ORIGINS OF THE INDEPENDENT BAPTLITS WORLDWIDE

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CHAPTER THREE: THE LEADERS OF SOUTH AFRICA’S INDEPENDENT FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST AND BIBLE CHURCHES.

To understand the development of a religious movement one must consider its background, beliefs, leadership and direction. In the previous chapters, the historical and doctrinal origins of the Independent Fundamental Baptist and Bible churches have been assessed along with the influence of American Historic Biblical Fundamentalism.  These backgrounds and beliefs are a prologue to the present chapter’s scrutiny of the performance and the mind-set of their leadership.  The final chapter will explore the goals and methodologies of this cluster of churches within the greater family of Baptists.

A Leadership Gripped by Convictions.

The South African Independent Baptist and Bible churches consider themselves and their leaders as upholding the convictions of historic European Anabaptism’, some early South African Baptists’ and the American Fundamentalist movement.’  Their mission individually, as leaders is generally one ofleadership driven by strong convictions regarding their responsibility to be faithful to God’s Word. Charles
Feinberg summarises the mind-set• and self-estimation of Fundamentalist leaders such as is commonly found among South African Independent Fundamental Baptist and Bible Church circles:
The primary characteristic of the religious picture of our day is flux and change. Heartening, indeed, it is to know that in an age of confusion and instability, there are certain inalienable and inviolable truths upon which believers can stand. Small men hold opinions; big men are gripped by convictions.s
« Big men … gripped by convictions » or « small men » holding irrationally to outdated opinions? – Which are they? Although the significance of their parent churches• and missionary sending agencies’ has often been celebrated, the history of the Southern African Independent Fundamental church has not been chronicled. The history of the Baptist Union of Southern Africa• and the many smaller Baptist conventions, associations and missionary agencies have been recounted numerous times,9 over the past one hundred and fifty years, but due to their small size and influence the Independent Baptists have naturally been given little or no attention.
The Independent Baptist and Bible churches are convinced that their fervent stance as fundamentalists, with its emphasis on literalism, dispensationalism and pre- millennialism, is making a valuable contribution to South African religious life. They believe they are « calling » South African Christians to return to their heritage.10 They believe their message was once preached by men like, Arnot, Baker, Kunz, Russell, Grove, J.D. Odendaal, Garratt, Skinner and others.11   The Baptist Union’s own historians Robert Philpott, »  Sydney Hudson-Reed and others may have overlooked the reasons Ernest Baker » and John Russell were sent out by C.H. Spurgeon, since their histories were focused on the work of the men once they had arrived in South Africa, and since their histories were not focused primarily on Spurgeon14 but the Independent Fundamental Baptists, due to their interest in these issues, have not overlooked this aspect of history. The timing and urgency of this period was related to Spurgeon, his Metropolitan Tabernacle, and his Pastor’s College » all publicly separating from the British Baptist Union due to the Baptist Union’s modernism.16 Other matters that have often been disregarded or overlooked by many of the Baptist Union historians include the reasons behind Baker’s passion for missionary outreach, i.e. that he was only a moderate Calvinist in a day of very strong Calvinism and anti-missionary sentiment; and that he was an outspoken pre-millennialist », a fundamentalist 18  and hermeneutically a literalist.10  People have forgotten that Baker’s Bible college, the Baptist Bible School, »‘ like that of his co-tutor, Charles Garratt and his school’s graduates, were all premillennialists21 and dispensationalists. »  Their promotion of the Scofield Reference Bible and Clarence Larkin’s Dispensational Truth23 as the Bible College’s text-books is forgotten.
The fact that Baker and Russell were the last two student’s that Spurgeon sent out himself, and that Spurgeon’s successors at the Metropolitan Tabernacle would also be Independent Fundamental Baptist (with a clear emphasis on literalism and dispensationalism) is overlooked by most, but not forgotten – not, at least, by the Independent Fundamental Baptist missionaries who arrived in South Africa thirty-five years after Baker to teach and emphasise the same doctrines.
The following presentation of these chutch planters, their local churches, the pastor-leaders and student-pastors will also introduce some of the contributions of these Independent Fundamentalists. The unveiling of the Independent Fundamental Baptist and Bible church’s vision for revisiting that century old message of a literal and dispensational interpretation of the Bible and of a Fundamentalist chutch for a changing and « new » Southern Africa may be one of their greatest contributions.
These personal accounts may also resolve some potential confusion regarding the missiological motivation of this movement. The Independent Fundamental churches’ missiological motivation is in their own opinion focused on an old-fashioned message of the Gospel. Professor Louise Kretzschmar explains that this older view, from her perspective is too limited but summarises this view, for my purposes, quite succinctly when she stated that:  » … the mission of the church is understood – purely understood – in terms of evangelism and church planting. » 24 Many Baptist in Southern Africa would want to move past this limited view,25 but the Independent Fundamental Baptist and their sister Bible churches are making ~ery effort to revive this mission statement in its most simple form.
The nature of Independent Fundamental churches, as autonomous units, makes writing and interpreting a historical chronicle of their overall development and growth a challenging and complicated matter. Few records are available and no central archives or records are kept and, as a relatively contemporary ministry, this movement offers little in the way of public information regarding its contribution to the social fabric or even the spiritual life of the land.
With an understanding of both the variations and the unifying aspects of their doctrinal positions one can better understand how this Christian missionary effort might supply some of the spiritual requirements of at least a portion of Southern African society. This prospect is especially promising if one considers ministering to those people who are looking for a literalist interpretation of the Bible, and who are convinced that they should separate from cooperative associations and councils of religion.
One Independent Baptist pastor shed light on the question regarding the independent local churches ability to cooperate and be involved in such things as world evangelisation, and yet, still hold firmly to the belief in separation from theological compromise and non-membership in ecclesiastical organisations.  His « open letter » to concerned Christians explained:
Before Baptist Churches began to organize into conventions and associations to accomplish a united purpose Independent Baptists cooperated effectively for many common causes such as world evangelism. This cooperation was accomplished through informal relationships (fellowships) between local congregations. We feel involvement determined by ‘membership’ in a ‘Convention’ (or Union) often creates a situation in which the programme of that official body becomes more important than the local church that created it, causing the lustre and importance of the local church ministry to be obscured.
We do not choose to become involved with organised conventions and associations because, all too often, we have discovered that many colleges and seminaries sponsored by organized Conventions, while being supported by local churches, have hired or invited guest professors who do not believe or teach doctrines that we feel are Biblical, true and vital to the Christian Faith.
Examples of Liberal’s denial of truth should include doctrines such as the Verbal Inspiration of Scriptures and the Deity and Virgin Birth of our Lord. We find that the local churches make these colleges and seminaries existence a reality by their financial support yet their voice and convictions do not carry enough influence to correct the errors that arise in these institutions.

The Portrait of a Missionary Church Planter.27

A representative portrait of the Independent Baptist and Bible Churches missionary church planters will make their contributions, motivations and vision more apparent. The nature oflndependent Baptist ecclesiology,  » has dictated an informal macro development with relatively little, if any, formal inter-agency missionary cooperation.
Since the Independent Fundamental Baptist and Independent Bible Church missionaries came to Southern Africa on an individual basis and not through a master strategy or « denominational missionary plan, » those arriving in the early half of the twentieth century primarily came under the sponsorship of interdenominational missionary boards. In the 1970’s the first Independent Baptist and Bible church missionary agencies responded when they came to the conviction that the interdenominational missionary boards were increasingly compromising on issues fundamental to the Gospel message.
The new Independent Baptist and Bible church missionaries focused their total efforts on evangelisation and a ministry of planting » new churches30,  primarily in newly developing suburbs. Though hospital, camps, schools and orphanages are included in the Independent Baptist concept of missionary ministry, these ministries are usually left to a later stage of development when the national churches are able to develop such ministries themselves. In some cases, these « secondary » ministries are established along with the new church planting efforts but this is only because their use in outreach is clearly established as genuinely needed or especially useful for advancing church planting.
All the Independent Baptists, are agreed that it is a Biblical mandate that the missionary focus should remain one of »church planting » –  especially in the early stages.

Separatism: the maintenance of truth or a retreat?

Although a lack of formal cooperation clearly exists, the Independent Baptists reject the idea that their doctrine of separation, i.e. independence, is a retreat into isolation, or in any sense an obstacle to God’s providential working and grace.  Erunest Pickering, one of the Independent Baptist movement’s   respected theologians, charts the separatist way:
The grand difficulty is to combine a spirit of intense separation with a spirit of grace, gentleness and forbearance; or as another has said, ‘to maintain a narrow circle with a wide heart.’ This is really a difficulty. As the strict and uncompromising maintenance of truth tends to narrow the circle around us, we shall need the expansive power of grace to keep the heart wide and the affections warm. Ifwe contend for truth otherwise than in grace, we shall only yield a one-sided and most unattractive testimony. And, on the other hand, if we tty to exhibit grace at the expense of truth, it will prove, in the end, to be only the manifestation of a popular liberality at God’s expense – a most worthless thing! « 

INDEX
Foreword: Methodology. 
Abbreviations. 
Glossary. 
Acknowledgements. 
Preface. 
CHAPTER 1 ORIGINS OF THE INDEPENDENT BAPTLITS WORLDWIDE. 
Introduction: The Principle oflndependence. 
1.1 The Strong Missionary Commitment.
1.2 The Distinct Presuppositions.
1.3 Independent Baptist Perspectives.
1.4 Proximate Historical Verification.
1.5 The Name: Baptists.
1.6 The Cornerstone Principle ofindependent Baptist Theology
1.7 The Independent Baptist Approach To Biblical Interpretation.
1.8 Five Primary Creda!Formulations ofBaptists.
1.9 The Independent Baptist Concept ff A New Covenant Church.
CHAPTER 2 THE FUNDAMENTALISM OF THE INDEPENDENT BAPTLITS. 
2.1 The « Biblical Fundamentalists. »
2.2 The Only Rule of Faith And Practice.
2.3 The Boundaries of Biblical Separation.
2.4 The « Breath » of Baptist Distinctives.
2.5 The  »Radical » Reformation.
2.6 The Social Axiom: Family and Society.
2.7 The Separation of Church and State.
CHAPTER3 THE LEADERS OF SOUTH AFRICA’S INDEPENDENT BAPTISTS AND BIBLE CHURCHES. 
3.1 A Leadership Gripped by Convictions.
3.2 The Portrait of a Missionary Church Planter.
3.3 A Profile and Cross-section of its Leaders.
3.4 An Overview of the Overseas Sponsors and Organisations.
3.5 Independent Baptists Missionary Motivation and Vision.
CHAPTER4 THEMETiiODOLOGICALAPPROACHEf OF THIS MOVEMENT. 
4.1 The Goals of the Movement
4.2 The Church-planting Approach
4.3 The Expansion in Southern Africa.
4.4 The Emerging Theological Perspectives.
4.5 The Problems Facing the Independent Baptists.
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THE HISTORY OF THE INDEPENDENT FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST CHURCH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.