| Part of a series on |
| Baptists |
|---|
 |
 Christianityportal |
The Primitive Baptist Universalists are Christian Universalist congregations located primarily in the central Appalachian region of the United States. They are popularly known as "No-Hellers" due to their belief that there is no Hell per se, but that Hell is actually experienced in this life. [1] [2]
Although they did not split as a denomination away from other Primitive Baptists until 1924, the Primitive Baptist Universalists (PBUs) have been theologically distinct as Universalists since at least 1907, when the minutes of the Washington District Primitive Baptist Association record a reproval:
Resolved, that whereas, we have been troubled with the doctrine of universalism that we advise the churches that if they have any elders preaching such heresies, or members arguing it, that they admonish them to quit preaching it or talking it, and if they fail to hear them to withdraw fellowship from such, and especially we admonish Hale Creek church to admonish Elder M. L. Compton to refrain from such doctrine.
Baptist minister and historian Bill Leonard has characterized PBU beliefs as the result of "press[ing] ... Calvinism to the ... conclusion that Christ's redemption is so powerful that all will be redeemed." According to Leonard, PBUs believe "It's hell enough down here." [3]
Specific tenets of PBU theology include: [4]
Primitive Baptists do not participate in censuses of religious denominations, so there are no solid data on the number of PBUs or other Primitive Baptist groups. [5] Bill Leonard estimated in 2011 that there were 1,000 or fewer PBU adherents in total, concentrated in 20 counties in Appalachia. [3]
There are four associations of PBU congregations consisting of a total of thirty-three congregations located in area of northeastern Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, with three PBU fellowships in Ohio, one in Pennsylvania, and Mt. Pleasant Primitive Baptist Church in Grayson, Louisiana: [6]
Congregational polity, or congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church (congregation) is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous". Its first articulation in writing is the Cambridge Platform of 1648 in New England.
A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets.
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.
Snake handling, also called serpent handling, is a religious rite observed in a small number of isolated churches, mostly in the United States, usually characterized as rural and part of the Holiness movement. The practice began in the early 20th century in Appalachia and plays only a small part in the church service. Participants are Holiness, or Pentecostals. The beliefs and practices of the movement have been documented in several films and have been the impetus for a number of state laws related to the handling of venomous animals.
Appalachia is a geographic region located in the central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. It stretches from the western Catskill Mountains of New York state into Pennsylvania, continuing on through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Great Smoky Mountains into northern Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In 2021, the region was home to an estimated 26.3 million people, of whom roughly 80% were white.
Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists are part of a larger sub-group of Baptists that is commonly referred to as "anti-mission" Baptists. This sub-group includes the Duck River and Kindred Baptists, Old Regular Baptists, some Regular Baptists and some United Baptists. Only a minuscule minority of Primitive Baptists adhere to the Two-Seed doctrine. The primary centers of Two-Seedism were in Northern Alabama, Arkansas, Eastern Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, and Texas. As of 2002, five churches or congregations of this faith and order still existed in Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee, and Texas.
Primitive Baptists – also known as Regular Baptists, Old School Baptists, Foot Washing Baptists, or, derisively, Hard Shell Baptists – are conservative Baptists adhering to a degree of Calvinist beliefs who coalesced out of the controversy among Baptists in the early 19th century over the appropriateness of mission boards, tract societies, and temperance societies. Primitive Baptists are a subset of the Calvinistic Baptist tradition. The adjective "primitive" in the name is used in the sense of "original".
The Separate Baptists in Christ are a denomination of Separate Baptists found mostly in United States.
The Old Regular Baptist denomination is one of the oldest in Appalachia with roots in both the Regular and Separate Baptists of the American Colonies and the Particular Baptist of Great Britain. This group has seen a marked decline in its membership during the last two decades. Part of the decline may be attributable to orthodox biblical interpretations like a dress code where men must wear long pants, not shorts, and women must wear long dresses. Other such interpretations include women not being allowed to cut their hair or speak publicly on church business, although women can frequently shout while praising. Members who do not comply with the strict dress code and norms face being "churched", i.e., being kicked out of the congregation and possibly shunned. The Old Regular Baptist Faith and order with her many branches and factions still remains the dominant Faith in some rural Central Appalachian Counties along or near the Kentucky Virginia border. In most churches, the congregation maintains a collection of photographs of deceased members.
Regular Baptists are "a moderately Calvinistic Baptist denomination that is found chiefly in the southern U.S., represents the original English Baptists before the division into Particular and General Baptists, and observes closed communion and foot washing", according to Merriam Webster. This definition describes Old Regular Baptists, not those who formed as a result of the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy.
Union Baptists is a Baptist Christian denomination in United States.
The Schwarzenau Brethren, the German Baptist Brethren, Dunkers, Dunkards, Tunkers, or sometimes simply called the German Baptists, are an Anabaptist group that dissented from Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed European state churches during the 17th and 18th centuries. German Baptist Brethren emerged in some German-speaking states in western and southwestern parts of the Holy Roman Empire as a result of the Radical Pietist revival movement of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
The Independent Assemblies of God International (IAOGI) is a pentecostal Christian association with roots in a revival of the 1890s among the Scandinavian Baptist and Pietist communities in the United States. Independent Assemblies of God International is a member of the Pentecostal Charismatic Churches of North America. International offices are located in Laguna Hills, California.
The Wesleyan Church, also known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church and Wesleyan Holiness Church depending on the region, is a Methodist Christian denomination in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Indonesia, and Australia. The church is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement and has roots in the teachings of John Wesley. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian doctrine and is a member of the World Methodist Council.
Mainstream Baptists is a network of Baptists in fourteen U.S. states that have organized to uphold historic Baptist principles, particularly separation of church and state, and to oppose Fundamentalism and Theocratic Calvinism within the Southern Baptist Convention. As such, it is not a denomination, but rather an organization that provides resources, support, and interagency communication. Organizations/agencies considered to share Mainstream Baptists and cooperate with and support the network are listed below under External links.
The Universalist Church of America (UCA) was originally a Christian Universalist religious denomination in the United States. Known from 1866 as the Universalist General Convention, the name was changed to the Universalist Church of America in 1942. In 1961, it consolidated with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Trinitarian universalism is a variant of belief in universal salvation, the belief that every person will be saved, that also held the Christian belief in Trinitarianism. It was particularly associated with an ex-Methodist New England minister, John Murray, and after his death in 1815 the only clergy known to be preaching Trinitarian Universalism were Paul Dean of Boston and Edward Mitchell in New York.
Christian universalism is a school of Christian theology focused around the doctrine of universal reconciliation – the view that all human beings will ultimately be saved and restored to a right relationship with God. "Christian universalism" and "the belief or hope in the universal reconciliation through Christ" can be understood as synonyms. Opponents of this school, who hold that eternal damnation is the ultimate fate of some or most people, are sometimes called "infernalists."
Claude Howard Dorgan was an American academic best known for his research and writing on the topic of religion in Appalachia.