Our Free Will Baptist History
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Baptist of Melbourne
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| "But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do..." John 14:31 |
The Free Will Baptist denomination is a fellowship of evangelical believers united in extending the
witness of Christ and the building of His Church throughout the world. The rise of Free Will Baptists
can be traced to the influence of Baptists of Arminian persuasion who settled in the colonies from
England.
The denomination sprang up on two fronts at almost the same time. The southern line, or Palmer
movement, traces its beginnings to the year 1727 when one Paul Palmer organized a church at
Chowan, North Carolina. Palmer had previously ministered in New Jersey and Maryland, having been
baptized in a congregation which had moved from Wales to a trace on the Delaware River in
northern Pennsylvania.
The northern line, or Randall movement, had its beginnings with a congregation organized by
Benjamin Randall June 30, 1780, in New Durham, New Hampshire. Both lines of Free Will Baptists
taught the doctrines of free grace, free salvation and free will, although from the first there was no
organizational connection between them.
The northern line expanded more rapidly in the beginning and extended its outreach into the West
and Southwest. In 1910-1911 this body of Free Will Baptists merged with the Northern Baptist
denomination, taking along more than half its 1,100 churches and all denominational property,
including several major colleges. On December 28, 1916, at Pattonsburg, Missouri, representatives
of remnant churches in the Randall movement reorganized into the Cooperative General Association
of Free Will Baptists.
Free Will Baptists in the southeastern United States, having descended from the Palmer foundation,
had often manifested fraternal relationships with Free Will Baptists of the Randall movement in the
north and west; but the slavery question and the Civil War prevented formal union between them.
The churches in the southern line were organized into various associations and conferences from
the beginning and had finally organized into a General Conference by 1921. These congregations
were not affected by the merger of the northern movement with the Northern Baptists.
Now that the remnants of the Randall movement had reorganized into the Cooperative General
Association and the Palmer movement had organized into the General Conference, it was inevitable
that fusion between these two groups of Free Will Baptists would finally come. In Nashville,
Tennessee, on November 5, 1935, representatives of these two groups met and organized the
National Association of Free Will Baptists.
This body adopted a Treatise which set forth the basic doctrines and described the faith and
practice that had characterized Free Will Baptists through the years. Having been revised on several
occasions, it serves as a guideline for a denominational fellowship which comprises more than
2,400 churches in 42 states and 14 foreign countries.
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