

Mercer's own convictions as well, and here is what the statement says. The doctrines generally called

Calvinistic have been the source of much contention, yet taking a fair view of them, they are so reasonable and scriptural that wherever the principles by which they are supported are disbelieved and opposed, true religion would disappear.

That's a direct quote from the

June 16th, 1836 edition of the Christian Index, and it was entitled

On Election. So that's just a sampling of the kind of articles that Jesse Mercer would frequently publish for the

Index. Now as far as the small hymnal that Mercer wrote,

I actually have a copy of that hymnal which I received in the Baptist Archives at Mercer University in Georgia.

I believe the question in regard to the hymnal was what was the focus of the hymns?

Yes, exactly. The focus of the hymns was not a very big hymnal, but the focus of the hymns was largely on the doctrine of God, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of the

Christian life. And that hymnal called The Cluster, it reminds me a great deal of the

Trinity hymnal that we use in our church, which I think is also the same hymnal that you guys use there in Carlisle.

Yes, it is. Well, thank you very much,

Gordy in Mechanicsburg. And we have now Daniel in San Jose, California, who says, thank you for this much appreciated project that I am looking forward to reading.

How does this topic of the history or origins of Baptists differ from the traditionalist

Baptist view? Where or what research would lead to two different Baptist origins?

And Fannie, well, you actually addressed Daniel's question already, but if you have anything to further add to that?

Well, I guess the only thing that I would add to that, I'm glad to know that he's very interested in purchasing the book.

That will go a long way. But anyway, the only thing

I would add to what I've already said, really answering his question directly earlier in our talk today, would just simply be that what you discover when you read this book on the

Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists is that you see from the primary source material that is there what these

Baptists, you know, Baptists in the South, I mean, the first generation of Baptists in Georgia would really represent the

Baptists all over the South in the early to mid -19th century as far as their doctrine, their confessional theology.

And what you see is the very thing that the traditionalists today, the 316

Connect organization, what they're trying to basically rewrite and revise.

I think even as recent as this past June at the

Southern Baptist Annual Convention, which was held out west, the 316 Connect, they had their banquet there, and the keynote speaker was

Eric Hankins, who's a pastor right here in Alabama, south of where we are.

And Eric Hankins, in his address, went so far as to say, if not certainly allude to, that Calvinism was nowhere in the history of the

SBC, that the original founders were not Calvinistic. And it's just, it's amazing to me, personally, that these brothers would go so far as to make such absurd statements like that, and claims like that, that have been so easily disproven, and will continue to be so easily disproven, because we have the facts of history on our side.

One question I have that kind of relates to what our listener in San Jose, California, asked is, did the genuine hyper -Calvinists have anything to do with scaring away, for lack of a better term,

Southern Baptists throughout history to basically run towards Arminianism, thinking that that's what the teachings of true

Calvinism will automatically lead to? Actually, no.

In the early 1820s, of course, you had the big split.

The first historic Baptist split in America was between the Primitive Baptists and the

Missionary Baptists. But that split had nothing to do with Calvinism. That split had to do with answering the question of, does the local church authorize missions, or is it an organization that runs outside of the local church that authorizes missions?

That's what the whole controversy was about. That's what it started as, but it did devolve into a hyper -Calvinistic sect.

Well, yeah, which is where the Primitive Baptists ended up. They would start rejecting every kind of means or method that they could not mechanically find in Scripture, that is, actually find in Scripture where it said the term

Sunday School, or where it said the term Bible College, and they would just throw it out. But eventually, yes, eventually, they would wind up in the quagmire of hyper -Calvinism.

Now, for Missionary Baptists, the story was different.

As I said earlier, the first 80 years of the SBC, confessionally, they remained

Calvinistic. But what started happening in their court was actually an over -emphasis on missions and evangelism.

I mean, believe it or not, really, missions and evangelism became the new idol. So that they pushed and pushed and pushed for evangelism and missions to be basically the sole purpose we even exist as the

Church. And we have to end it there. I'm sorry, brother, but I want to make sure that our listeners have your website.

It's prbc1689 .org. That's PRBC, standing for Providence Reformed Baptist Church, 1689 .org.

And of course, go to solid -ground -books .com to order the book, The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists.

That's solid -ground -books .com. Thank you so much, brother, for being on the program. Please hold on the line, because I'd like to schedule another interview with you.

And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater