| Origins There are two general views about the origins of the Baptists, Baptist Perpetuity and Baptist Restorationism. Baptist Perpetuity The perpetuity viewpoint holds that Baptist churches and practices have had perpetual existence since the time of Christ and His apostles. This view is theologically based on Matthew 16:18 "…and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," as well as Jesus' commission and promise to be with His followers as they carried on his ministry, "even unto the end of the world." The Baptist perpetuity view sees Baptists as separate from Catholicism and other religious denominations and considers, that since the Baptist movement predates the Catholic church, it is not part of the Protestant Reformation. |
Those holding the perpetuity view
of Baptist history can be basically divided into two categories:
those who hold that there is a direct succession from one church
to the next (most commonly identified with Landmarkism), and those
who hold that while the Baptist practices and churches continued,
they may have sprung up independently of any previously existing
church. J. M. Carroll's The Trail of Blood booklet, written in 1931, has been a popular writing presenting the traditional view, pointing to groups such as the Montanists, Novatianists, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigensians, Catharists, Waldenses, and Anabaptists, as predecessors to contemporary Baptists. John T. Christian published a more scholarly history of the Baptists from a perpetuity perspective. Other Baptist historians holding the perpetuity view are Thomas Armitage, G.H. Orchard, and David Benedict. The American Baptist Association, the Baptist Missionary Association of America, and the Baptist Bible Fellowship are the groups most commonly identified with the perpetuity view today, though large numbers may be found in many Baptist groups who hold to this view of Baptist origins. |
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Baptist
Restorationism This view suggests that while the New Testament churches were of Baptist character, the movement was corrupted and eventually disappeared. They see modern day Baptists as restorers of New Testament practices, and particularly of the New Testament practice of baptism. Some restorationists see the Baptists as the descendants of the 16th century Anabaptists (which are viewed as a product of the Protestant Reformation) and others see them as a separation from the Church of England in the 1600s. Anabaptists were widely scattered churches in 16th century Europe which rejected infant baptism and "rebaptized" members as adults. They held to many teachings of modern day Baptists, such as believer's baptism by immersion and freedom of religion. Some historians see the Anabaptists and Baptists as one and the same people. Others, pointing to differences between the Anabaptists of continental Europe and the English Baptists (such as pacifism and the communal sharing of material goods) see the Anabaptists only as influencing the Baptists of a later period; in this respect there is some overlap between those who hold the Anabaptist view and those who hold the English Separatist view of Baptist origins. The works of William Roscoe Estep offer a presentation of this viewpoint. |
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The Separatists
were English Protestants in the 17th century who considered it their
duty to totally separate from the Church of England (in contrast
to the Puritans who sought to purify the Church of England from
within). In 1608, to avoid persecution, John Smyth led a group of
separatists to the more tolerant Dutch Republic where a distinctive
Baptist faith emerged among these English émigrés.
Open debate among them, and close contact and interaction with continental
Anabaptists, led the congregation to question the meaning and practice
of baptism, among other things. John Smyth became convinced that
baptism should be for Christian believers only and not for infants.
The other English émigrés agreed. At the same time as Smyth started to embrace Anabaptist doctrines, Thomas Helwys and a dozen or so others began to formulate the earliest Baptist confessions of faith. This "confession" became the 27 articles in "A Declaration of Faith of English people remaining at Amsterdam in Holland" (1611). Helwys and twelve Baptist émigrés returned to England to speak out against religious persecution. In 1612, they founded a Baptist congregation on English soil in Spitalfields, London. The congregation was comprised of General Baptists subscribing to an Arminian theology. In 1616, Henry Jacob led a group of Puritans in England with a Calvinist theology to form a congregational church which would eventually become the Particular Baptists in 1638 under John Spilsbury. Both groups had members who sailed to America as pilgrims to avoid religious persecution in England and Europe, and who started Baptist churches in the early colonies |
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