Part of a series on Southern Baptists

Background Christianity Protestantism Anabaptists General Baptists Particular Baptists Landmarkism The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a United States-based cooperative ministry agency serving Baptist churches around the world. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as recounted in the New Testament. ... Protestantism is one of three primary branches of Christianity. ... Anabaptists (re-baptizers, from Greek ana and baptizo; in German: Wiedertäufer) are Christians of the so-called radical wing of the Protestant Reformation. ... Baptists were first identified by the name General Baptists in 17th century England. ... The name Reformed Baptist does not refer to a distinct denomination but instead is a description of the churchs theological leaning. ... Landmarkism is a ecclesiological viewpoint held by some Baptists concerning the origin and nature of the church. ...

Baptist theology London Confession of 1689 New Hampshire Confession of 1833 Baptist Faith & Message The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith was written by Calvinistic Baptists in England to give a formal expression of the Reformed and Protestant Christian faith with an obvious Baptist perspective. ... In 1833, Baptists in the United States agreed upon a confession of faith around which they could organize a missionary society under the Triennial Convention. ... The Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) is a Southern Baptist Convention confession of faith. ...

Doctrinal distinctives Biblical authority Autonomy of the local church Priesthood of believers Two ordinances Individual soul liberty Separation of church and state Two offices Sola scriptura (Latin By Scripture alone) is one of five important slogans of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. ... Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation indepedently and autonomously runs its own affairs. ... The priesthood of all believers is a Protestant doctrine founded on the First Epistle of Peter, 2:9: But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into... Some important Baptist figures in the struggle for Separation of Church and State were John Smyth, Thomas Helwys, Edward Wightman, Leonard Busher, Roger Williams (who was a Baptist for a short period but became a seeker), John Clarke, Isaac Backus, and John Leland. ... Baptists only recognize two Scriptural offices, those of pastor-teacher and deacon. ...

People John Smyth John Spilsbury Charles Spurgeon Lottie Moon Billy Graham Adrian Rogers Paige Patterson John Smyth (1570 - c. ... Charles Spurgeon Charles Haddon Spurgeon, commonly C.H. Spurgeon, (June 19, 1834 – January 31, 1892) was Englands best-known and most-loved preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. ... Lottie Moon Lottie Moon (1840-1912) was a missionary to China who spent 40 years helping the Chinese - weighing only 50 lbs at her death having given away all she had to aid the starving Chinese. ... The Rev. ... Adrian Rogers Adrian Rogers,Th. ... Paige Patterson is a Southern Baptist theologian who served as the eighth president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. ...

Related organizations Cooperative Program North American Mission Board International Mission Board LifeWay Christian Resources Women's Missionary Union Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Cooperative education is a structured method of combining academic education with practical work experience. ... The North American Mission Board (NAMB) was founded in 1997 out of the roots of the Home Mission Board. ... The International Mission Board (or IMB) is a missionary sending agency affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention which opperates in virtually every nation except the United States and Canada (these nations are serviced by the SBCs North American Mission Board). ... LifeWay Christian Resources is a religious publishing house based in Nashville, Tennessee owned and operated by the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. ...

Seminaries Golden Gate Midwestern New Orleans Southeastern Southern Southwestern Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) is a seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention. ... The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is located in Louisville, Kentucky and is the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, or SBC. Southern Seminary or SBTS is the oldest of the seminaries in the SBC and was founded in Greenville, South Carolina in 1859 by James Petigru Boyce who served... Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, located in Fort Worth, Texas, is a private, non-profit institution of higher learning associated with the Southern Baptist Convention whose stated mission is to provide theological education for individuals engaging in Christian ministry. ... This box: view • talk • edit

Baptist ordinances, the term for the sacraments within Baptist theology, are the Lord's Supper and Believer's baptism. A sacrament is a Christian rite that mediates divine grace. ... The Lords Supper is a variation of the name and the service of The Last Supper or Eucharist. ... Believer Baptism (also called credobaptism) is the Christian ritual of baptism as given only to adults and children who first proclaim to believe in Jesus as their personal savior, resurrected by the power of God the Father. ...

Two ordinances

Generally, most Baptist churches recognize only two ordinances that are to be performed on a regular basis by churches: baptism and communion. Some Primitive Baptists and Free Will Baptists also practice foot washing as a third ordinance. Baptism in early Christian art. ... The Eucharist or Communion or The Lords Supper, is the rite that Christians perform in fulfillment of Jesus instruction, recorded in the New Testament,[1] to do in memory of him what he did at his Last Supper. ... Primitive Baptists are a group of Baptists that have an historical connection to the missionary/anti-missionary controversy that divided Baptists of America in the early part of the 19th century. ... Free Will Baptist Church (or Free Will Baptists) is a group of churches that share a common history, name, and an acceptance of the Arminian theology of free grace, free salvation, and free will, based on the idea of general atonement. ... Feet washing is a religious rite observed as an ordinance by several Christian denominations. ...

Believer's baptism

Main article: Believer's baptism

Baptism, commonly referred to as believer's baptism among Baptists, is an ordinance that according to Baptist doctrine plays no role in salvation, being properly performed only after salvation, and is performed after a person professes Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is an outward expression that is symbolic of the inward cleansing or remission of their sins that has already taken place. It is also a public identification of that person with Christianity and with that particular local church. Most Baptist churches consider baptism by full immersion, subsequent to salvation, a criterion for membership. Believer Baptism (also called credobaptism) is the Christian ritual of baptism as given only to adults and children who first proclaim to believe in Jesus as their personal savior, resurrected by the power of God the Father. ... Believer Baptism (also called credobaptism) is the Christian ritual of baptism as given only to adults and children who first proclaim to believe in Jesus as their personal savior, resurrected by the power of God the Father. ...

Origins

Through Anabaptist influence, Baptists reject the practice of pedobaptism or infant baptism because they believe parents cannot make a decision of salvation for an infant. Related to this doctrine is the disputed concept of an "age of accountability" when God determines that a mentally capable person is accountable for their sins and eligible for baptism. This is not necessarily a specific age, but is based on whether or not the person is mentally capable of knowing right from wrong. Thus, a person with severe mental retardation may never reach this age, and therefore would not be held accountable for sins. The book of Isaiah mentions an age at which a child "shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good" but does not specify what that age is. Anabaptists (Greek ana+baptizo re-baptizers, German: Wiedertäufer) were Christians of the Radical Reformation. ... Infant baptism (also called paedobaptism and pedobaptism), the baptism of the infant children of believers, is an ancient custom of much of Christianity, including the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox churches, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Methodists, to name a few. ... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Isaiah the Prophet in Hebrew Scriptures was depicted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo. ...

Immersion

Baptists inist upon baptism by full immersion, the mode presumed to have been used by John the Baptist. This consists of lowering the candidate in water backwards while the baptizer (a pastor or any baptised believer) invokes the Trinitarian formula of Matthew 28:19 or other words concerning a profession of faith. This mode is also preferred for its parallel imagery to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Failure of John the Baptist. ... Jesus (8-2 BC/BCE — 29-36 AD/CE),[1] also known as Jesus of Nazareth, is the central figure of Christianity. ...

Recognition of other baptisms

Recognition of baptisms by other modes and Christian groups vary. Many Baptist churches only recognize baptism by full immersion as being valid, while a few will baptise by sprinkling as a practical alternative for the disabled or elderly or in times of drought. Some Baptist churches will recognize adult baptisms by immersion performed in other orthodox Christian churches, while others only recognize baptisms performed in Baptist churches. In rare instances, a church may recognize only its own baptisms as valid.

Communion

Main article: communion

Communion, which is alternatively called "The Lord's Supper", is an ordinance patterned after the Last Supper recorded in the Gospels in which Jesus says to "this do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). Participants communally eat the bread and drink the cup that are representative of the body and blood of Jesus. Baptists emphasize that the remembrance is symbolic of Christ's body and reject literal views of communion such as transubstantiation and consubstantiation held by other Christian groups based on their interpretation of John 6. The passage 1 Corinthians 11:23-34 is also commonly cited as instructional for the practice of Communion. Many Baptists avoid referring to this ordinance as Communion due to its prominent use by the Roman Catholic Church and instead use the alternative name "The Lord's Supper". Within Christianity the word communion can refer to: Communion - a close relationship between Christian Churches or communities, and by metonymy a group of such Churches or communities that recognize the existence between them of such a relationship, especially if it can be characterized as full communion. ... This article relates the event related in the New Testament of the Bible, see The Last Supper (disambiguation) for other uses, including a list of famous works of art with this name. ... For the genre of Christian-themed music, see gospel music. ... Transubstantiation (from Latin transsubstantiatio) is the change of the substance of bread and wine into that of the body and blood of Christ, the change that according to the belief of the Roman Catholic Church occurs in the Eucharist. ... Consubstantiation is a theory which (like the competing theory of transubstantiation, with which it is often contrasted) attempts to describe the nature of the Christian Eucharist in terms of philosophical metaphysics. ... Catholic Church redirects here. ... The Lords Supper is a variation of the name and the service of The Last Supper or Eucharist. ...

Practice

The bread used in the service may be cubes of unleavened bread, wafers or small crackers, generally of an unleavened variety which is thought to be the type used at the Last Supper.

The general Baptist embracing of the Temperance movement, prohibition, and teetotalism in the U.S. led to the practice of using non-alcoholic grape juice for the cup but some Baptists do use wine. The grape juice is typically served in small individual glasses, though some churches use one large cup for the entire congregation. Many church buildings are equipped with round receptacles on the rear of the pews for depositing the empty glasses after the service. A cartoon from Australia ca. ... Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol. ... Teetotalism is the practice or promotion of complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages. ...

Both elements of the bread and the cup are usually served by the pastor to the deacons, and by the deacons to the congregation. A deacon will serve the pastor, or if the church has multiple pastors they will serve each other. The general practice is for the elements to be taken by the congregation as a whole as a symbol of unity, first the bread and then the cup separately, although sometimes both elements are taken together.

Frequency

Communion services may be held weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even annually. It usually takes place at the end of a normal service, but may take place at any time during the service. Participation may be either:

• "closed", where only members of that congregation can participate
• "close" or "cracked", where members of other Baptist churches may participate, but not members of other denominations
• "open", where anyone professing to be a Christian may participate regardless of church membership