Free Will Baptists or Free Baptists are a group of General Baptist denominations of Christianity that teach free grace, free salvation and free will.[1] The movement can be traced back to the 1600s with the development of General Baptism in England. Its formal establishment is widely linked to the English theologian, Thomas Helwys who led the Baptist movement to believe in general atonement. He was an advocate of religious liberty at a time when to hold to such views could be dangerous and punishable by death. He died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of Protestant dissenters under King James I.
In 1702 Paul Palmer would go on to establish the movement in North Carolina and in 1727 formed the Free Will Baptist Church of Chowan. Many Calvinists became Free Will Baptists in the 19th century. With the establishment of Free Will Baptists in the South, Benjamin Randall developed the movement in the Northeastern United States, specifically Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.
From their beginning, Free Will Baptists, in common with many groups of English Dissenters and Separatists from the Church of England, followed Brownist notions of self-governance of local churches. The notion of free will was a systematic rejection of the Puritan movement, due to its overall religious beliefs and lack of social mobility.
- ^ Jonas, W. Glenn (2008). The Baptist River: Essays on Many Tributaries of a Diverse Tradition. Mercer University Press. p. 151. ISBN 9780881461206.
General Baptists in North Carolina (the Palmer/Parker heritage) were often called "free willers" by their Regular (Reformed) Baptist neighbors. The name was becoming popular by the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in 1828 the group there adopted the name "Free Will Baptists." The reference, of course, was to the doctrine of General Atonement taught by the General Baptists.
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