Word: baptism
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Between these two baptisms-in Rome, A.D. 100, and in the U.S. last week-stretch nearly 20 centuries of Christian history. Through holy wars and heresies, corruptions and reforms, the triumphs of saints and the victories of skeptics, the little company of faithful has spread across the world. Christians have given themselves strange names and have worshiped the Father, Son and Holy Ghost with commissions and omissions that would have shocked Rome's primitive Christians. The big brick church on Richmond's statue-stippled Monument Avenue, where Thomas Davis was baptized last week, would not look to Publius...
...Baptists try hard to carry on the faith and practice of primitive Christianity. To them, adult baptism is not merely a quaint traditional rite; it sharply points to their conviction that the Christian faith can be accepted only by one who can think and speak for himself.* Similarly, insistence on baptism by immersion, as it is presented in the Bible, fulfills the twin symbolism of washing from sin and of death and rebirth, as well as pointing to the Baptists' conviction that Scripture is the complete and sufficient basis of the Christian faith. Orthodox Christian tradition regards the church...
This was the Bible Belt, but it is no longer. Two generations of Southerners have been moving into cities; the tiny sects have been drying up, and old hellfire revivals are fewer and farther between in the highly organized world of Billy Graham, Oral Roberts and TV. Southern Baptism today is bigger, busier and a lot better than ever. For a case in point, there is Pastor Ted Adams and Richmond's First Baptist Church...
...Central Park Baptist Church hauled a coffin into his sanctuary and preached a sermon on the evils of dictatorship (in newspaper ads he labeled it "Stalin's funeral oration"). But, on the whole, it is the new facts rather than the old, familiar figures of Southern Baptism that are important...
...shines bright on Southern Baptism. It is making the tough transition from hot-hearted particularity to large-scale stewardship, and still not losing the essence of primitive Christianity. But the transition is far from over...