by Rvaughn » Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:42 pm
Linda, from what I understand, the Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists are pretty much the offspring of the fertile mind of Elder Daniel Parker. IIRC, he was born in Georgia, grew up in Tennessee, preached in Illinois & Indiana, then moved to Texas. I believe the Wikipedia article on this group is fairly reliable:
Elder Daniel Parker organized the Pilgrim Predestinarian Regular Baptist Church in 1833 in Illinois, then they moved to Texas. Pilgrim Church still exists today, near Elkhart, Texas, and I have visited it a number of times. It no longer holds Parker's “Two-Seed” doctrine. It is an Absolute Predestinarian Primitive Baptist Church. I must say I've never grasped much about the Two-Seed doctrine. It seems pretty esoteric to me. As best I can find out, there are only about 4 or 5 churches who currently admit to being “Two-Seeders". There is a church in Jacksboro, Texas which is in an association with a church in either Illinois or Indiana. I visited this church once. It was a very cold winter day and only a few people showed up. We sang a few songs and left. They didn't have preaching, but I did talk to the preacher a bit. Most of what he explained went over my head. Valdosta State professor and a Primitive Baptist, John G. Crowley, says one may still find Two-Seed doctrines preached by Primitive Baptists in southern Georgia “if one knows where to go and what to listen for.”
Several years ago I read an article (I think it was in The Quarterly Review or Baptist History and Heritage) in which the author wrote that he believed that Parker developed the two-seed theology to try to reconcile why God would elect certain people and leave others out — the answer, to him was obviously that those others belonged to the devil from the start!
Levi Roberts, a missionary Baptist who opposed Parker’s theology, would write that he knew Parker and “always considered him a good man, possessing a warm heart, a clear head and giant intellect…” (From The Banner and Pioneer, June 5, 1847). Though Parker's name is eternally tied to “anti-missions,” he was an indefatigable worker who became a preacher, pastor, theologian, author and publisher, as well as a state senator, — and planted churches personally in at least three states.
J. M. Carroll declared that Daniel Parker’s ministry “left a mighty empress on East Texas” — whether one was Missionary or Anti-Missionary Baptist. Carroll obviously disagreed with Parker, but was clearly impressed by the missionary work of the anti-missionary preacher, noting “And as a result of these various services, over this large territory, organized, through its own efforts, nine new churches. How many churches in Texas, country or city, can show such a record?” (A History of Texas Baptists, W. T. Parmer gives 11 rather than 9).