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The Separate Baptists are a group of Baptists originating in the 18th-century United States, primarily in the South, that grew out of the Great Awakening.
The Great Awakening was a religious revival and revitalization of piety among the Christian churches. It covered English-speaking countries and swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s. Three important preachers of the times were Gilbert Tennent (1703–65), Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), and George Whitefield (1714–70). The Separate Baptists are most directly connected to Whitefield's influence. The first identifiable congregation of Separate Baptists was formed in Boston, Massachusetts. Whitefield preached in Boston in 1740. The pastor of the Baptist church disapproved of the revival excitement, while several members approved of it and became discontented with the pastor's ministry. They withdrew from the First Baptist Church and formed Second Baptist Church in 1743.
The Great Awakening served to both invigorate and divide churches. Many denominations divided into Old Lights — holding a low view of the revivalism, and sometimes directly opposing it — and New Lights — who enthusiastically embraced it. Many New Lights felt that the old ways had allowed too many unconverted church members, and by the end of the 1740s some of the New Lights believed the established churches could not be reformed from within and withdrew from them. A favorite verse among them was II Corinthians 6:17 — "Come out from among them, and be ye separate." This led to them being called Separate.
A growing body of Separate Baptists began in New England. They were zealous in evangelism and held to heart-felt religion. The most prominent New England pastor and congregation was Isaac Backus (1724–1808) and the church at Middleborough, Massachusetts. Backus was raised a Congregationalist and became a New Light (or Separatist) Congregational pastor in 1748. After conversion to Baptist views on the doctrine of baptism, Backus and others formed a Baptist congregation in 1756. Backus was very active in the fight for religious liberty in America. The Separate Baptists of New England were never truly a separate group from the Regular Baptists. It would remain for the Separate Baptists in the South to develop along distinct lines.
In 1745 Shubal Stearns (1706–71), a member of the Congregational church in Tolland, Connecticut, heard evangelist George Whitefield. Stearns was converted and adopted the Awakening's view of revival and conversion. Stearns' church became involved in a controversy over the proper subjects of baptism in 1751. Soon Stearns rejected infant baptism and sought baptism at the hands of Wait Palmer, Baptist minister of Stonington, Connecticut. By March, Shubal Stearns was ordained into the ministry by Palmer and Joshua Morse, the pastor of New London, Connecticut. The next twenty years of Stearns' remarkable ministry is inextricably intertwined with the rise and expansion of the Separate Baptists.
In 1754, Stearns moved south to Opequon, Virginia. Here he joined Daniel Marshall and wife Martha (Stearns' sister), who were already active in a Baptist church there. On November 22, 1755, Stearns and his party moved further south to Sandy Creek, in Guilford County, North Carolina. This party consisted of eight men and their wives, mostly relatives of Stearns. Stearns pastored at Sandy Creek until his death. From there, Separate Baptists spread in the South. The church quickly grew from 16 members to 606. Church members moved to other areas and started other churches. The Sandy Creek Association was formed in 1758. Morgan Edwards, Baptist minister and historian contemporary with Stearns, recorded that, "in 17 years, [Sandy Creek] has spread its branches westward as far as the great river Mississippi; southward as far as Georgia; eastward to the sea and Chesopeck [sic] Bay; and northward to the waters of the Pottowmack [sic]; it, in 17 years, is become mother, grandmother, and great grandmother to 42 churches, from which sprang 125 ministers."
For a time these Baptists remained somewhat distinct from the Regular Baptists. They were in the main in agreement with the Regulars, but holding to some minor points of difference. According to Edwards, "These are called Separates, not because they withdrew from the Regular-baptists but because they have hitherto declined any union with them. The faith and order of both are the same, except some trivial matters not sufficient to support a distinction, but less a disunion; for both avow the Century-Confession and the annexed discipline."
One distinction was in the number of ordinances or rites observed by the Separates. The nine rites were baptism, the Lord's supper, love feasts, laying on of hands, washing feet, anointing the sick, the right hand of fellowship, kiss of charity, and devoting children. Not all the churches practiced all nine of these, but most churches practiced more than the two ordinances generally held by the Regular Baptists — baptism and the Lord's supper.
With the exception of the Separate Baptists in Christ, the denominational name Separate Baptist disappeared in many areas of the country with the formal and informal agreements of union between the Regular Baptists and Separate Baptists, beginning in Virginia in 1787, in the Carolinas in 1789, and in Kentucky in 1797 & 1801. As recorded by Benedict, the conclusion of the terms of union in Virginia stated, "...we are united, and desire hereafter, that the names Regular and Separate be buried in oblivion; and that from henceforth, we shall be known by the name of the United Baptist Churches, in Virginia."
Descendants of the Separate Baptists include the Separate Baptists in Christ, Landmark Missionary Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Southern Baptists, United Baptists, and The General Association of Baptists.
Separate Baptists are particularly visible in Kentucky, where a member of the denomination, Vernie McGaha of Russell Springs, served in the state senate.
Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late 20th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, 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.
Jonathan Edwards was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian. Edwards is widely regarded as one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians. Edwards' theological work is broad in scope but rooted in the paedobaptist Puritan heritage as exemplified in the Westminster and Savoy Confessions of Faith. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central the Age of Enlightenment was to his mindset. Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening and oversaw some of the first revivals in 1733–35 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. His theological work gave rise to a distinct school of theology known as New England theology.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) or Great Commission Baptists (GCB) 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. Organized in 1845, the denomination advocated for slavery in the United States. During the 19th and most of the 20th century, it 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, it has spread across the states, having member churches across the country and 41 affiliated state conventions, while keeping its original name.
The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States in which socially conservative Protestant Christianity plays a strong role in society. Church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. The region contrasts with the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes, and the Mormon corridor in Utah and southern Idaho.
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.
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 First Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.
The Congregational Christian Churches were a Protestant Christian denomination that operated in the U.S. from 1931 through 1957. On the latter date, most of its churches joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church in a merger to become the United Church of Christ. Others created the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches or joined the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference that formed earlier in 1945. During the forementioned period, its churches were organized nationally into a General Council, with parallel state conferences, sectional associations, and missionary instrumentalities. Congregations, however, retained their local autonomy and these groups were legally separate from the congregations.
The Half-Way Covenant was a form of partial church membership adopted by the Congregational churches of colonial New England in the 1660s. The Puritan-controlled Congregational churches required evidence of a personal conversion experience before granting church membership and the right to have one's children baptized. Conversion experiences were less common among second-generation colonists, and this became an issue when these unconverted adults had children of their own who were ineligible for baptism.
Isaac Backus was a leading Baptist minister during the era of the American Revolution who campaigned against state-established churches in New England. Little is known of his childhood. In "An account of the life of Isaac Backus", he provides genealogical information and a chronicle of events leading to his religious conversion.
Shubal Stearns, was a colonial evangelist and preacher during the Great Awakening. He converted after hearing George Whitefield and planted a Baptist Church in Sandy Creek, Guilford County, North Carolina. Stearns' highly successful ministry was related to the rise and expansion of the Separate Baptists — especially in much of the American South.
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 terms Old Lights and New Lights are used in Protestant Christian circles to distinguish between two groups who were initially the same, but have come to a disagreement. These terms originated in the early 18th century from a split in theological approach among Calvinist denominations concerning the nature of conversion and salvation. Since then, they have been applied in a wide variety of ways, and the meaning must be determined from each context. Typically, if a denomination is changing, and some refuse to change, and the denomination splits, those who did not change are referred to as the "Old Lights" and the ones who changed are referred to as the "New Lights".
Martha Stearns Marshall (1726–1771) was a Separate Baptist preacher in the Southern United States. She spread the gospel alongside her husband, Daniel Marshall (1706–84), who is generally regarded as the first great Baptist leader in the state of Georgia. Her husband was once jailed in Virginia for refusing to stop preaching the gospel. Although she was three months pregnant at the time, she exhorted those around that it was wrong to forbid a man to preach the Biblical truth of baptism. Her words convicted a young man named Cartledge and he became a preacher; she also converted the arresting constable and magistrate. She often stood alongside her brother Shubal Stearns and spoke at Baptist meetings. Martha also assisted her husband Daniel in his churches. She gave birth to six sons and two daughters.
The Brush Run Church was one of the earliest congregations associated with the Restoration Movement that arose during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. In 1811, a congregation of Christian reformers known as the Christian Association of Washington (Pennsylvania) reconstituted itself as a church and constructed a new building to replace the temporary log building where they began. Because it was built on the farm of William Gilchrist, near a stream called Brush Run, both the building and the congregation became known as Brush Run Church. It was the center of activity for Thomas and Alexander Campbell, father and son respectively, in their movement for Christian reform on the American frontier. The meeting house was later used as a blacksmith shop, then as a post office and finally it was moved to Bethany, Virginia.
Elhanan Winchester was an American theologian who explored numerous theological paths before becoming an advocate for universal restoration. As a result, Winchester is considered among the early leaders of American Universalism.
Christian revivalism is increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or society, with a local, national or global effect. This should be distinguished from the use of the term "revival" to refer to an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings. Proponents view revivals as the restoration of the church itself to a vital and fervent relationship with God after a period of moral decline.
Congregationalism in the United States consists of Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition that have a congregational form of church government and trace their origins mainly to Puritan settlers of colonial New England. Congregational churches in other parts of the world are often related to these in the United States due to American missionary activities.