Mostrando resultados por autor "Guillermo Santamaria" en Todas las categorías

In Scripture, “witness” and “testimony” are truth-terms, not technique-terms. A witness gives honest attestation to reality—Christ’s person and work—and the believer’s life is meant to function as corroborating evidence, not as a staged performance. Modern usage often drifts: “witnessing” becomes a program (“going witnessing”) and slides into scripts, pressure tactics, and “closing the deal,” while “testimony” can become a stylized personal story that subtly shifts the center from Christ to the speaker. Harris’s The Witnessing Church (1837) represents an ...

The book argues that high-church pageantry (vestments, incense, processions, chant) and evangelical worship bands (lights, platforms, curated song-sets) are really two styles of the same thing: religious theater. Both center a visible “front” team, run on rehearsed scripts, and use aesthetics (sound, light, movement, space) to create a sense of “the holy,” often turning the congregation into an audience and quietly treating atmosphere as a quasi-sacrament or “means” of producing spiritual effect. Historically, it traces religious theater from ancient ritual-as-drama (pagan and ...

The book argues that much contemporary Baptist practice surrounds the Lord’s Supper with a false mystique that obscures Paul’s actual concerns in 1 Corinthians 10–11. It begins by carefully cataloging the concrete ways Scripture says believers may “eat and drink unworthily”: turning the ordinance into something “no longer the Lord’s Supper,” privatizing it as “one’s own supper,” indulgence (gluttony and drunkenness), despising the church and shaming the poor, failing to examine oneself and to “discern the Lord’s body,” refusing corrective self-judgment, not ...

The book explores Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 9:22, “I have become all things to all men,” by beginning with a close Greek analysis of the verse. It explains that phrases like “τοῖς πᾶσιν γέγονα πάντα” (“I have become all things to all”) and “ἵνα πάντως τινὰς σώσω” (“so that by all means I might save some”) emphasize Paul’s radical willingness to adapt himself—in every ethically permissible way—for the salvation of others. This does not mean compromising doctrine or morals, but laying aside personal rights, altering...

The piece argues that the modern “church planter” concept is a late, human-invented construct born out of 19th–20th-century missiology—the academic habit of systematizing mission work using theology plus social sciences—and especially out of recent evangelical church-growth culture. It sketches a brief history of missiology: mission in the NT and early church is simply narrated; medieval Catholicism talks about plantatio Ecclesiae as the church being planted in new lands; Protestant mission societies explode in the 18th–19th centuries; then figures like Warneck and Schmidlin ...

In Greek, the root of “heretic” is αἱρέω / αἵρεσις, originally meaning “to choose” and then a choice, school, or party—a neutral term for a philosophical camp. Hellenistic Jews (like Josephus) use αἵρεσις for religious sects such as Pharisees and Sadducees. In the New Testament the word shifts: in Acts it can still mean “sect,” but in Paul’s lists it means factions that tear the church, and αἱρετικός (Titus 3:10) is the factious man who insists on his own line. In the 2nd–4th centuries, as the church confronts Gnostics, Marcionites, Arians, ...

The book argues that “try-hard Christianity” misunderstands both holiness and the function of biblical exhortations by turning the Christian life into a cooperative project in which our effort helps make us holier before God. In contrast, the Absoluter wing of Old School Baptists insists that all the elect are equally and immutably holy in Christ: sanctification, as to standing, is eternal in election, accomplished once-for-all in Christ’s offering, and applied by the Spirit in regeneration, not a moral ladder the believer climbs. New School / Missionary Baptists maintain a classic ...

Mini-liturgies are small, repeated worship scripts—predictable orders combined with repeated postures and phrases—that people come to feel are “how church is done,” even when no official prayer book exists. They have three basic ingredients: repetition (the same sequence week after week, like “stand to sing, sit, stand for reading, sit for sermon”), a script-like feel (“this is just how we do church,” so breaking it feels wrong), and implicit spiritual weight (worship feels “off” if the pattern isn’t followed). These show up across virtually all traditions: low-church ...

This book argues that the New Testament rejects both a lone “me-and-Jesus” individualism and a faceless, group-identity collectivism, and instead presents salvation as deeply personal and fiercely corporate—God saving a people in Christ, by sovereign grace, one sinner at a time. It defines “collective salvation” as God redeeming a people (laos, sōma, ekklēsia), where individuals are saved into a body, not as detached atoms. Scripture’s corporate language (Israel as “my people,” federal headship in Adam and Christ, the Church as body/bride/holy nation) shows that salvation ...

This essay by Guillermo Santamaria is both a theological reflection and a historical commentary on how Christians—especially Old School Baptists—view sacred places, church buildings, and denominational division. The work opens by denying that meetinghouses are “sacred” in themselves. The title “Ebenezers in Wood and Brick” symbolizes old church buildings as memorials of divine help, not as holy objects. Santamaria traces the biblical story of sacred places—from patriarchal altars to the temple, and finally to Christ, in whom sacred presence shifts from place to people. After ...

“The Old School Baptists in the Northeast” is a detailed historical and statistical survey of Old School/Primitive Baptist churches across the northeastern United States. Here’s a concise scholarly summary: Scope: Covers Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York (city and upstate), New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Draws on association records, obituaries, preservation archives, and local histories. Findings: Total churches documented (19th century Northeast): 41. Still active in 2025: 5 congregations (≈12.2%). These include Black ...

Eternal Vital Union: Beebe vs. Gill & the Reformers The live issue is timing. “Eternal vital union” (EVU) claims a real, life-giving union of Christ and His church from eternity, so that regeneration merely manifests what already is. Gill and the classic Reformed insist vital union begins in time, when the Spirit actually grafts a sinner into the living Christ. Beebe (EVU). Union is both eternal and vital. New birth does not start life in Christ; it reveals it. Beebe leans on Col 3:3–4 (“your life is hidden with Christ in God”) as real-but-veiled, and on Rom 5 (two Adams): as we ...

I. The Rise of Community Churches Frontier Roots (1700s–1800s): Sparse populations led settlers to share meetinghouses across denominational lines (“Union Churches”), creating a cooperative spirit. Ecumenical Phase (1880–1920): Influenced by the Social Gospel (Gladden, Rauschenbusch), ministers promoted moral reform and social unity rather than doctrinal precision. Community Church Movement (1910–1940): Liberal leaders like Harry Emerson Fosdick and philanthropists like John D. Rockefeller Jr. envisioned “one church for the whole town.” Riverside Church became the model — ...

Summary The book explores competing theories of church succession, with a focus on Landmark Baptists and Old School/Primitive Baptists. Landmarkism (Graves, Pendleton, Dayton): Claimed only Baptist churches were true churches, preserved through an unbroken visible succession from the apostles. They rejected “alien immersion,” enforced strict closed communion, and refused recognition of non-Baptist ministers. Their logic mirrored Roman Catholic apostolic succession, but framed in Baptist terms. Old School/Primitive Baptists (Beebe, Trott, Dudley): Rejected visible succession. The church ...

The phrase “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15) has a long interpretive history. The original Greek word orthotomeō means “to cut straight,” as in building a road. The Septuagint uses it for “making paths straight” (Prov. 3:6; 11:5). Early Fathers like Chrysostom read it as teaching faithfully, not partitioning scripture. Jerome’s Vulgate gave “rightly handling,” and Wycliffe, Tyndale, and the Geneva Bible transmitted it into English, with the KJV fixing the phrase “rightly dividing.” In the 19th century, Darby and Scofield redefined it as a command to ...

Summary Biblicism vs. Christ: The danger of elevating the Bible above Christ Himself. Scripture is the record; Christ is the living Word and the only true Teacher. Bible before the KJV: From scrolls in ancient Israel, to the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, Reformation vernaculars, and Geneva Bible. KJV (1611) emerged as a majestic, public-reading Bible. Puritans & Baptists: Many Puritans resisted the KJV, preferring Geneva. Critics like Hugh Broughton and John Canne saw it as too “episcopal” and lacking helpful notes. Baptists sometimes used Geneva notes against infant baptism. Old ...

From Johann Agricola in the 1520s to Old School Baptists in the 1800s, “Antinomians” consistently read 1 Timothy 1:8–9 as teaching that the law is only for the ungodly, not for believers.English Antinomians (1600s) John Eaton: To bring the righteous under the law is to use it unlawfully. Tobias Crisp: The law is good only in its place — for the lawless, not the righteous. Robert Towne: For the righteous, the law has no power nor is it their rule of life. John Saltmarsh: The believer’s rule is Christ, not Moses.Old School Baptists (1800s) Gilbert Beebe: The law was never given as a...

“The missionary, instead of going into such neighborhoods as Christ’s ministers used to visit, where they would be most likely to have an opportunity of administering food to the poor of the flock, seeks the more populous villages and towns, where he can attract the most attention, and do the most to promote the cause of missions and other popular institutions. His leading motive, judging from his movements, is not love to souls, but love of fame; hence his anxiety to have something to publish of what he has done, and hence his anxiety to constitute churches, even taking disaffected, ...

Infant Baptism; Family; and Covenant Status: Overview The document surveys the theological debate over infant baptism, family inclusion, and covenant membership, contrasting Presbyterian and Baptist (especially Old School Baptist) views. It covers biblical foundations, historical controversies, and practical issues like youth rebellion, church discipline, and the Halfway Covenant. Key Themes Infant Baptism and Covenant Status Presbyterians see baptism as a covenant sign, applied to the children of believers much like circumcision in Israel. Baptized infants are not presumed regenerate but ...

Foot Washing Among the Baptists – Short Summary General Baptists (especially early English and some American groups) often practiced foot washing as a literal ordinance, citing John 13. Leaders like Thomas Grantham defended it as a command of Christ. Particular Baptists (Calvinistic) rejected it as an ordinance, viewing it only as an example of humility, not a continuing church rite. This view was consistent with the 1689 Confession and upheld by figures like John Gill and Benjamin Keach. The Welsh Tract Church originally practiced foot washing (per Morgan Edwards) but abandoned it by the...