The Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America (IBFNA) is a separatist fundamentalist independent Baptist fellowship for pastors and laymembers. Sometimes confused with the Independent Baptist Fellowship International (IBFI), the IBFNA is a northern-oriented fellowship formed by individuals who left the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) due to what they felt was a drift of the association away from their original separatist position. The Fellowship was organized in October 1990 at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Its constitution was ratified in 1993 at Providence, Rhode Island. It is composed of individuals rather than churches. Individuals must renew their membership annually; churches are recognized as 'supporting churches' by financially supporting the Fellowship. This body is very local church oriented, and all boards, institutions, and agencies remain in the hands of the churches. Articles of Faith have been adopted, containing statements on the Scriptures, the Triune God, Salvation, Sanctification, the Church, Biblical Separation, Civil Government, Creation, The Fall of Man, the Devil, and End times. The Review is a quarterly published by the IBFNA. A Conference is held annually.
In 1994, the individual members of the Fellowship were from 106 different churches, 60 of which were not affiliated with other bodies and 46 were dually aligned with the IBFNA and the GARBC. The greatest strength of this group is in Pennsylvania. A few members are located in Canada. The Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America is a member of the American Council of Christian Churches.
Famous quotes containing the words north america, independent, baptist, fellowship, north and/or america:
“The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, whether verbally or in writing, or in any other way, the real process of thought. Thought’s dictation, free from any control by the reason, independent of any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.”
—John Fawcett (1739/40–1817)
“Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Oh, it’s home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that’s westward bound to plow the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.”
—Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)