| Foundations Baptist Fellowship International | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | FBFI |
| Classification | Protestant |
| Orientation | Baptist |
| Theology | Fundamentalist |
| President | Kevin Schaal [1] |
| Origin | 1967 |
| Separated from | Conservative Baptist Association of America |
| Other name(s) | Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International |
| Official website | fbfi |
The Foundations Baptist Fellowship International (FBFI), formerly the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International, is a fellowship of Independent Fundamental Baptist individuals.
The roots of FBFI can be traced to the Fundamental Fellowship of Northern Baptists. The Fundamental Fellowship was organized in 1920 as the National Federation of Fundamentalists of the Northern Baptists, during the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy in the Northern Baptist Convention (NBC). While more militant fundamentalists withdrew from the NBC in 1932 to form the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, members of the Fellowship labored within the Convention and sought reform.
This continued into the 1940s, when fundamentalists organized the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society in 1943 in protest of liberal policies of NBC's foreign mission society. In 1946 the Fundamentalist Fellowship changed its name to Conservative Baptist Fellowship and was instrumental in organizing the Conservative Baptist Association of America in 1947 and the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society in 1948. Conflict caused the Fellowship to organize the World Conservative Baptist Mission (now Baptist World Mission), which would only appoint missionaries who were premillennial in eschatology.
In 1967, the Conservative Baptist Fellowship broke all ties with the Conservative Baptist Association movement and took the name Fundamental Baptist Fellowship of America. Some of its members formed the New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches. Relations were strained, but these two groups reconciled in 1974, though they remain separate organizations.
The FBFI is a fellowship of individuals who agree with the Statement of Faith and purposes of the Fellowship. The chief purposes of the Fellowship are to strengthen and promote historic fundamentalism, to defend the faith while exposing and opposing religious compromise, to promote religious liberty and to lead in evangelism and church growth.
The FBFI has three main points of emphasis: national and regional meetings, a magazine, and the chaplaincy. Frontline magazine, the journal of the Fellowship, is published six times per year. The FBFI is accredited by the Department of Defense to endorse military and law enforcement chaplains. Each region and the national organization hold annual meetings for preaching and fellowship.
Offices are in Taylors, South Carolina. [2] The FBFI is organized into 13 regional fellowships - Alaska Region, Northern California, Southern California, Mid-America, Mid-Atlantic, South, North Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest, South Central, Caribbean, and International. In 1995 individual members of the FBFI were related to 402 different independent Baptist churches. 142 of these 402 churches were also aligned with other fundamentalist groups.
Maranatha Baptist University, Bob Jones University, and several other colleges are closely related to the FBFI.
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only, and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency, sola fide, sola scriptura and congregationalist church government. Baptists generally recognize two ordinances: baptism and communion.
Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misunderstood or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. The word Southern in "Southern Baptist Convention" stems from its having been organized in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, by white supremacist Baptists in the Southern United States who were supportive of enslaving Americans of African descent and split from the northern Baptists. During the 19th and most of the 20th century, the organization played a central role in the culture and ethics of the South, supporting racial segregation and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy; it denounced interracial marriage as an "abomination", citing the Bible. In 1995, the organization apologized for its initial history. Since the 1940s, the SBC has spread across the states, having member churches across the country and 41 affiliated state conventions, while keeping its original name.
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a Baptist Christian denomination established in 1907 originally as the Northern Baptist Convention, and from 1950 to 1972 as the American Baptist Convention. It traces its history to the First Baptist Church in America (1638) and the Baptist congregational associations which organized the Triennial Convention in 1814. Headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, ABCUSA is usually considered mainline, although varying theological and mission emphases may be found among its congregations, including modernist, charismatic and evangelical orientations.
Independent Baptist churches are Christian congregations, generally holding to conservative Baptist beliefs. Although some Independent Baptist churches refuse affiliation with Baptist denominations, various Independent Baptist Church denominations have been founded.
Venture Church Network is a Christian association of churches in the United States with each local congregation being autonomous and responsible for their own way of functioning.
Regular Baptists are "a moderately Calvinistic Baptist sect 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.
The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC), established in 1932 is an Independent Baptist Christian denomination in United States, retaining the name "Regular Baptist". The association's home office is located in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
The Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America(IBFNA) is a separatist fundamentalist independent Baptist fellowship for pastors and laymembers. Sometimes confused with the Independent Baptist Fellowship International (IBFI), the IBFNA is a northern-oriented fellowship formed by individuals who left the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) due to what they felt was a drift of the association away from their original separatist position. The Fellowship was organized in October 1990 at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Its constitution was ratified in 1993 at Providence, Rhode Island. It is composed of individuals rather than churches. Individuals must renew their membership annually; churches are recognized as 'supporting churches' by financially supporting the Fellowship. This body is very local church oriented, and all boards, institutions, and agencies remain in the hands of the churches. Articles of Faith have been adopted, containing statements on the Scriptures, the Triune God, Salvation, Sanctification, the Church, Biblical Separation, Civil Government, Creation, The Fall of Man, the Devil, and End times. The Review is a quarterly published by the IBFNA. A Conference is held annually.
Free Will Baptists are a group of General Baptist denominations of Christianity that teach free grace, free salvation and free will. The movement can be traced back to the 1600s with the development of General Baptism in England. Its formal establishment is widely linked to the English theologian, Thomas Helwys who led the Baptist movement to believe in general atonement. He was an advocate of religious liberty at a time when to hold to such views could be dangerous and punishable by death. He died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of Protestant dissenters under King James I.
The Fundamental Baptist Fellowship Association (FBFA) is an association of independent fundamentalist African-American Baptist churches.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is an association of evangelical denominations, organizations, schools, churches and individuals, member of the World Evangelical Alliance. The association represents more than 45,000 local churches from about 40 different denominations and serves a constituency of millions. The mission of the NAE is to honor God by connecting and representing evangelicals in the United States.
The Southwide Baptist Fellowship is an Independent Baptist Christian denomination in United States. It is a member of the International Baptist Network.
The fundamentalist–modernist controversy is a major schism that originated in the 1920s and 1930s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. At issue were foundational disputes about the role of Christianity; the authority of the Bible; and the death, resurrection, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Two broad factions within Protestantism emerged: fundamentalists, who insisted upon the timeless validity of each doctrine of Christian orthodoxy; and modernists, who advocated a conscious adaptation of the Christian faith in response to the new scientific discoveries and moral pressures of the age. At first, the schism was limited to Reformed churches and centered around the Princeton Theological Seminary which had fundamentalist faculty members found Westminster Theological Seminary when Princeton went in a liberal direction. However, it soon spread, affecting nearly every Protestant denomination in the United States. Denominations that were not initially affected, such as the Lutheran churches, eventually were embroiled in the controversy, leading to a schism in the United States.
Baptists in the United States make up a large number of all Baptists worldwide. Approximately 11.3% of Americans identify as Baptist, making Baptists the third-largest religious group in the United States, after Roman Catholics and non-denominational Protestants. Baptists adhere to a congregationalist structure, so local church congregations are generally self-regulating and autonomous, meaning that their broadly Christian religious beliefs can and do vary. Baptists make up a significant portion of evangelicals in the United States and approximately one third of all Protestants in the United States. Divisions among Baptists have resulted in numerous Baptist bodies, some with long histories and others more recently organized. There are also many Baptists operating independently or practicing their faith in entirely independent congregations.
The Triennial Convention was the first national Baptist denomination in the United States. Officially named the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, it was formed in 1814 to advance missionary work and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In a dispute over slavery and missions policy, Baptist churches in the South separated from the Triennial Convention and established the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. This split left the Triennial Convention largely Northern in membership. In 1907, the Triennial Convention was reorganized into the Northern Baptist Convention, which was renamed American Baptist Churches USA in 1972.
Jasper Cortenus Massee was a leading fundamentalist Baptist in the early 20th century. As a leader of the more moderate fundamentalist Baptists in the Northern Baptist Convention (NBC), his efforts towards reconciliation contributed to compromises that ensured its continued existence as a cohesive Christian denomination.
The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention, is a primarily African American Baptist Christian denomination in the United States. It is headquartered at the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee and affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance. It is also the largest predominantly Black Christian denomination in the United States and the second largest Baptist denomination in the world.
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