FIRST CHURCH AND ITS DENOMINATIONS:

AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES USA

AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES OF MASSACHUSETTS

The First Church in Sterling has the unusual distinction of belonging to three different denominations at the same time—combining the traditions of three separate churches in the town: Unitarian, Baptist and Congregational. Our church history, “From One to Three to One”, tells the story of how this came about.

There is a stereotype of Baptists that can sometimes be difficult to counter. It is the image of a fundamentalist: someone who interprets the Bible too literally and rigid­ly; believes there is only one way to truth (and they have it); is harsh in criticism of those who disagree; and is offensively ag­gressive in efforts to win others to their faith. Or perhaps there is a more subtle and benign stereotype of Bap­tists as people with a warm but old-fash­ioned kind of faith that is mostly irrelevant to the modern world. Be­hind the stereotype, however, there is something else.

Baptists in this country were an early voice for religious freedom. The First Baptist Church in Boston, begun in 1665, was al ­most persecuted out of existence by the Puritan Congregationalists, and Roger Wil­liams was banished to Rhode Island, where, as a Baptist, he founded the first of the colonies based on religious toleration for all. These early Baptists had a concept called "soul liberty": no creeds or doctrines of the church could come between the indi­vidual and his responsibility, his freedom, to inter­pret divine truth. The Bible alone was utterly to be trusted, for the Holy Spirit would guide each person to the truth of Christ in it. This emphasis on individual decision-making is evident in the distinc­tive ordinance practiced by Baptists: bap­tism by complete immersion, not of infants, but of youth or adults who have made their own personal confession of faith. Where Unitarians emphasized the moral leadership of Jesus, Baptists stressed a love for Jesus as their Savior from sin. Whereas the Unitarian Thomas Jefferson cut up the Bible to elimi­nate offensive sections, the Baptists held a love for the whole Bible, and believed that God speaks through all of it, rightly inter­preted.

For all their fervency of faith, Bap­tists have tended to go their sepa­rate ways, and have never been all united in a single de­nomina­tion. (There are dozens of Baptist groups today; the most prominent divisions have been between north and south, and between black and white denomina­tions.) In the 1940's and 50's, the Northern Baptists were themselves going through a split, with some of the more evan­gelical and fundamen­talist church­es leaving to form a separate groups.

The Ster­ling Church is part of this larger and more inclusive denomi­nation, which has changed its name to The Ameri­can Bap­tist Churches, USA, and numbers nearly 6,000 churches in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. We are part of a local association of 30 churches in Central Mass, and are one of some 275 con­gregations that belong to The Amer­ican Baptist Churches of Massachu­setts. There is a long and some­times proud history here: prior to the Civil War, the small Baptist Church in Sterling raised $5,000 to support the aboli­tion of slavery.

As a denomination today, American Baptists are often described as both evangel­ical and ecumenical. In their diversity, they are a bridge between these often separate branches of contemporary Protestantism. Another of their strengths is in being the most racially integrated of the major Protestant denomina­tions; in addition to large numbers of African‑Americans, there are Hispanics, Hai­tians, Brazilians, Asians, Native Ameri­cans and others‑‑many of these in newly formed congregations. American Baptists hold in balance a sense of evangelical mis­sion and strong social concern. This is a denomina­tion that acts and takes stands on important social issues, and that anchors faith in a love for Jesus and for the Bible‑‑a denomi­nation that likes to see itself as a large family of God's diverse people.

TEN FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AMERICAN BAPTISTS

1. American Baptists believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, and that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God that serves as the final authority for living out the Christian faith.
2. For American Baptists the local church is the fundamental unit of mission in denominational life.
3. American Baptists partake of two ordinances, following Christ’s example and teaching: believer’s baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
4. American Baptists believe that the committed individual Christian can and should approach God directly, and that individual gifts of ministry should be shared.
5. American Baptists take seriously the call to evangelism and missionary work.
6. American Baptists support religious freedom and respect the expressions of faith of others.
7. American Baptists acknowledge that God’s family extends beyond our local churches, and that God calls us to cooperative ministries.
8. American Baptists believe we are called to be Christ’s witnesses for justice and wholeness within a broken society.
9. American Baptists Churches USA celebrates the racial, cultural and theological diversity witnessed within its membership.
10. American Baptists heed the biblical call to renewal and the need for a vital witness in a new millennium.