Humble Origins of the First Baptist Church and Initial Southern Baptist Church

So numerous church buildings phone themselves the Very first Southern Baptist Church that one particular wonders how they can all be “first”! In this report, we will discover the origins of the this denomination and the growth of the Initial Southern Baptist Church.

The origins of the fellowship is unclear. Some historians and theologians declare that Baptists have existed given that the time of Christ, and that they existed outside the house of and different from the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation others preserve that the fellowship is an outgrowth of other Protestant denominations. Irrespective, Baptist church buildings existed in Europe, particularly in England, and the perception method was carried above to the New World. The very first Baptist congregations in America were recognized in the early seventeenth century. The initial church in the South was established towards the end of the century in South Carolina. From this humble starting came renowned congregations this sort of as the Very first Baptist Church in Atlanta and others, and the denomination’s membership in the U.S. is estimated these days to be about 16 million people.

The Issue of Slavery

The Baptist Church continued to develop in America for the following 200 many years. In the course of the Civil War era, nonetheless, there was a schism amongst the fellowship:

“In 1845, the Baptists [sic] congregations in the United States break up over the issue of slavery. The Baptists from the Southern states supported slaveholding, and when Northern Baptists tried out to prevent slaveholders from getting missionaries, the Southern Baptists fashioned a different organization, the Southern Baptist Convention.”

churches in Raleigh grew to become a different entity as the First Baptist Church of Augusta (Georgia).

Right now, the Southern Baptist fellowship exists outside the house of the correct South: These churches can be identified in the Southwest, the Midwest, and even in Northern states, this kind of as Pennsylvania. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention has spread to most of the United States, and a name modify was proposed in 2005 to remove “Southern” from the title for this explanation (although it did not pass).

“Very first” Refers to a Church’s Historical past in a Distinct Location

Usually, the “Initial” in the title of a congregation in a nearby location is so named because it was in fact the first church of that domination in that region. For this reason, virtually any city could actually have a First Southern Baptist Church. One particular can from time to time find a “Second” church in the same city, even though employing the phrase “Southern” is uncommon in these situations.