Some history of the Baptists and Mormons in the I-15 Corridor (post 2)

Taken from The Baptist Home Mission Monthly:

Have any of you ever heard of the Rev. H. G. De Witt, D.D., a Baptist evangelist who labored in Salt Lake City around 120 years ago?

Bro. De Witt expects to be on the field early in February.  He will go with the prayers of thousands, that he may be endowed with wisdom from on high; that his labors may be mighty through God, in pulling down the stronghold of Satan in Utah.  Let all who have given for this work now offer fervent prayer that our new and beautiful house of worship in Salt Lake City may be honored with the gracious presence of God in the conversion of multitudes from the error of their ways.

The new house will be dedicated early in February.  Rev. Dwight Spencer, to whom great credit is due for his successful completion of the building, will, doubtless, remain a month or two with Dr. De Witt–yoke-fellows in this important field of service.  For both these toilers–for the church also–let fervent prayer be frequently offered.  If each of these brethren could address one sentence to our numerous readers, we doubt not it would be the words of Paul to his brethren at a critical period in his ministry:  “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together in your prayers to God for me.”  God grant that we may witness triumphs of the Gospel in Utah this year.

 

Some history of the Baptists and LDS in the I-15 Corridor (post 1)

My Baptist heritage goes back aways . . . at least 200 years.  I have in possession what family members wrote in the 1800s.  Also, I have stacks of The Standard, originals of the Baptist weekly newspaper coming out of Chicago.   It is interesting to read what they wrote about Mormonism.  As a Baptist, my great, great-grandfather attended divinity school at the University of Chicago.  The first Baptist missionary, Rebecca Mitchell, came directly from a women’s Baptist training school in Chicago to Idaho Falls (then known as Eagle Rock in 1882) .  The First Baptist Church in Eagle Rock erected a building in 1884. Credit goes to the determination of Rebecca Mitchell.  In Salt Lake City, the building for First Baptist Church was finished in 1883.  The Baptist Home Mission Monthly (July, 1883) has a drawing of it.

Let me share an excerpt of what Baptist men wrote around 120 years ago about Mormonism:

1.  “Salt Lake as a Missionary Field” by Rev. D. Spencer, General Missionary (The Home Mission Monthly)

In his article, he first describes Chicago and then in parallel fashion he describes Salt Lake City in great detail as a leading center.  In conclusion, he provides his emotional plea:

And what of its moral condition?  Salt Lake City has a population of 25,000, and of this number, from 18,000 to 20,000 are Mormons.  Of course so great a preponderance in point of numbers gives to the Mormon Church a growing influence.  Everything large and grand is Mormon.  The large banks, stores, school and Sunday congregations are Mormon.  Mormons make the laws, collect the taxes, try the criminals, and manage the schools.  And what is this Mormon power?  Are its heart-beats in sympathy with our institutions?  Are its teachings and practices in keeping with American ideas?  No, it is a despotism in the heart of a republic, a hierarchy in the midst of a free church, and a form of Oriental barbarism in the lap of Christian civilization.  Organized upon falsehood, its columns filled from the ranks of ignorance and superstition, and led on by artful and cunning priests, and tolerates practices worthy of Tartars and Turks.  And what have Baptists done towards curing this evil?  Almost nothing!  A few months ago a little handful of Baptists were gathered, and a mission established.  But we are compelled to worship in a hall over a blacksmith shop; and instead of a score of workers, we have only one.  Surely not much can be expected from a mission so feebly sustained.  Our views of the ordinances fit us in a remarkable manner for work among this people, multitudes of whom, though terribly deluded, are very sincere and honest.  An officer in the Mormon Church called on me some time ago and inquired relative of our views.  After a lengthy conversation he assented to nearly all that I said, and has regularly attended our service since.  Now will not Baptists all over the country arise and put the mission in Salt Lake City upon a footing where it can successfully cope with this evil?  We need ten thousand dollars at once to build a good Church edifice.  Who will be first to subscribe towards this amount.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ – the keys
I have seen many old western shows where the sheriff dangles the keys.  When a sheriff swings the keys in front of you, he is showing you who is boss.  For the criminal, it can perhaps strike up a healthy dose of fear.  And for the mother on the streets watching her young children, the sight of a tall sheriff with some keys generates some assurance.
The Chief Sheriff interrupts our thoughts today not just in Idaho but on a global scale with these words.  Hey, listen up.  “I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”
Truly, there is not a man big enough in the 200 countries on our earth who will ever hold those keys.  So, it is a lot easier to say, “Bring on the gunfight,” when you are standing behind a Sheriff like that.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ – the Christ of the LDS I-15 Corridor

One of our most brilliant Bible scholars in America has published a new book:  Did Jesus Exist? (HarperOne, 2012).  Bart Erhman debunks the idea of a mythical Christ.  Yet rather than write of the Roman Catholic view, conservative-evangelical view, or Mormon view of Jesus or push for a Jesus who is a political revolutionary or a proto-Marxist, or a proto-feminist, or a countercultural hero, or a Jewish holy man, or a Jewish Cynic philosopher, or a married man with children, he maintains like the hopeless heretic of past days, Albert Schweitzer, that “Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who predicted that the end of this evil age is soon to come and that within his generation God would send a cosmic judge of the earth, the Son of Man, to destroy the forces of evil and everyone who has sided with them and to bring in his good kingdom here on earth.”  It’s sad how such a prominent New Testament scholar seeks to strip Jesus of His favorite self-designation.  Over and over and over again.

Daniel saw the Son of Man, and so did the apostle John.  I believe them.  Jesus so thorougly possesses this cosmic judge divine title because He is God.
Spending these past six weeks in Revelation 1 has done much for strengthening my faith in the Messianic Prophet-Priest-King.  He is like us, because as the Son of Man, He is man.  But He is unlike us.  If people doubt this, let them compare themselves to the Son of Man in the opening chapter of the Apocalypse.  The text produces a flood of rhetorical questions:  (1) Do we wear the garments and fulfill the position of the sinless and all-sufficient high priest?  (2) Did we exist before the beginning?  (3) Are we the source of all creaturely life?  (4)  Do we have internal light that enables us to see through anything?  (5) Can we put all evil under our feet?  (6)  Does our voice boom like the water falls on the Snake River?  (7) Do we have a mouth that can cut right through the inner workings of the human soul and spirit? (7) And can people die just by looking at us?
Last time I checked, I couldn’t say yes to any of these questions.
But because of God’s grace, we are to shine like Jesus (cross reference Rev. 1:16 with Judges 5:31) in the darkness.  But no one has told me that I personally have looks that could kill. (Ha, ha.  It probably makes you laugh just thinking about it.)
In contrast, Jesus certainly does, for He is uniquely God.  And it is this Jesus who stands among the lampstands of the I-15 Corridor, stretching from Idaho Falls, to Salt Lake City, and on down to St. George.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ – sensory overload
My 16-year-old son is an adrenalin junkie.  He told me that he and some of his buddies jumped off an 80 foot cliff on Saturday.  This makes my skin tingle.  Just a little bit.
But you know what?  That is nothing compared to what I talked about on Sunday and what we are all going to experience soon.  We, like John the apostle, will see the King in unveiled divine glory.  That will stop your heart from beating.  Only it will be the amazing love and grace of your Maker who will keep the molecules of your creaturely body from flying apart.
Imagine what it was like for John to have that gentle right hand of his cousin touch him and tell him, “Do not be afraid.”
Just wait.  Your turn is coming where you will also be touched by God.  The time is near.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ – One Day at a Time
Someone told me that Wilber Smith had 200 commentaries on Revelation in his personal library.  What commentaries on Revelation do you have?  If you don’t want them, would you like to give them to me?  Mail them to me.  One of the sisters in the Berean church family, Anne McCraw, lent to me a commentary, Lectures on Revelation by H.A. Ironside (dated 1930).  It’s even got a fold-out chart.
One commentary in my possession, The Revelation of Jesus Christ by John F. Walvoord, was given to me on my wedding day, twenty years ago at Gethsemane Baptist Church in Idaho Falls.  I read the personal note on the inside cover:  “May 30, 1992.  Todd and Kristie,  May this be the first day of a long and fruitful Christian life together.  May God bless each of you.  ‘One Day at a Time.’  Ann and Jack Wallace.”
It’s interesting how 20 years later, I am using a wedding gift every week.  Now, I don’t see eye-to-eye with Walvoord on some interpretational details.  But this is where I agree 100% with him.  John Walvoord believed that Jesus Christ is the eternal One.
Ann Wallace, who attended my wedding 20 years ago, believed that Jesus Christ is the First and the Last.  And she communicated to me that when you have the Christ of the book of Revelation, who is sovereign from the beginning to the end, you can live without fear as you take “one day at a time.”
John dropped down dead before Christ in Revelation 1.  And you will notice that he did not drop down dead before any other supernatural being or cataclysmic event throughout the rest of the book.  When you have the King’s right hand on your shoulder, you need not fear anything else.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ – Patmos
Have you been to Patmos?   It is a beautiful place – a long ways from the brown, barren, rocky Roman penal prison of 2,000 years ago where John was exiled.
Concerning religious life, Patmos is run by the Greek Orthodox. In a snippet from one travel journal, you see how early the priests pray. In digital musical recordings, you can hear how they chant. And you can read for yourself how the leaders at Patmos address the western world.
In exploring the island, you can cruise the streets on a motorcycle, dance on Easter Sunday, and relax in a Villa on the island.  There is ton of stuff to do.  But even as tourists visit, they cannot escape the historical event that this is the place where John was given the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
It is good to think about John and Patmos.  When I think of Patmos, I think of the persecution of Christians for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.  Some say that in our present day, a Christian is martyred every five minutes.  Some are suffering severely.  What do you think of Yang’s story?

130 Years of Baptist History in Idaho Falls

On June 5, 1882, Rebecca Mitchell stepped off the train in Eagle Rock.  After a few months of training at a denominational women’s school in Chicago, she came to the West under the umbrella of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, today known as National Ministries.  As a determined, self-supporting Baptist missionary, she entered town with the motto:  “All things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23).  She commented about seeing no other Baptist pioneers around her, and then she declared her mission:

I found no church or church organization on this line of road from Ogden, Utah to Butte, Mont., a distance of four hundred miles.  Neither tree, nor grass, nor bird was to be seen on the streets but sand, sand, everywhere, but when the sandstorms came, it was beyond description.  My first work was a day and Sunday school, which I named Providence Mission, because by unexpected and unplanned journeys the Lord had transplanted me into this needy field.”

And so Baptist missions began.  Through the help of the Reverend Dwight Spencer  of New York, the Superintendent of Baptist Missions in the West, a little chapel [First Baptist Church] was dedicated in 1884.  With a joyful heart, Rebecca wrote, “It was the beginning of a new era in Snake River Valley when the bell rang out the hour of prayer.”

First Baptist Church happily ministered for 70 years in Idaho Falls before the birth of the Calvary Baptist congregation in Idaho Falls.  And the chain of Baptist churches and some of their missions outreach congregations in town followed something like this:  First Baptist Church (1884), Calvary Baptist Church (1954), Gethsemane Baptist Church (1958), Eagle Rock Baptist Church (1982), Liberty Missionary Baptist Church (1985), First Bible Baptist Church (1985), Mission Baptista Del Sur (1993), New Hope Community Fellowship (1994), Berean Baptist Church (1995), Falls Southern Baptist Church (1995), the Korean Church (1996), New Hope Anchor Fellowship (2002), and the Hispanic Baptist Church meeting at Gethsemane (2012).

How many of you have been marked by one of these local churches?  What stories could you tell me?  I would like to hear them.  Share with me any observations.  I am all ears.  Feel free to comment below.  Even your questions.  Or please email me at elonwood@juno.com.  I would like to learn all the ins and outs of this Baptist stream in town.

Some Baptist churches have disassembled, like First Baptist Church.  But we are thankful that the American Baptists are leasing the old building of First Baptist Church to Calvary Chapel Christian School for the Christian training of 6th-10th grade students (in the fall, including 11th grade).  So in a sense, the burden of the early Baptist missionary, Rebecca Mitchell, in teaching young people the ways of God long ago, lingers on today.  This upcoming Tuesday, June 5, 2012, marks 130 years of Baptist ministry to the King.  Sola de gloria.

“Run For His Glory” Event in Idaho Falls – June 2

1.  The 5K / 10K Walk / Run begins at the boat dock on the  West side of the Snake River along highway 20 in Idaho Falls – 5:30 pm, June 2.

2.  We are very thankful for all the businesses and restaurants who have donated certificates and gift baskets for this event.  Lots of prizes will be available.

3.  We are thankful for those who have donated to the event costs and t-shirts.

4.  We are thankful for those helping and assisting in this event.  Our contact lady is Cassie Smith.  Her cell is (208) 351-7844.  Or you may contact me: (208) 419-9442.