Free Christian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Free Christians, sometimes known as ‘non-subscribing’ Protestants or ‘non-creedal’ Dissenters, are theologically unorthodox liberal Christians who, in good conscience, can not subscribe to any fixed creeds.
Free Christians are positioned at the opposite end of the theological spectrum to Fundamentalist Christianity.
In mainland Britain, most Free Christians who profess a denominational allegiance can be found within the ranks of the Quakers and the Unitarians. Today, Free Christians in both dominations co-exist, sometimes controversially, with those who consider themselves universalist, agnostic, atheist, pagan, or nontheist, or do not accept a religious label of any description.
[edit] Free Christians, the Free Churches, and Arminianism
(1) Free Christians are Free church but most Free Churches are not Free Christian. Free Church is another way of describing Non-Conformists and Free Christians are a minority grouping within non-conformity. The majority of non-conformists have subscribed to their denominational creed and, since the late nineteenth century, most of these denominations have been able to agree common ground in the form of a new shared creed. The Doctrinal Statement of the current Free Churches Group (successor to the Free Church Federal Council, and, before the 1940s, the Federal Council of the Evangelical Free Churches of England and the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches) is based on the ‘Declaratory Statement of Common Faith and Practice’, adopted on 26th March 1917 as a doctrinal basis of the former Federal Council of Evangelical Free Churches of England.
Most non-conformist denominations, including (rather surprisingly) the Quakers, have now joined Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, the successor organisation to the British Council of Churches. Despite a willingness to collaborate with others, many Free Christians are more circumspect.
(2) Traditionally, most Free Christians have been Arminian but, again, most Arminians are not Free Christian. The Methodists have their own creeds. Whilst the Arminians within the Baptist Union of Great Britain, and the Old Baptist Union are traditionally non-creedal their theological orthodoxy sets them apart from the unorthodox Free Christians. In seventeenth century many of Quakerism's earliest converts were drawn from Baptist ranks. The following century many General Baptists joined forces with their liberal English Presbyterian counterparts in unorthodox congregations. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, Rev. Joseph Cooke was just one of those Free Christians expelled from the Wesleyan Methodists for doctrinal reasons. His supporters, the ‘Cookites’, went on to form the Methodist Unitarian movement.
Many modern-day Arminians would subscribe to the creed of the Evangelical Union. This too would obviously exclude Free Christians.
[edit] Other Uses of the Term 'Free Christian'
'Free Christians', as independent old-line Pentecostals, surfaced after World War II when a resurging group of Pentecostal ministers formed the Freie Christen Gemeinde (Free Christian Congregation) of post-war Germany in 1948. Pentecostal groups had been banned during the reign of the National-Socialist Party. This group eventually renamed itself to Bund der Freie Pfingstgemeinden (BFP) in Germany during the 1980s. However, some of their churches throughout Germany still carry the founding name.
One of the original founders, Rev. Emanuel Fritz, (b. 1910 in Posen Prussia), relocated to Milwaukee, WI in the USA. In 1956 he formed a religious organization that used Freie Christen Gemeinde (Free Christian Congregation) as its name. This denomination functioned primarily as a ministry outreach to German immigrants until 1987, having churches in USA and Canada. (Rev. Fritz is retired and now resides near Adams, WI.)
Because of declining memberships, the denomiation discontinued its work in 1989 as an exclusive church ministry body. It reorganized as a missions outreach with Rev. Harry Fritz as its President and, although still existent today, now only supports other missions organizations and ministers. The organization remains officially headquartered in Wisconsin, but the business offices moved to Raleigh, NC when Rev. Harry Fritz relocated in 1999 to serve the resurgent new wave of German immigrants moving into the southern states. In 2007, the ministry began adding other language groups into its outreach as it works with church leaderships of various Christian denominations in establishing home missions for incoming cultures.
