Independent Baptist

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Independent Baptists (a.k.a. Independent Fundamental Baptist or Bible-Believing Baptist) are a particularly cranky fundamentalist branch of unaffiliated Baptists. The origins of the Independent Baptist movement are sketchy. but the origin is believed to be local congregations who left the conservative Southern Baptist Convention and the slightly more moderate American Baptist Association over perceived liberalism and modernism in the two largest Baptist denominations.^{[citation needed]} If those two are too "liberal", one can imagine where Independent Baptists lie on the theological spectrum.

Beliefs

Independent Baptist churches exhibit some similar beliefs and practices. Since they are, by definition, independent, it is foolhardy to make sweeping generalizations about their belief systems. However, certain characteristics have been known to be promoted by many of these organizations.

Like Baptists in general, they believe in baptism by immersion, and sermons are sometimes followed by an "altar call" offering salvation to the wicked sinner. Most IFBs are part of the King James Only movement. They often exhibit extreme criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, the Roman Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, non-IFB megachurches, Pentecostals, Promise Keepers, and just about anyone else other than fundamentalist Independent Baptiststhemselves. They maintain a distance from and suspicion of the broader evangelical movement. There are even times when they separate from fellow Independent Baptists. Independent Baptist churches are generally fond of sermons on the threat of hell. Oftentimes, they scream at their congregation and bang their fist on the pulpit when talking about certain topics such as same-sex marriage, socialism, and women preaching. They criticize the broader evangelical movement for emphasizing a "love gospel" and downplaying God's wrath and judgment. Like pretty much all churches, they heavily promote tithing. As with most things indie, IFB touts itself as better and more intellectual than the mainstream, which has "sold out" in their opinion.

They tend to be opposed to so-called "worldliness". They generally oppose any form of modern music in the church, such as Christian Rock and charismatic "praise" choruses. Even Southern Gospel is regarded with suspicion. They tend to promote "modest" dress, which ranges from merely opposing anything that wouldn't pass a typical public school dress code to expecting women to cover themselves like conservative Muslims do. They promote sexism in the name of "gender roles". They believe in complete independence of the local church. Though the Baptists began in 17th-century England, many Independent Baptists hold to a myth of "Baptist successionism", whereby modern Baptist congregations are said to derive from the very earliest Christian churches by a succession of shadow churches outside of Roman Catholicism. While there were groups of Western Christians independent of the Catholic Church, they were fiercely persecuted in the West and were generally doctrinal, rather unlike any modern Western church. (They don't realize that Catholic-bashing overlaps Italian-bashing).

IFBs tend to have peculiar views on the raising of children. Some IFBs believe at least one of the two following statements: 1. That there is no such thing as "Child Abuse" because the Bible "justifies" it. 2. That child abuse should be "legal" in the United States. (Residential schools like New Beginnings Girls Academy have parents sign up their children for up to 15 "swats" with a wooden paddle for each 24 hour period.) For more information, see Jack Hyles (below) and To Train Up a Child. They are usually deeply opposed to video games and violent or sexual television programming, often blaming them for things like the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. They tend to hate LGBT people, atheists, and Muslims. They tend to believe some people are "reprobates", meaning they have "rejected the word of God" too many times, and would never be able to get "saved" even if they were to try and convert. Some, like Steven Anderson, try to say to determine who is reprobate or label certain groups of people (like homosexuals) as reprobate, while others would say that only God knows who is reprobate. Steven Anderson is famous for pushing this to an extreme. Like conservatives in general, they are often critical of education, in some cases limiting such criticism to the usual suspects like evolution in public schools and liberal bias in secular universities, in others going so far as to believe that public schools and even Christian private schools are evil places run by Satan (or just "evil liberals"). Therefore, it's popular for them to homeschool their 8+ children (such as through Bill Gothard's Advanced Training Institute or ATI system which is commonly associated with IFB), while keeping daily child abuse a secret training them up. Some believe in the Quiverfull Movement and believe that birth control is murdering potential babies. The Quiverfull Movement gives women and daughters no freedoms, sometimes with forced marriages.

Examples

People

• Steven Anderson
• Jack Chick
• The Duggar family, stars of the TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting
• Jerry Falwell in his early years; he later became a Southern Baptist
• Eric Hovind
• Kent Hovind
• Jack Hyles
• Billy Ray Parrish
• John R. Rice
• John Todd, originally Pentecostal, later Independent Baptist. Most of the rabble-rousing he was infamous for was in Independent Baptist churches

Institutions

• Bob Jones University
• Bryan College
• Cedarville University
• Hyles-Anderson College
• Maranatha Baptist University, a school with rules similar to Bob Jones University and Pensacola Christian College
• Pensacola Christian College, affiliated with fundamentalist textbook publisher A Beka Books

See also

• Fred Phelps — was an "independent" Baptist but not closely associated with the movement, nor with anyone else for that matter. He thought God hated everyone, presumably including all other independent Baptists, but excluding himself and his 70 or so followers. Phelps was a Calvinist, a doctrine which is rejected by most Baptists.
• New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement - A smaller, more extreme subsection of Independent Baptists.

External links

• Stuff Fundies Like — Silly blog dedicated to displaying/satirizing Independent Fundamental Baptists' standards, weirdness, and craziness
• New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement — A small group of churches that "take the word of God seriously"
• NewIFB.info - Blog debunking Steven Anderson's bullshit and similar ilk, written by someone from his own denomination