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  Since the 1940's, a fundamental change has taken place within the Baptist denomination. For hundreds of years, Baptists have held to the belief known as "experiential salvation." This experiential salvation is the belief that in order to be truly converted, a lost sinner must:

1. Hear the gospel of Jesus Christ

2. Be convicted of their sins by the Holy Spirit.

3. Have faith in Christ, repenting of one's sins with godly sorrow.

4. Receive the renewing of the Holy Spirit upon salvation from God.

When such salvation occurs, the person knows about it, and has a salvation experience. The person hears the gospel. He is convicted by the Holy Spirit in his heart. He trusts in Christ and repents. Then he feels the peace and joy of the renewing of the Holy Spirit. For many years, Baptists have required a testimony of a salvation experience before baptism. Many times these experiences were associated with "seeking the Lord on the mourner's bench," however experiential salvation has never been inclusive to the mourner's bench. Many Baptists have been experientially saved at home, on the farm, at work, at school, and many other places. Therefore this type of salvation has a time and a place. For hundreds of years, Baptists have required that their members know when and where they were experientially saved. Although other denominations have flirted with this concept, (i.e. Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc.) only the Baptists have historically remained firm. Some famous Baptist preachers who endorsed experiential salvation were John Bunyan, Charles Spurgeon, Christmas Evans, John Gill, B.H. Carroll, J.M. Pendleton, and others. Also, thousands of little-known Baptist preachers, deacons, and laypersons have strongly supported experiential salvation for hundreds of years.

It has only been for the past fifty years that this belief has been challenged. Nowadays in most Baptist churches, the salvation experience has been reduced to a simple ritual. Today, many Baptist churches consider a salvation experience to be repeating the sinner's prayer, making a decision to accept Christ, shaking the preacher's hand, or signing a commitment card. Baptists of today do not require that a person testify of an experience of true conversion. Most only require a "profession of faith" with the lips.

Historically, Baptists have aggressively believed in a experiential salvation. However, over the past fifty years, Baptist churches have replaced heart-felt conversion with meaningless ritual. How did this fundamental change in doctrine and practice take place? Although many individuals and factors have contributed to this drastic change, there are two men who have done more than anyone else to bring in this "new-style" conversion. They are Billy Graham and his predecessor, Mordecai F. Ham, Jr. Although Graham and Ham cannot be held completely responsible for the change of the Baptist denomination, they are the two greatest factors that have contributed to it. Simply put, the Baptist denomination has left its belief in experiential salvation.

In order to demonstrate the historical Baptist belief of experiential salvation, a few quotes from some famous Baptist preachers have been included.

 

 

A prime example of experiential salvation is the story of John Bunyan. Bunyan was a Seventeenth Century Baptist preacher from England. He is best known for his literary work, The Pilgrim's Progress. In Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, John Bunyan relates the story of his life, focusing on his conversion and Christian life. The first four chapters of his book focus on the conviction of the Holy Spirit in his heart. Although these four chapters cannot be quoted, it should be recognized that he had no difficulty in writing four full chapters concerning his conviction of sin.

In the fifth chapter, Bunyan finally reaches the end of his search with a joyful experience of salvation through Christ:

"I existed in this condition (conviction) for a great while, but when the comforting time came, I heard someone preach a sermon on these words in the Song, 'Behold you are fair, my love! behold you are fair' (Song of Solomon 4:1)...."

"I got nothing from what he said at that time, except when he came to the application of the fourth point, this is what he said:

'If it be so that the saved soul is Christ's love even when under temptation and desertion, then, poor tempted soul, when you are assaulted and afflicted with temptations and the hiding of His face, yet think on these two words 'my love,' still.'

So as I was coming home, these words came again into my thoughts. I well remember as they came, I said thus in my heart, 'What shall I get by thinking on these two words?' This thought had no sooner passed through my heart than these words began thus to kindle in my spirit, 'You are My love, you are My love,' some twenty times together. Still as they ran through my mind they grew stronger and warmer, and began to make me look up. But being as yet between hope and fear, I still replied in my heart, 'But is it true? Is it true?' To which, that sentence fell upon me, 'He did not know that what was done by the angel was real' (Acts 12:9). Then I began to give place to the word, which with power did over and over make this joyful sound within my soul, 'You are My love, you are My love, and nothing shall separate you from My love.' And with that my heart was filled full of comfort and hope, and now I could believe that my sins would be forgiven me. Yes, I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God, that I remember I could not tell how to contain myself till I got home. I thought I could have spoken of His love and have told of His mercy to me, even to the very crows had they been capable of understanding me." (Bunyan 51-53)

 

 

Another excellent example of the teaching of experiential salvation comes from The Power of Prayer by Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon was a Nineteenth Century English Baptist preacher and was known as "The Prince of Preachers."

"Consider the ravens as they cry. With harsh, inarticulate, croaking notes they make known their wants, and your heavenly Father answers their prayer and sends them food. You, too, have begun to pray and to seek His favor. Are you not much better than they? Does God care for ravens, and will he not care for you? Does He listen to the cries of the unfledged ravens in their nests when they cry to Him in their hunger and watch to be fed? Does He, I say, supply them in answer to their cries and will He not answer you, poor, trembling children of men who are seeking His face and favor through Jesus Christ? The whole business of this chapter will simply be to work out that one thought. I will aim, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to write something to those who have been praying for mercy but as yet have not received it, who have gone on their knees, perhaps for months, with one exceeding great and bitter cry but as yet know not the way of peace. Their sin still hangs like a millstone around their necks; they sit in the valley of the shadow of death; no light has dawned upon them; and they are wringing their hands and moaning, 'Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He shut His ear against the prayers of seeking souls? Will He be mindful of sinners' piteous cries no more? Will penitents' tears drop upon the earth and no longer move His compassion?'"

"...I long to give you some comfort and encouragement. I want to urge you to cry yet more vehemently, to come to the cross and lay hold of it and vow that you will never leave its shadow until you find the blessing that your soul covets. I want to move you, if God the Holy Spirit will help me, so that you will say within yourselves, like Queen Esther, 'I [will] go in unto the king...and if I perish, I perish' (Esther 4:16)." (Spurgeon 35-37)

 

 

The last fine example is from a sermon by the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Welsh Baptist preacher, Christmas Evans. Evans was the one-eyed revival preacher of Wales, and literally thousands of people were converted under his ministry.

"' The Spirit of Truth,' having brought sinners to repentance by pleading with them for Christ in the gospel, pours down upon them the spirit of grace and supplication, so that they cry out for mercy, and this is virtually the Spirit of God crying out within them. What is the meaning of all that prayer and agony in the congregation? The Spirit of God is there. His hammer has broken the rock -- his fire has melted the iron. No other power could conquer those proud rebellious hearts, and turn the blasphemer into a man of prayer. Listen! 'If thou shouldst mark iniquity, O Lord, who could stand?' Hark again! 'But thou art a God ready to pardon; there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.' It is the voice of the Spirit, pleading in the awakened soul. See that publican in the temple, smiting upon his breast, and saying, -- 'God be merciful to me a sinner!" The Holy Ghost has both convinced him of sin, and inspired him to pray for mercy." (Evans 204).

In truth, one could fill an encyclopedia with historical references to experiential salvation in regards to the Baptist denomination. Although men like Bunyan, Spurgeon, and Evans were unusually gifted in literacy and speech, thousands of other Baptist preachers could be mentioned. The fact that Baptists have historically believed in experiential salvation has been so well documented, it could not even be legitimately argued against.

Therefore, the question persists, how did experiential salvation among Baptists become disregarded? The argument that is made here, is that the Baptist denomination became infiltrated by this heresy through the man known as Billy Graham, and especially his predecessor, Mordecai F. Ham, Jr. It should be understood that this explanation does not completely account for the Northern United States, England, and African-American Baptist churches. However, undoubtedly, it affected them as well.

In order to better understand how experiential salvation has become discarded within the Baptist denomination, one must study the life of a man called Mordecai F. Ham, Jr. Mordecai F. Ham, Jr. was born April 2, 1877 in Allen County, Kentucky (Ham 3). He was the son of Tobias and Ollie Ham (3). In fact, Mordecai F. Ham, Jr. was born into a long tradition of Baptist preachers. His father, Tobias Ham (b 1847), was a Baptist minister from South Central Kentucky, and his paternal grandfather, Mordecai F. Ham, Sr. (b. 1816) was also a Baptist minister from South Central Kentucky. There have even been efforts to connect Mordecai F. Ham, Jr.'s lineage all the way back to Roger Williams (4). The single most important detail of Ham's life was his salvation. According to his biography, he did not have an experience of salvation:

"Mr. Ham is one of the many who cannot date the day and hour of their conversion. He comments, 'From the time I was eight years old, I never thought of myself as anything but a Christian.'" (Ham 12) According to his nephew, Edward E. Ham, Mordecai F. Ham, Jr., did not have a "time and a place" salvation experience. Therefore, the question is, how did Ham manage to be baptized into a Baptist church without a testimony of experiential salvation? Some argue that Ham was baptized because he lied about his salvation. Having been raised in a very Baptist family, Ham had heard many people give their testimonies of salvation. It would not have been difficult for him to have conjured one up for himself. Another possibility is that the church he was baptized into was not skeptical of his conversion because of his upbringing. Ham's father and grandfather were both honest and hard-working Baptist preachers. It was likely that both factors were involved: He lied about his salvation, and the church did not question his salvation because of his father and grandfather. Whatever the case, Ham apparently did not have an experience of salvation.

In sight of the fact that Ham did not have an experience of salvation, how did he become an ordained Baptist preacher? Truly, the death of his grandfather, Mordecai F. Ham, Sr. in 1899 affected him deeply. Ever since he witnessed his grandfather's death, he had a desire to continue the family tradition of preaching. In truth, when his grandfather died, his father was found praying that his grandfather's "'Prophet's Mantle'" would continue with him (18). After a little more than a year, in December 1900, Ham made his decision to be a preacher of the gospel. He left his business job at that time (23). Ham devoted the first eight months of the year 1901 to extreme study and prayer (24). Alongside the Bible, Ham studied many commentaries and religious books. One important book of his study was The Second Coming of Christ by D.L. Moody (281). Moody was a famous "mass evangelist" of the late Nineteenth Century. After these eight months of diligent study, Ham went to the annual Bays Fork Baptist Association Meeting at Bethlehem Baptist Church, near Scottsville, Kentucky (Huff 64-65). It is estimated that over 3,000 people attended the Bays Fork Association that year (34). While at the Association, Ham was asked to preach without any prior notice. He reluctantly agreed, and preached his first sermon from the text, Matthew 11:12. (Ham 24). Evidently, the entire congregation received the sermon well, because at the end of it, they were all praising and exhorting God (25). After his sermon, a deacon from Mt. Gilead Baptist Church asked Ham if he would start a revival meeting at his church. Ham agreed and was made very welcome at Mt. Gilead Baptist Church. Part of the reason that he was so well endorsed by the church was because of his prior education. Most of the church's previous pastors were mostly uneducated, but Ham had been to high school, and had spent some time in college (25). After the meeting, the congregation wanted to get rid of their old pastor, and replace him with Ham. Within a couple of weeks, the old pastor of Mt. Gilead was voted out. Ham was therefore ordained and began his pastoral ministry at Mt. Gilead Baptist Church (25-26).

From this time until his death, Ham was an evangelistic preacher. As Ham's style of preaching grew to be more popular, he was invited to preach in different places throughout the United States. He especially preached in meetings in Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, and North Carolina (284-294). It was in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1934, that Ham preached to and converted his most famous convert, Billy Graham. (232-233).

 

William "Billy" H. Graham was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 7, 1918 (Graham 3). Graham's father, Frank Graham was raised in a strong Methodist tradition, and was experientially saved as an eighteen year-old in 1908 (26). Graham describes his father: "My father had been reared as a Methodist, in the best old mourner's-bench revivalist tradition." (25). Graham's mother, Morrow Graham was a devout Presbyterian, but unlike his father, it is unknown as to whether she had experiential salvation (15). In the year 1934, at about the age of sixteen, Billy Graham started attending the famous Ham revival in Charlotte (28). Ham attended the meeting for several days until it so happened that Graham felt compelled to go forward and accept Christ. Here are a few excerpts from Graham's testimony of when he accepted Christ at the meeting:

"And then it happened, sometime around my sixteenth birthday. On that night, Dr. Ham finished preaching and gave the Invitation to accept Christ..." (Graham 33).

"On the last verse of that second song, I responded. I walked down to the platform, feeling as if I had lead weights attached to my feet, and stood in the space before the platform..." (Graham 33).

"My heart sank when I looked over at the lady standing next to me with tears running down her cheeks. I was not crying. I did not feel any special emotion of any kind just then. Maybe, I thought, I was not supposed to be there. Maybe my good intentions to be a real Christian wouldn't last. Wondering if I was just making a fool of myself, I almost turned around and went back to my seat..." (Graham 33-34).

As Graham stood at the platform, J.D. Prevatt, a friend of the family's, testified to Graham and guided Graham to pray (34).

"He prayed for me and guided me to pray. I had heard the message, and I had felt the inner compulsion to go forward. Now came the moment to commit myself to Christ..." (34)

Graham leaves us with a picture of him kneeling in prayer, but he never relates experiencing a feeling of joy and peace that is associated with experiential salvation. The next thing he tells us is:

"I checked 'Recommitment' on the card I filled out." (34).

He continues and says,

"No bells went off inside me. No signs flashed across the tabernacle ceiling. No physical palpitations made me tremble. I wondered again if I was a hypocrite, not to be weeping or something. I simply felt at peace." (35).

Strictly speaking, Graham did have a "time and place" salvation. However, his testimony lacks of a true experiential conversion. He mentions how that he felt out of place when he saw people around him weeping and mourning. Even after he was "converted," Graham had doubts about the sincerity of his experience. It is the opinion of the author that Graham did not have a true experience of salvation, but instead that he was deceived by the evangelical efforts of Mordecai F. Ham, Jr.

After a few years, Graham began an evangelical mission of his own. Graham was ordained as a Baptist minister in a Southern Baptist Church in 1939. After being a pastor for about five years, Graham began his evangelical crusades in the year 1944 (Encyclopedia.com). Graham's crusades were unbelievably productive. Graham's preaching style and amount of converts brought him world-wide fame. In fact, he has preached in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia -- all of the inhabited continents (Graham 866-869). In response to Graham's incredible success, the entire Southern Baptist Convention has transformed.

In my opinion, the Southern Baptist Convention has almost completely lost its belief in experiential salvation. At one time, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminaries taught and believed in "heart-felt" experiential salvation. However, by the influence of Billy Graham's "successful" crusades, the Seminaries have changed their teachings. At one time, they taught the Biblical beliefs of such men as John Bunyan, Charles Spurgeon, Christmas Evans, John Gill, and B.H. Carroll. Many Baptist churches felt secure in sending their young preachers to such seminaries in order to help them become more educated. However, in the 1950's, the seminaries began to move away from teaching about experiential salvation, and began teaching the "mass evangelism" of Billy Graham. Young Baptist preachers who were strong in the doctrine of experiential salvation went to the Seminary for their education. While at the Seminary, these young preachers would become deceived concerning the true nature of salvation. Over time, many of these young men would return to their home churches, where they began to spread a new gospel message that excluded experiential salvation. Being that this phenomenon started some fifty years ago, it has now become the norm in Southern Baptist Churches. Generally speaking, the majority of members in Southern Baptist churches who are experientially saved are very old and are slowly dying. The only Baptist churches of the South who still support experiential salvation are those which did not become involved with the Convention. Usually these are Missionary Baptists, Landmark Baptists, and to an extent, Independent Baptists and the American Baptist Association. Even still, in the late 1990's, many of these churches have begun to slowly reject experiential salvation. Although no individual can be held completely responsible for such a phenomenon, certainly Mordecai F. Ham, Jr. and Billy Graham are two of the biggest culprits.