Retracing Baptists in Rhode Island
j. stanley lemons is Emeritus Professor of
History at Rhode Island College.
Identity, Formation, and History
J. Stanley Lemons Rhode Island can legitimately claim to be the home of Baptists in America. The first three varieties of Baptists in the New World—General Six Principle, Particular, and Seventh Day—made their debut in this small colony. And it was in Rhode Island that the General Six Principle Baptists formed the first Baptist association; the Seventh Day Baptists organized the first national denomination of Baptists; the Regular Baptists founded the first Baptist college, Brown University; and the Warren Baptist Association led the fight for religious liberty in New England.
“Lemons certainly is the foremost historian of America’s First Baptist Church, Providence, Rhode Island. In this fine volume, Lemons provides a well-written, superbly documented study of Baptist life in Rhode Island.” —Bill J. Leonard, Dunn Professor of Baptist Studies and Church History Emeritus, Wake Forest University
In Retracing Baptists in Rhode Island, historian J. Stanley Lemons follows the story of Baptists, from their founding in the colonial period to the present. Lemons considers ISBN 978-1-4813-0993-6 $69.95 | Paper ISBN 978-1-4813-1040-6 $89.95 | Printed Case 718 pages 6x9 December 15, 2019
the impact of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration upon Baptists as they negotiated their identities in an ever-changing American landscape. Rhode Island Baptists, regardless of variety, stood united on the question of temperance, hesitated on the abolition of slavery before the Civil War, and uniformly embraced revivalism, but they remained vexed and divided over denominational competition, the anti-Masonic movement, and the Dorr Rebellion. Lemons also chronicles the relationship between Rhode Island Baptists and the broader Baptist world. Modernism and historical criticism finally brought the Baptist theological civil war to Rhode Island. How to interpret the Bible became increasingly pressing, even leading to the devolution of Brown’s identity as a Baptist institution. Since the 1940s, the number of Baptists in the state has declined, despite the number of Baptist denominations rising from four to twelve. At the same time, the number of independent Baptist churches has greatly increased while other churches have shed their Baptist identity completely to become nondenominational. Lemons asserts that tectonic shifts in Baptist identity will continue to create a new landscape out of the heritage and traditions first established by the original Baptists of Rhode Island.
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Also Available: Decoding Roger Williams The Lost Essay of Rhode Island’s Founding Father Linford D. Fisher J. Stanley Lemons Lucas Mason-Brown ISBN 978-1-4813-0104-6 $29.95 | cloth 212 pages | 6 x 9