Earlier posts in this series:

On January 6, 1957, 113 believers covenanted to form Crestview Baptist Church in Griffin, GA. In the covenanting service, each signed the church covenant and statement of faith. The church utilized the New Hampshire Confession of Faith (NHC) as its doctrinal statement (the 1853 update, not the 1833 version, as I incorrectly wrote last week). These original signed documents hang in the hallway outside our worship center.

This sounds relatively straightforward, but it does raise an interesting question. If the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM) was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in 1925, thirty-two years before Crestview was formed, why did Crestview utilize the older NHC? I can imagine a few possible reasons.

First, as Timothy George explains, in the late 1800s and 1900s, churches across the American South widely accepted the NHC.[1] Gordon Wood, Crestview’s founding pastor, and many of the original members formed Crestview after withdrawing from DeVotie Baptist Church. Since it was founded in 1891, I suspect DeVotie may have been using the NHC. Therefore, one possible reason Crestview used the NHC is that it merely retained DeVotie’s confessional statement.

Second, the BFM was a doctrinal statement for the Convention, not necessarily for local churches. Local churches already possessed statements of faith. The SBC's approval of the BFM formed doctrinal moorings for convention entities and helped churches rally around the Cooperative Program (also adopted in 1925, coincidentally).[2] Therefore, a second possible reason Crestview used the NHC was its precedent among SBC churches before the BFM was written.

Third, perhaps the original members of Crestview preferred the NHC over the BFM. While the writers of the BFM used the NHC as a starting point, they expanded the BFM to include articles on evangelism and missions, education, stewardship, and cooperation.[3] These articles primarily undergird cooperative support of mission boards and seminaries. Such inclusions made the BFM valuable to the Convention yet less needful for a local church. Finally, a third possible reason Crestview used the NHC was that it was more suitable as a local church’s statement of faith.

These three reasons stand as possible reasons Crestview was formed using the NHC. (Perhaps there are others). Interestingly, between 1957 and 2004, Crestview changed its statement of faith to the Baptist Faith and Message. I'll look more closely at this in my next post.

For His Glory,

Pastor Thomas

[1] Timothy George, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms, 12.

[2] Timothy George, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms, 13.

[3] See the Preamble to the BFM 1925: “Your committee have decided to recommend the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, revised at certain points, and with some additional articles growing out of present needs, for approval by the Convention…”