The Day Three Pastors Died
Plane crashes occupy a strange place in our collective imagination. Musicians, politicians, actors, and other celebrities seem to die to a disproportionate degree in plane crashes. Crashes are almost exotic, by which I mean unusual or mysterious. How many times have you heard someone say you’re more likely to die in a car than in a plane? So we can safely say crashes are unusual. Furthermore, because the exact cause of crashes is so...
Free Will Baptists on the Frontier
by Eric K. Thomsen In late July 1822, David Marks, a Freewill Baptist evangelist from the Randall movement in New England, found himself several months into a mission trip within the rapidly expanding western frontier. After spending five days preaching near Portsmouth, Ohio, Marks planned to cross the Ohio River to preach in Kentucky. When the time came, the river ferry was absent. Unwilling to miss his preaching appointment, Marks...
Unity Movements among Free Will Baptists of the South Near the Turn of the Century: A Little Known Story
by Robert E. Picirilli During the late 1800s and early 1900s, several unity movements emerged among Free Will Baptists in the South. Two of these have just recently come to light and are briefly described in this article for the first time. Robert Vaughn and I have written the story in full detail for publication later.[1] Some historians suggest that such movements were the fruit of the Second Great Awakening. One such was the merger...
Introducing Forgotten Moments in Free Will Baptist History
As longtime readers of the Forum will know, history is an important part of what we do. History is valuable for countless reasons, not least of which because it gives us a window into how the world we inhabit came to be. Some of the Forum contributors are historians by training, but all of us are committed to historical inquiry. It is not merely an intellectual endeavor or pursuit but also a spiritual one. In September, we have...
Edward John Carnell: An Apologist for Our Time
If you’re new to the enterprise of apologetics, you might not readily think that you could do apologetics in a variety of ways. But once you begin reading, you’ll quickly realize that Christians have employed a wide array of methods throughout history to defend the faith. These methods include Classical apologetics, often associated with men like Thomas Aquinas, and hard-presuppositional apologetics, usually associated with Cornelius...
Solutions for Anxiety
The most common command in the Bible is “do not worry” or “do not be afraid.” Why would Jesus tell us not to worry when His own “sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” in the garden of Gethsemane (Lk. 22:44)? The truth is that Jesus knows we will worry. Nobody is immune from the anxieties of this world. However, there is comfort when the Maker of the universe reminds us to focus on Him instead of on our anxieties. In...
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