Monday, September 04, 2006

Baptist Faith and Message Comparison Chart

To complete the tour of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, I thought it would be good to compare the latest version with the previous versions of this particular confession. It is important to note that Baptist confessionalism did not begin with the 1925 confession. Baptists have always been confessional as opposed to creedal.

Probably the best known early Baptist confession is the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession. It was essentially a copy of the great 1647 Westminster Confession of faith from the English Reformation era. In colonial America, the 1689 London Baptist Confession was adopted wholesale by the Philadelphia Association as the "Philadelphia Confession" in 1742. In 1833, Baptists in the United States agreed upon a confession of faith, the so called "New Hampshire Confession", around which they could organize a missionary society under the Triennial Convention. Those proposing the New Hampshire Confession claimed that it held to the former confessions, but stated them in "milder" form. The Triennial Convention was the forerunner of the Southern Baptist Convention. The committee for the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message used the New Hampshire Confession as its model.

Confessions are, of course, not infallible. However, they are an excellent litmus test on the doctrinal purity of a body of believers.

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