CHAPTER XXII
Causes of the Anti-Mission Movement
When we look for the reasons for the wonderful spread of anti-missionism among the Baptists of this country in 1820-40, we meet among the first the extreme form in which some held the doctrine of predestination. Such store did they set on this that many called themselves "Predestinarian Baptists." They contended that they were not opposed to the spread of the gospel, and the translation of the Bible, but they would let God do this work in his own time and in his own way. When God saved the heathen he would save them himself; until then all we can do for them is to civilize them, by secular means. "We could bear with it," exclaimed Parker, "if it was not done in the sacred name of religion!" Here he joined hands with the papacy, supposing that God has some things too holy for humanity. He hoped that some time God would have a purpose of grace for the heathen, and suggested that it might be through some great persecution that gospel preachers would be scattered among them. Referring to the pagan persecutions he cried: "The devil got mad; struck the fatal blow, and scattered the disciples of Christ; and I should as soon think that somehow like this the gospel will go to all nations, as anyhow else."Antinomianism is opposition to the moral law. If we are saved by grace we are delivered from law. Not so; we are delivered from the moral law that we may obey it. We are saved "that the ordinapce ot the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." -- Rom. 8 :4. The antinomian does not relish the intimation that he should "add" anything to his faith. -- 2 Pet. 1:5.
Another element in the antimission excitement was the fear of ecclesiastical authority above the churches. This was a real fear, as history shows. But Parker and his followers fell into the very pit they would flee from, for they made a greater misuse of church and associational authority than was ever seen in the Baptist denomination before. They treated as aliens all who differed from them on this matter of policy, teaching that in a church an antimission minority might exclude the majority. It is said that in Georgia a member of an antimission church was excluded for drunkenness, and afterward his
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wife was excluded for joining with her husband a temperance society. When an Association excluded a church for retaining members friendly to missions, it was as truly a usurpation of authority as when a priesthood punished a man for having a Bible.In their effort to be primitive Baptists they ceased to be Baptists.
Again, jealousy is a bad word, but that is what troubled many of the preachers. There were other preachers who were uneducated, but they did what they could with the resources at hand. Said Elder Peck: "Many preachers in our state give, besides Sundays, fifty to a hundred working days, with a horse, each year, and frequently ferriage and other traveling expenses. A man and horse is worth seventy-five cents to one dollar a day on the farm.. Thus he really pays fifty to a hundred dollars a year to support the gospel, while his brethren who get the benefit of his labor pay nothing."These brethren did nobly, and their reward is in the Lord's hand when He returns, but by the presence of restless spirits among them they were led to be jealous of men who had a little better education and a surer stipend.
The Friends to Humanity were not carried away in this excitement. They had a moral purpose outside of themselves which kept them steady. None of their churches became antimission, and at one point they were the only Baptist churches in the state that were not so. There is in it a lesson of psychology. It was an excitement, and therefore unexplained. We cannot analyze a panic, or whatever has passed from the judgment into the emotions. We recall the New England witch excitement, which has never been explained and never will be. Good men were in it, and were terribly sincere, yet afterwards most gladly would they have undone what in their sincerity they had done. Remember our own Bible Union excitement, when the mere presence of an agent of the opposite party would in some churches almost create a panic.
Antimissionism was promoted by falsehood. One of its authorities is Hassell's Old School Baptist History. He says, as if it was true: "Missionaries use the poor heathen as mules or oxen; whipping them if they travel too slowly, and hitching them outdoors like beasts of burden. They send home false reports of success to their employers, for the purpose of retaining their incomes. See the great increase of vice, crime, dishonesty, theft, drunkenness, licentiousness, among the heathen after the introduction of this spurious christianity. . . . When one scheme becomes a little stale they start another, so as to keep the
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minds of the people sufficiently excited to part with their money to these greedy beggars, who keep much of the money they get to pay themselves for begging, and the object for which they beg is but little cared for." [Editor's note: This statement could not be found in Hassell's History of the Church of God, which is the book referred to. -- jrd]It is plain that the purpose of the writer of this was not to get at the truth put to carry his point. Brother Jacob Bower says on this subject: "The opposers closed their eyes and ears against all information. They reported that all who went to hear a missionary would be taxed -- by the missionary people -- 25 cents for each sermon they heard, fifty cents for being baptized, and a dollar a year afterwards. In 1834 seven ministers met at Winchester to hold a protracted meeting and had but eleven hearers, such was the opposition to the mission cause. A sister said to me, 'The people say you preachers are missionaries and they are afraid of being taxed, is the reason they do not turn out to hear you.'"I had a similar experience in Greene county, where I had a station to preach. A brother met me at the door and forbade me to enter, for he had heard that I was a missionary and that all who heard a missionary preach would be taxed 25 cents. Yet I found that as fast as the case was understood much of the prejudice would cease."
The general prevalence of the revival spirit in the missionary churches, in contrast with the others, is the most convincing answer. In 1831 the Circular Letter of the Wabash District Association, the home of Daniel Parker, said: "Zion is almost forgotten. But little prayer for her, for sinners, ourselves or our brethren, is now felt or done. Watching over each other for evil becomes more common than for good. Church discipline becomes more resorted to for the purpose of excluding than for the object of reclaiming."In the same year in the 25 churches of the Friends to Humanity there were 173 baptisms, and "peace throughout their borders."
These things are past, but the record is for us. "The wise man will hear and increase learning." If we profit by the experience of our fahters they and we may yet rejoice together. =============== [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 75-77. -- jrd]
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