Free Will Baptists have a rather splendid and extended heritage in education. Hillsdale College in Michigan, Rio Grande in Ohio, and Bates College in Maine were, along with other institutions of note, founded by Benjamin Randall’s group of Free Will Baptists in New England. Bates College still maintains an excellent collection of the literature of that movement. Of course, these schools lost their identity as Free Will Baptists in the 1911 merger with the Northern Baptists. While Free Will Baptists in the South and West were not as quick to enter the educational arena, the late 19th and early centuries did reveal new interest in these areas. In 1890, the Annual Conference in North Carolina appointed its first educational committee, and by 1898, the movement had completed facilities for the Free Will Baptist Theological Seminary. The school was located in Ayden, North Carolina, and, under the direction of Principle J.E.B. Davis, offered training for primary and high school students and for those planning to be involved in Christian ministry. The course in theology included formal Theology, Free Will Baptist doctrine and history, Luke in Greek, and Preaching. By the end of 1898, Thomas E. Peden, an educator from Ohio, had come … Continue reading Free Will Baptists and Education