Regenerate - 04/15/02 12:06 AM
I heard a speaker last night use this word as an adjective. This usage was new to me. He pronounced it re-GEN-er-ut. I was only familiar with it as a verb, pronounced re-GEN-er-ate.
It was a pretty interesting talk. He's a doctoral student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in town, and spoke on the topic he's doing his thesis on: how the Baptists played a little-known, yet important role in the United States policy of separation of church and state. He said that they were harassed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, so Roger Williams bought an area of land around what is now Providence, Rhode Island, for any who wanted to live there free from harassment. Eventually, of course, other groups moved in. Apparently at that time (a decade or two on either side of 1800), there was something called a ministry tax (I think). The Baptists lobbied to have this meted out in what they considered a fair manner, and were rather unsuccessful. They didn't like the idea that their tax money was going to support, say, the Presbyterian minister. So they studied their scriptures, decided that the Bible did not authorize government to intrude in any way between an individual and his God, and began lobbying to do away with any tax like this, and all similar incursions.
He used the word regenerate while explaining that the Baptist leaders decided that only regenerate adults could be considered qualified Baptists (meaning, they did away with recognizing infant baptisms as enough). I asked him if by regenerate he meant born again. He said yes.
It was a pretty interesting talk. He's a doctoral student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in town, and spoke on the topic he's doing his thesis on: how the Baptists played a little-known, yet important role in the United States policy of separation of church and state. He said that they were harassed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, so Roger Williams bought an area of land around what is now Providence, Rhode Island, for any who wanted to live there free from harassment. Eventually, of course, other groups moved in. Apparently at that time (a decade or two on either side of 1800), there was something called a ministry tax (I think). The Baptists lobbied to have this meted out in what they considered a fair manner, and were rather unsuccessful. They didn't like the idea that their tax money was going to support, say, the Presbyterian minister. So they studied their scriptures, decided that the Bible did not authorize government to intrude in any way between an individual and his God, and began lobbying to do away with any tax like this, and all similar incursions.
He used the word regenerate while explaining that the Baptist leaders decided that only regenerate adults could be considered qualified Baptists (meaning, they did away with recognizing infant baptisms as enough). I asked him if by regenerate he meant born again. He said yes.
