“I Agree To Election”: The Influence Of Calvinism Among African American Baptists In Slavery And Freedom, 1750-1900 -- By: Eric Michael Washington

Journal: Puritan Reformed Journal
Volume: PRJ 04:2 (Jul 2012)
Article: “I Agree To Election”: The Influence Of Calvinism Among African American Baptists In Slavery And Freedom, 1750-1900
Author: Eric Michael Washington


“I Agree To Election”: The Influence Of
Calvinism Among African American Baptists
In Slavery And Freedom, 1750-1900

Eric Michael Washington

In recent years, African American Calvinists have published important texts that have brought attention to this small but growing movement among African American Protestants. In 2003, Anthony Carter published On Being Black and Reformed that has become a widely read text arguing that while there is no need for a Black Theology that denies the historic Christian faith, there is still a need for African Americans to apply and even interpret the faith through a black lens in keeping within the traditional and historic framework of Christianity. Carter argues further that Reformed theology offers African Americans the best framework for understanding biblical faith and their experience as Americans of African descent.1

In 2007, Thabiti Anyabwile wrote a critical text on African American historical theology from the late eighteenth century to the present. Anyabwile contends that African American theology was at its best during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century when African Americans articulated a robust Calvinism and embraced what he terms “Orthodox Christianity.”2 One important feature of these texts is that both Carter and Anyabwile are baptistic. Is this aberrational? Are some African American Baptists discovering Calvinism in the early twenty-first century, or is this a re-discovery?

The foundation of African American Baptist theology is Calvinistic, based on the general, historical, and theological context of African American slave conversions during the eighteenth century and into the early nineteenth century, which also coincides with the emergence of African American independent Baptist churches in the South and North. Within this general context, white Calvinistic Baptists ordained the first generation of African American Baptist ministers, and independent African American Baptist churches freely chose to associate with predominantly white Baptist associations that outwardly confessed a Reformed and Baptist faith. Recognizing that Calvinism or Reformed theology is thoroughly biblical and embraces more than the “five points” of Calvinism, the focus of this paper will be on African American Baptist articulation of specific Calvinistic doctrines on salvation. Evidence to support this argument comes from letters, narratives, and various Baptist confessions of faith extant during the period 1750-1900.

The historical context of the advent of American Baptist history supports this argument. During the colonial...

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