Baptist pacifists

[Blake]

Hopefully BDW can offer some expertise here as well as others. How many Baptist pacifists can people name from the time of John Smyth to before WW2? I realize pacifist can mean lots of things, so based on the loosest definition you can imagine give me some names. If that doesn't work I'll consult Yoder and be more specific.

I've heard there were several in the earliest general baptist congregations due to the influence of the Dutch Mennonites while they were in Amsterdam, but I'm not sure I've seen many names. I think I once saw an article where the author posited Elias Tookey may have been a pacifist. I think more Baptists became convinced of pacifism because of interactions with the Quakers around the time of the English Civil War. I would consider Henry Adis, William Cox and Richard Pilgrim to be a kind of pacifist. That's as far as my knowledge of the subject goes.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[Haruo]

[Blake]

Thanks for the info. Aaron would you be able to track down info on the Timothy George articles? I can't seem to find a comprehensive enough CV for him to see anything that looks like what you're describing and ATLA didn't turn up anything.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

That sentence may be a bit unclear. My understanding is that the U.S. would grant citizenship to applicants (at least some) who declared up front that they were pacifist (for example, Quakers). Macintosh was not a pacifist and was unwilling to state that he would not fight in ANY war. Instead, Macintosh was willing to fight in some wars - wars that he as an individual held to be morally justifiable, beneficial to humanity, etc.

Macintosh was trying to expand and formalize the "generally accepted" definition of who is eligible to be exempted from such requirements to promise to bear arms in defense of country.

I should check Ron Flowers book on conscientious objection - but don't have it handy.

Blake,

The article I was thinking of is:

"Between Pacifism and Coercion: The English Baptist Doctrine of Religious Toleration," Mennonite Quarterly Review 58 (1984): 30-49

[Haruo]

Here's a link to information on Alice Franklin Bryant, Bob Walker, and others from Seattle First Baptist Church:

Alice Franklin Bryant

AliceFranklinBryant.jpg (45.33 KiB) Viewed 5820 times

. See also "".

Also, be sure to look at the materials in this connection, and maybe make contacts with historically minded folks there, maybe post a query or two on their listserv...

BPFNA website header

[Blake]

When I was looking for the George article on ATLA I stumbled across a reference to another article that intrigued me. If you can, I highly recommend running (literally run!) to a theological library and reading "Baptist Pacifism: A Heritage of Nonviolence" by Reid S. Trulson in American Baptist Quarterly 10, no. 3 (1991): 199-217. This is the kind of article I've been searching for. Our peace witness is not new and did not die out in the 17th century like I had suspected. It's always been there. Why aren't these stories told more often? Why don't our history books make reference to actual options baptists have taken throughout their history of soul liberty? Aaron, want to help me write A People's History of the Baptist Tradition?

[Ed Pettibone]

[Blake]

Ed, this thread isn't about Baptist theological diversity. The thread is about diversity in Baptist views on war and peace. I'm complaining about both a real lack in diversity on these issues among Baptists today as well as wondering why such details are not addressed in Baptist history books. The Baptist tradition and Baptist denominations are full of diversity on a lot of issues, but rarely is there deviance from a commitment to just war theory and participation in the military. For a group of people committed to the freedom of following their consciences, mine is troubled that more people in our tradition have not been troubled by participation in war as it relates to Scripture. Isn't it troubling that more Baptists have gotten up in arms about modes of baptism than about being up in arms?

[Tim Bonney]

Blake,

I just don't think there are a very large percentage of Baptists who are pacifists. So it doesn't get much press.

[Haruo]

[Blake]

Haruo, I share those sentiments exactly. We have alternative views on war and peace expressed in our history and by Baptists abroad and some in our midst. The history books should reflect it, not ignore it.

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Blake]

[ET]

[Blake]

ET, in the interest of keeping this about Baptist history and not delving into another argument about scripture and pacifism, I would say that I simply doubt many people (esp. Western Christians) wrestle with the scripture in this way at all. I don't intend to imply that people that really wrestle with scripture will come to believe like I do, but I think historians may be more inclined to document something that people did wrestle with. In this case, it does not appear that many Baptists have wrestled with the peace passages in scripture or we would have more records of people confessing a distinct position.

[Ed Pettibone]

[ET]

[ET]

[Blake]

Thanks Ed Pettibone!

[Blake]

Hinson's article is very interesting but it seems to me it contains a glaring oversight. His characterization of the normative Baptist opinion is dependent on the American and Southern Baptist Conventions. This does not take into account the millions of African-American Baptists in the country. He needed to include the four National Baptist Conventions alongside the ABC and SBC in order to be as representative as he intended. This brings me to my question, if one were to go back and figure out how to include African-American Baptist opinions on war and peace as represented through the National Baptist Conventions, where are their archives?

[Haruo]

Have you asked them? And don't stop with the African-Americans. There are African Baptists, Indian Baptists, Burmese Baptists... And here in the US, there are a lot of other Euro-Baptists besides the ABC and SBC ones. ABCUSA is maybe almost 40% African American in its present makeup, too. My guess is that a lot of pertinent material is at Mercer.

[bowtie baptist]

I found that Northern Primitive Baptists had a possible trajectory for pacifism during the Civil War. You might look at Gilbert Beebe who was the editor of "The Signs of the Times," a Primitive Baptists periodical. I read several editorials in which he indicated that Northern Primitives refused to take up arms against their Southern brethren. His rationale was that Jesus was non-violent and that Christians therefore were to be the same. I don't know if Samuel Trott, another northern PB leader, had the same views, but there are collections of his editorials available from Primitive Baptist booksellers.

[Blake]

Thanks Michael for the lead. I'll try and keep that in mind next time I do research on this topic.

Haruo, I took your advice and e-mailed a couple of the General secretaries from their conventions right away and used the contact us part of one of the websites. Still waiting for a reply. Any other suggestions? Why do you think Mercer would have much National Baptist stuff?