Expert: Bruce Gourley - 6/20/2009

Question
why do the southern baptist church's teach T.U.L.I.P. and it being a false doctorine.

Answer
Hello Henry,

Some Southern Baptist churches teach Calvinism, and others do not. Baptist churches are autonomous, meaning that each of individual congregation (out of tens of thousands of congregations) decides, among its members, what to believe and how to do church. From their beginnings in 1845 (when the Southern Baptist Convention was formed), Southern Baptist churches have had differing opinions concerning the subject of Calvinism. From the late 19th century to the late 20th century, few Southern Baptist churches taught Calvinism. Within the past twenty years, however, more and more Southern Baptist congregations have become Calvinist.

Why do some Southern Baptist churches embrace Calvinism? The answer goes way back to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, when most of the Reformation leaders embraced Calvinism, itself an outgrowth of Roman Catholic theology going back to at least the fifth century. Some (but not nearly all) of the early Baptists in the 17th century accepted Calvinist thought. Those who then and today adhere to Calvinistic theology point to Romans chapters 8 and 9 as the foundation of their faith, and from there try to make the rest of Scripture conform to those two chapters. I do not think this is a consistent and true understanding of scripture as a whole, but it is a belief system that has been present in Christendom almost since the beginning of Christian history, and has been present in some Baptist churches for most of the four centuries of Baptist existence.

Bruce Gourley
BaptistLife.Com
CenterforBaptistStudies.org