Daniel Parker was a leader in the Primitive Baptist Church in the Southern United States. As an elder, Parker led a group who separated from that church and formed the Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists

Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists

Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists are part of a larger sub-group of Baptists that is commonly referred to as "anti-mission" Baptists. This sub-group includes the Duck River and Kindred Baptists, Old Regular Baptists, some Regular Baptists and some United Baptists...

. Parker is one of the earliest documented proponents of the doctrine of Serpent Seed

Serpent seed

The doctrine of Serpent seed, dual seed or two-seedline is a controversial doctrine according to which the serpent in the Garden of Eden mated with Eve, and the offspring of their union was Cain. This belief is still held by some adherents of the Christian Identity theology, who claim that the...

 among Protestant Christianity.

Early life

Daniel Parker was born on April 6, 1781, in Culpeper County, Virginia. He was the oldest son of John Parker, a former Continental soldier, and Sarah (White) Parker. The family moved to Elbert County, Georgia around 1785. Daniel professed conversion before the Nail's Creek Baptist Church in Franklin County, Georgia, and was baptized on January 19, 1802. He married Patsy Dickerson on March 11, 1802. In 1803, John & Sarah, Daniel & Patsy, and other Parker family members moved to Dickson County, Tennessee. Before the Parkers moved to Tennessee, the Nail's Creek church had licensed Daniel to the ministry. In August 1803, Daniel and Patsy settled on Turnbull Creek. The Turnbull Baptist Church was organized by fourteen members (mostly the Parker family) in the home of John Parker in April 1806. The Turnbull Church ordained Daniel Parker as a minister of the gospel on May 28, 1806. Daniel and Patsy moved to Crawford County, Illinois in December 1817, shortly before Illinois entered the Union.

Religious leadership

Elder Parker was one of the earlier ministers to speak out against the "missions" movement. In 1820, while living in Vincennes, Indiana

Vincennes, Indiana

Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 18,701 at the 2000 census...

, he released a booklet entitled "A Public Address to the Baptist Society, and Friends of Religion in General, on the Principle and Practice of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions for the United States of America." The Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, organized at Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

 in 1814, is best known as the Triennial Convention

Triennial Convention

The Triennial Convention, founded in 1814, was the first national Baptist denomination in the United States of America. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it was formed to advance missionary work...

, but its official name was the "General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States." Objections by Baptists to the Convention were based on both soteriology

Soteriology

The branch of Christian theology that deals with salvation and redemption is called Soteriology. It is derived from the Greek sōtērion + English -logy....

 and ecclesiology

Ecclesiology

Today, ecclesiology usually refers to the theological study of the Christian church. However when the word was coined in the late 1830s, it was defined as the science of the building and decoration of churches and it is still, though rarely, used in this sense.In its theological sense, ecclesiology...

. He was a strict Predestinarian, but his chief objections in the booklet are based on ecclesiology - for example, "They have violated the right or government of the Church of Christ in forming themselves into a body and acting without of the union." Several important preachers on the east coast led in the "anti-missions" movement, but Parker was the leader on the frontier, and probably spoke best to the common man.

It appears that during this time, Parker was also formulating views on God and man that he would first release in his Views on the Two Seeds (1826). He taught that all persons are either of the "good seed" of God or of the "bad seed" of Satan (the children of the good seed are roughly equivalent to the "elect" of Calvinism

Calvinism

Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

, and those of the bad seed similar to the "non-elect"), and were predestined that way from the beginning; therefore, mission activity was not only unbiblical but, as a practical matter, useless since the "decision" was already made prior to birth. Many consider his theory a type of Manichaeism

Manichaeism

Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...

.

Parker's views on the "two seeds" were spread rapidly, and many members of the "anti-missions" movement accepted his doctrine, though it never achieved anything near majority status. In 1834, he and many of his followers migrated to the Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 frontier. Texas was still part of Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 and the government would allow no organization of Protestant churches in the region. Parker determined to organize a church before he arrived in Texas. The Pilgrim Predestinarian Regular Baptist Church was constituted July 26, 1833 in Illinois. It still exists today, near Elkhart, Texas

Elkhart, Texas

Elkhart is a town in Anderson County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,215 at the 2000 census. Elkhart is named for a friendly Native American who assisted the early settlers of the town.-Geography:Elkhart is located at ....

, though as "Primitive" rather than "Two-Seed." Daniel Parker's name is almost synonymous with "anti-missions", but he was one of the important frontier preachers in Texas, leading in the organization of about nine churches in the eastern part of the state.

Death

He died December 3, 1844 at the age of 63 and was buried in the Pilgrim Cemetery in Elkhart, Texas; his wife Patsy survived him by less than two years and is buried with him.

Further reading

• Frontier Religion: Elder Daniel Parker, His Religious and Political Life, by Dan B. Wimberly, Eakin Press, 2002
• Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family, by Jo Ella Powell Exley, Texas A & M University Press, 2001

Online reading

• Texas State History Association on Elder Daniel Parker
• PILGRIM PRIMITIVE BAPTIST CHURCH (Pilgrim Church, Anderson County, Texas)
• Savage Frontier, Vol. 1, 1835-1837: Rangers Riflemen & Indian Wars in Texas
• Memorial to Daniel Parker, by R. M. Newport

External links