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Concept
Free Will Baptist
Summary
Free Will Baptists or Free Baptists are a group of General Baptist denominations of Christianity that teach free grace, free salvation and free will. 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.
Free Will Baptists can be traced to General Baptists from England who settled in the American colonies in the late 17th century. The first Baptists, who originated with the ministry of Thomas Helwys near London in 1611, were General Baptists. That is, they believed that the atonement of Jesus Christ was "general" (for all) rather than "particular" (only for the elect). It shares a common history, name, and an acceptance of the Arminian doctrine.
Benjamin Laker was an English Baptist who arrived in colonial Carolina as early as 1685. Laker had been associated with Thomas Grantham, a prominent General Baptist theologian and writer, and had signed the 1663 edition of the General Baptists' Standard Confession of Faith.
Official source
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