Who Or What Are Primitive Baptists?

 
Primitive Baptists are a Christian sect (as in denomination) that believe they can trace their “roots” back to the first century New Testament Church.   They believe in election and predestination but they refuse to call themselves Calvinists because they feel that it identifies them with John Calvin and his doctrine, including things Calvin preached that they do not agree with.  They have beliefs in agreement with many protestants of our day and from the past, including from the Protestant Reformation period. However, they don’t want to be called Protestants because they don’t want people to think that their group originated during that time period but rather during the foundational period of the Christian Church.  Primitive Baptist congregations don’t all agree with each other exactly the same way on all things but on most things.   They are against using musical instruments in Church, which means they sing all songs “a-capella”.  They also tend to just sing the Psalms, and not any other music such as hymns, old-time gospel music or contemporary Christian music.  So you could honestly say that they are extremely conservative in their views and in practice.
 
The most distinguishing teaching of Primitive Baptists is this:
 
They have a teaching that they refer to as “No Gospel Means” which is the idea that only the Holy Spirit saves souls, without the use of preachers or preaching.  How they account for a person becoming saved by a convicting sermon or by a gospel tract, I cannot say. They do not believe in sending out missionaries, the primary reason being that they don’t believe that preaching is used of God to save souls.   Check out our study “Primitive Baptists – True Hyper-Calvinists” for more information on this heresy.
 

For more information on Primitive Baptists: