Becoming Baptist by conviction …

Becoming Baptist by conviction by Jim Curran Admin November 6, 2019

Becoming Baptist by conviction

The thought to post this came out of a conversation that I had on a recent Baptist history tour as well as some recent posts. Many would assume that from what I post from Baptist history that I have deep roots going back in my family among the Baptists. In fact I do not. I am a first or second generation Baptist depending how you count it (My parents and I were saved close to the same time.) On my fathers side going back my family was Catholic although my father and grandfather were not practicing. On my mothers side, my great grandfather was a Methodist circuit rider for a time. Where my mother grew up in Canada there was only a “union” church. By the time I was eleven I had been inside of a church exactly twice. My Uncle however had gotten saved and was a member of a Southern Baptist church in Texas. It was those two times that I stepped foot inside a church. When I was growing up until about the age of eleven my parents owned a motel and it was a seven day a week job where none ever went to church. When we sold that we started talking about going to church. We knew absolutely nothing about church and started going to a Southern Baptist church down the road from the house. Those two visits to a Baptist church with my uncle had an impact- recently that church removed Baptist from the name and went “generic”- where would I be today had that been the case back then? I would not have known where to go. After we started going, the pastor came out and visited my parents and led them to Christ in our living room. I got saved a little bit later by the side of my bed. We were in church until I was 15. I drifted out about that time. It started when I had flipped a motorcycle and was laid up for several months. I would run from God for several years but God was not finished with me- in fact looking back I see him working in many ways.

Good doctrinal grounding is a necessity- I didn’t really get a whole lot of that. A young person without that will often drift when faced with a secular public school and university. I walked away for quite a while but God was still working in my life. God began to kick the crutches out from under me when my best friend got saved. Like me he wasn’t really grounded. God was beginning to get a hold of me however. I hadn’t really went back to the Southern Baptist church that we were saved in. It had started down the contemporary road very early. At first I started going to several interdenominational campus fellowships. It was there that I saw the beginning of the contemporary movement. It was also there that I begin to see that there were major issues with such groups. I was earnestly trying to start to live for God again and get things straightened out. I saw that people were “spiritual” there but a completely different thing outside. My best friend’s roommate was extremely involved in leadership in one group but more than once he hauled one night stands home from the bars just in the times I was there sleeping on my friends couch (he lived in a different town.) That wasn’t isolated either to him it was systemic. The movement was very broad yet extremely shallow. The first Christian concert I went to (at the start of the CCM movement) they were smoking pot a few rows back. I saw the whole contemporary movement from the start and its roots were rotten. We still see the same things today- when does it preach against sin? It does not want to offend- if anything it is worse today.

Throughout all of this I was working with several people that went to Bible Baptist (the local Fundamental Baptist Church.) They quite simply would not leave me alone. I had even been a smart alack to them- But they were praying for me. Indeed at some turning points I found out later they were praying. I had been going to the interdenominational groups and found them lacking- I really needed some answers. Finally I agreed to come along one Sunday morning. The pastor there at the time was Sam Davison. I was sitting in the second row and all I describe it as he sort of exploded and hit on everything that I was doing and everything that I wanted to be doing and wasn’t. I was thinking did someone give him a breakdown on me? Really it was God dealing in my heart. I didn’t want to come back but I did. God got a hold of me and changed my back slidden heart.

When I first came to Bible Baptist I walked in with a “living” “Bible” I honestly had no idea and thought that all were the same. One of the first sermons that I heard there was out of a passage that showed the absolute lunacy of the “living’s” paraphrase/ translation. That was an eye opener to me. Not too long after Brother Sam gave me several books that helped to ground me in several areas. Alien Baptism and the Baptist by Nevins, Old Landmarkism by JR Graves, The Trail of Blood and another little one on the King James (That one was lost somewhere.) I sought out what the Bible had to say. I found that Baptist doctrine is Bible doctrine. The Baptist distictives come from Scripture. I had seen that interdenominationalism was based on feelings and a desire to “get along” while discarding large portions of Scripture for unity.

I am an independent fundamental BAPTIST by conviction. I did not grow up in it I came to it by choice and study of the Scripture. I’ve seen the start of the contemporary interdenominational movement that is creeping in and it is not good folks. It misses one fundamental point- things that are different are not the same. There are vast differences in the meaning mode and subject of baptism. There is charismatic, Armenian, and Calvinism in the compromise. There are differences in the authority of the Bible compromising it with feelings opinion emotion and rationalism. They don’t know what Bible they are using week to week. There are issues with female leadership and a host of other issues. The purpose driven/ contemporary crowd tells us to take Baptist off- how do people know what you are then? You are generic. If that had happened back when I was a kid I do not know where I would be today.

The fact is that Jesus Christ created a church while he was on this earth- The church was added to at Pentecost (Acts 2:41) – It is a little hard to add to something that didn’t exist already. It is kind of hard to take a problem to the church if it didn’t exist yet either (Math 18:17.) The word Ecclesia means a called out assembly- it was not a word that we made up- it was a word in general use (Acts 19:32&39.) Assembly is required. Christ promised perpetuity to the church (Math 16:18, 28:20) and there have always been churches that have stood. They have been universally persecuted. For myself I find that the religion of my physical ancestors persecuted my spiritual ancestors. The Catholics came out of us as a result of their compromise with idolatry. We were persecuted by the Anglicans, the Lutherans, Zwingli, the Calvinists, the Puritans- you name it. Now we face the situation where all of the Protestants want everything the same in a big interdenominational group hug. When we don’t go along with it we are “divisive.” Ok the Catholics came out of us and persecuted us, the Anglicans came out of them and did likewise, then the Methodists came out of the Anglicans, and the Pentecostals came out of them. Then the emerging movement came out of the Pentecostals and wants us to all go generic. Who was really being devisive? Folks there is something in a name and there is a stance in the name Baptist- I am a Baptist by conviction. A lot of people paid for that with their lives. Where I live at today in Virginia men were imprisoned for being Baptists. I’m not dropping the name because the world wants us too- it is the same principle. I have seen men go the other way and things have not turned out well.

Jude 3 ¶ Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

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