I am extremely opposed to liberal theology and modernism, which I see being responsible for the devastating decline of the mainline Protestant churches in the US, many of which I greatly loved and many of which still have individual parishes which I do love. Now, that being said, I am confused both by the practices of the Baptist churches you describe before the arrival of the “easy-believest” modernists, and by the practices of the modernists. Specifically:
Easy believism is where people claim you can get saved anytime you want without being under Holy Ghost Convction.
I was very blessed to grow up in a community in North Carolina where Holy Ghost-filled Fundamental Missionary Baptist churches were everywhere. People feared God where I lived and fought sin, and there were no bars in town; in fact, you couldn't buy alcohol legally anywhere in the county! When I was real young, all the stores were even closed on Sundays.
I don’t see how your county being a “dry county” with “Blue laws”, that is to say, a county without alcohol sales or without stores being open on Sunday, inherently translates to any specific piety. Alcohol consumption is permitted in the New Testament, and is indeed endorsed by our Lord at the Wedding Feast in Cana, where he did miraculously change water into wine, as recorded in the Gospel According to John 2:1-11 . Likewise, Paul directs Timothy in his pastoral epistles to him to “take a little wine for thy stomach.” Scripture clearly takes a disfavorable view of drunkenness, however, but it is widely known that the dry counties in certain US states do have populations of alcoholics who buy their alcohol out of county.
All the preachers preached that God MUST be drawing you before you can get saved;
This is actually the traditional and nearly universal Christian belief, which is to say, it is the Holy Spirit which calls us to repentance and enables us to choose to follow Christ (or in the case of Calvinism, God’s grace is irresistible and the elect do not actually exercise free will, but rather the Holy Spirit draws them to God irresistibly). The alternative perspective, Pelagianism, states we can save ourselves, and indeed has been considered a heresy since the fifth century (when Pelagius was opposed by Augustine and John Cassian). However, Pelagianism is not a popular ideology among “easy-believists.” There are very few adherents of the Pelagian heresy around these days; a decade ago, one bishop in the Episcopal Church suggested a rehabilitation of Pelagius, and that idea was not well received, and the Episcopal Church unfortunately has very strong modernist elements. But even they would agree that God’s grace is what enables us to embrace the Christian faith and that is essential to our salvation.
in other words, you must be under Holy Ghost Conviction before you can get saved.
Could you define “Holy Ghost Conviction”? This particular term I have not encountered before - I would assume that if one is “under Holy Ghost Conviction,” that means the Holy Ghost has called them to repentance?
That is how I got saved; God convicted me, and I went to the altar and got saved. I had never heard anything different until 2011 when my church was in a revival that lasted for six weeks, and the church was full every night, and people were going to the altars every night and getting saved.
What precisely were you and others doing at the altars each night to be saved? And why are you using altars in the plural? While some churches do have more than one altar, it is unusual for more than one to be used in a service (and against the rules in many denominations). Are you referring to altar calls?
One night, I noticed some people there from the first baptist church that had recently been infiltrated by modernists who had moved into my community. The next day, they started saying that the preachers were making the kids afraid by preaching about hell.
Unfortunately, there is a trend in Modernism, distantly related I think to Universalism, which is afraid of preaching things about the Christian faith which might potentially frighten people. As an example, the Revised Common Lectionary omits 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 , presumably because the editors thereof do not want to risk discouraging the frequent reception of Holy Communion, but I feel this is misguided, as the entirety of what the Apostle Paul preached concerning the Holy Communion should be heard.
That being said, if you had preachers who were actually frightening the children through their sermons, concerning hellfire and damnation and related topics, I would argue they were doing a poor job of preaching on the subject. A good sermon should stress how our Lord defeated Hell on the cross and how those who believe on him can be saved and receive life everlasting.
Then they put up signs with symbols on them representing easy believism.
Could you describe these signs and the symbols on them?
They claimed that all you had to do was believe a summary about Jesus in 1st Corinthians 15 anytime you wanted, and you would be automatically saved. I had never heard such heresy, but I got on Facebook in different groups and noticed many churches teaching that false doctrine.
That sounds very strange; I personally have never encountered that, and I am also confused, because earlier you had indicated that your local modernists were claiming that Paul’s teachings were different from those of our Lord, and invalid.
I'm not talking about works; I am talking about at sometime people started preaching the easy believism. I can't find any evidence of anyone preaching that prior to the 1980s.
Actually, it has been preached, in its present form, since at least the 16th, 17th or 18th century, when you had the emergence of explicitly Universalist churches, as well as churches which de-emphasized the need for personal repentance, and also, heretical Unitarian churches which denied the deity of our Lord and went on, subsequently, in the 19th century, to deny the need for faith in Jesus Christ in order to receive salvation. Theological modernism I would argue coalesced in the 18th century from various “Enlightenment” ideals and formed over the course of the 19th century into what we know today, which is a theology I do thoroughly reject.
