what's the difference between a Southern Baptist & a Northern Baptist?

[mopaul]

is there one? there is a cliche perception anyway that certain zealots among the southern baptists are the ones making all the noise and trouble, and that this same group are largely bush supporters. some of this perception is true.

but when did the southern baptists declare themselves a separate entity from all other baptists? can any of you baptists help me out here?

[DrDebug]

1. The Southern Baptists supported slavery

The Nothern didn't.

(...)
By the 1830's tension began to mount between the Northern and Southern Baptists. Baptists in the South were embracing slavery because it was the core of their social and economic order. Baptists of the North were saying that God would not condone treating one race as superior to another while Southerners said that God intended for races to be separate. In around 1835, the Southern states began complaining that they weren't receiving money for mission work.

In 1844 the issues of missionary work and slavery came to a peak. The Home Mission Society gave a statement saying that a person could not be a missionary and wish to keep his slaves as property. This caused the Home Mission Society to separate northern and southern divisions. As a result of this the Baptists in the south met in May of 1845 and organized the Southern Baptist Convention .
(...)
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/sbaptists.html

[misanthrope]

22. Gee, but, but, but ,...

...that can't be because as we all know from the antebellum apologists that frequent DU, Southerners didn't care enough about slavery to break up any institution.

The Baptist schism had to be about "states' rights," right? Right?

[cosmik debris]

23. Great reply!

It is nice to see facts to go along with the opinion and sarcasm.

[Mikimouse]

2. Not a Baptist, but have researched some issues on both groups...

The major mistake that most of us make in discussing both groups is that we assume them to be homogeneous in their thinking, and they are most definitely not. As an example, Pullman Baptist in North Carolina (Durham, if memory serves) allowed the ordination of a gay minister. They were promptly expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention, of course, but the act does illustrate the diversity of thinking.

[LizW]

8. Good point

Southern Baptists traditionally adhered to a doctrine of church autonomy. Southern Baptist churches could ordain women if they chose, and they decided how their collections would be spent, they could have women deacons, and they determined who could be members. Some things were pretty much universal (like the requirement of baptism by immersion before acceptance into membership), but there was a lot of variation, too.

In 1979, fundamentalists took the SBC by surprise, busing in loads of fundy supporters who voted for their guy for president of the SBC and effectively took over the denomination. Since then, church autonomy has been eroded, with the fundamentalists gradually using their increasing power to ease women out of leadership and missionary positions, and forcing individual churches to move to the right. The doctrine of biblical inerancy is the tool they use to do this. They say, "Do you believe the Bible or don't you?" (What church is going to say no?) They they browbeat the churches into becoming more and more fundamentalist.

Jerry Falwell blatantly advises young ministers at the seminaries to go into moderate churches and "change" them to the conservative way of thinking.

[Stanchetalarooni]

3. Mason-Dixon Line.

[SouthernDem2004]

6. Incorrect, Southern does not represent a location in this sense.

[entanglement]

4. Southern Baptists were pro-slavery, Northern Baptists were abolitionists

n/t

[ultraist]

5. I don't know but...

You can get some info at these sites:

http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/default.asp

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_divi.htm

Today, there are many ways of classifying the over 1,000 Christian faith groups in North America:

By denomination

Into three or four meta-groups (e.g. Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican),

By theological belief system (Calvinism, Arminianism, etc.)

By religious family, (Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, etc.), and

By "wing." The conservative, mainline, and liberal wings of Protestantism


You have to keep in mind though that principles vary somewhat from church to church. There are some Northern Baptist churches that are far more conservative than some Southern Baptist churches. Different wings exist as well.

[bobbieinok]

7. Presbyterians and Methodists (?) also split over slavery

the other denominations reunited after the war....the Baptists didn't

the Northern Baptists later became the American Baptists

I think the Andover-Newton seminary is affiliated with them

I grew up in the So Bapt church in the 40s and 50s in OK and was in the Baptist Student Union in college in TX (57-61)

So Baptists were conservative, many were fundamentalist, but the local congregation pretty much controlled what they did......some congregations (like in the River Oaks area in Houston) didn't have any problem with ballroom dancing

the So Baptists became rigidly fundamentalist and controlling in the 70s and the 80s as Presser (sp?), a lawyer in Houston, and his group took over the denomination........under this group, they ceased to be traditional So Baptists IMO......professors at seminaries and pastors had to sign a statement of faith.....HERESY to us oldtimers: the motto of the So Baptist churches I grew up in was 'no creed but the Bible' but then the idea developed that the congregation was to follow the belief system of the minister......HERESY to us oldtimers: 'Baptists don't need popes or priests; there's just God, me, and the Bible'

sure these oldtimer statements were simplistic, but there was some room for diversity....and we were expected to read the Bible and think about what we read

the neighborhood congregation in Tulsa I attended for a while was much more conservative than the downtown church I attended when home from college.......in Houston at the end of the 50s, First Baptist was very conservative and Second Baptist was much more open in its sermons and discussion groups

at the time the majority of the people in OK and TX were So Baptists.....but you could pick how conservative a church you wanted to attend.........now I believe this is impossible; the congregations are pretty much the same

edit: line left out in original post

[OxQQme]

9. Aren't the SoBap's

the congregation that worked at convincing us that Elvis was of the devil with his wicked pelvic motions?

[kliljedahl]

20. No, but they can't have sex standing up

It might lead to dancing.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Beam Me Up]

10. Mo, did I ever tell you about the time my S. Baptist church burned to the

ground?

This was in Scottsburg Indiana in 1960. I was 12 years old and my family were members of the Scottsburg Baptist Church. There was an annual tradition that the kids who were 12-13 would 'come forward' after the pastor issued the call, 'dedicating their lives to Christ.' Thus a group baptism was arranged. This would take place in the newly remodeled church that had a big glass tank behind the podium, complete with a mural of a mountain with a river flowing down like a waterfall into the tank. The parishioners could all watch the dunkn' in comfy padded pews.

Anyway, THE baptism was set for Easter Sunday and, low and behold, I GOT THE MEASLES and couldn't accompany my pears, who all got dunked. Several weeks later, however, the pastor announced during morning services that a SPECIAL baptism would be held in the even JUST FOR ME!!

That afternoon, the church BURNED TO THE GROUND. I kid you not. I was one of the first to see the smoke and rode on my bike to see what was going on. We're talking MAJOR CONFLAGRATION, complete with the steeple collapsing into the nave, sparks and flames and billowing black smoke. A site to see, I tell ya! ;)

[mopaul]

11. good story

saved by the fire bell

[Beam Me Up]

14. Oh, they DID eventually DUNK me.

For a long time people were pretty upset. People would look at me, point and whisper to one another. I was never privy to what they actually said but knowing them, it was something along the lines, "that there's the boy what the church burned to the ground on the day hes to be baptised, ednit?' It frightened em a bit, ye know?

So, anyway, we continued to have our sunday congregations in the gymnasium of the elementary school which was just a half a block away from where the church had been. Some of the deacons decided they still had to get me under the water and probably damned quick, so they arranged to use the Seventh Day Adventist church's baptismal on a Sunday evening (they wouldn't be using it). so, I got to wear a white shirt and tie under my white robe and get dunked. I didn't like being put under water--not since my dad had thrown me in the pond when I was 5 saying sink or swim and I, Billy Pilgrim like, had chosen to sink until an older boy pulled me out.

This is all true shit.

Anyway, they dunked me. I didn't feel any different and was more than a little disappointed at that. I mean, one would expect after all this hullabaloo that one would at least get some sort of RUSH out of it! I'd already EXPERIENCED an superior altered state--pinwheel galaxy spiraling out of my heart--as a result of being given an anesthetic which I've subsequently come to believe must have been ketamine given the particular experience it gave me after being injected with it before the doctors set to work setting a compound fracture I'd gotten from falling out of a tree. That RUSH showed me there WAS a God 'closer than my jugular vein' as they say!

:hi:

[im10ashus]

13. WOW!

You REALLY didn't want to go in the water, huh?

:rofl:

[Laughing Mirror]

15. First one to see the smoke, were you?

Come on now, Beam Me Up. Statute of limitations has surely run out on that 1960 incident. You can now safely confess.

[Beam Me Up]

17. Oh, no, it wasn't ME, I swear! I was a GOOD little boy and only

subsequently have become a PROBLEM ADULT!

I will confess that my creative little mind could IMAGINE such a thing and that I did not yet fully understand the consequences of sustaining such visions in the mind. No, mom and dad knew where I was since morning services; was no doubt about that--downstairs in the basement in my laboratory with microscope and chemistry set as usual on a Sunday noon, waiting for the baked chicken with biscuits and gravey. Insurance report came back something to do with the water heater blew up. HONEST!

But, yes, I was one of the first on the scene. The siren what gathered the then all volunteer fire department was mounted on the water tower right there where the church was. Basically they all got there too late to put it out.

[DARE to HOPE]

18. Someone forgot to put out the baptism candle?

[madfloridian]

12. Nothing to do with the South per se.....an ideology unto itself.

It was hijacked about a decade ago without most members realizing it. Many are waking up now. I consider it sort of another Texas takeover myself, as HQ are in Dallas mostly. Many from my area are leaders in the movement that have taken it over for extremism.

Here is an article about a church splitting recently, how it occurred, the way it happened, and the suspicions it was also a takeover. This church was special to me, but now it is not.

Differing Views Cause Split

"Just before the Southern Baptist Convention meeting got under way in Indianapolis last month, there was a "Conservative Resurgence Reunion" marking the 25th anniversary of the start of the movement that turned the denomination in a conservative direction. Struggles between conservatives and moderates, as the two sides identified themselves, for control of the denomination's agencies continued until about 1990, when moderates gave up the fight.

Although turmoil at the national level has subsided, skirmishes between conservatives and moderates continue in state conventions and local Southern Baptist congregations.

" He compared the division in the church to the one that took place at the national and state levels in the past.

"It's gone in not just a conservative but a fundamentalist direction. There's just no room for any other point of view," he said.

The long-running dispute between the two groups, locally and nationally, centers on claims about the Bible and Baptist tradition. Conservatives say that moderates disregard biblical teaching and authority, while moderates say that conservatives trample on the principle that individuals should be free to interpret the Bible for themselves."

This is sad to me. I know the people in this article. It has hurt them all very badly. It was a takeover pure and simple, and now the good guys are waking up and fighting back at the local level.

[Fuzz]

16. This reminded me of an old Emo Phillips routine

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.

So I ran over and said "Stop! don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"

He said, "Like what?"

I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?"

He said, "Religious."

I said, "Me too!

Are you christian or buddhist?"

He said, "Christian."

I said, "Me too!

Are you catholic or protestant?"

He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me too!

Are you episcopalian or baptist?"

He said, "Baptist!"

I said,"Wow! Me too!

Are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord?"

He said, "Baptist church of god!"

I said, "Me too! Are you original baptist church of god, or are you reformed baptist church of god?"

He said,"Reformed Baptist church of god!"

I said, "Me too!

Are you reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?"

He said, "Reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!"

I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off the bridge.


-- Emo Phillips

[DS1]

19. hahah

I caught Emo Phillips in my eye just as I clicked "Back" and had to come back in and read that

[Fuzz]

21. Heh, caught my eye

Another Emo Phillips joke.

Was window shopping one day and something caught my eye and dragged it 15 feet.