BAPTIST HISTORYLesson 2

A STUDY IN ORIGINS

1. How did Baptist founder John Smyth publically demonstrate his break from the state Church of England in 1609?

• He wrote 95 theses and posted them on the door of Westminster Cathedral

• He baptized himself and his followers• He translated the Bible into English• He sailed to America to establish a colony of Separatists.

2. Why was the idea of believer’s baptism by immersion so radical in the 17th century?

• It was a challenge to a very long church tradition.• Infant baptism gave a person a Christian name, membership in the official

church, and a recognized place in society.• The public ritual of immersion seemed disgraceful and unhealthy to many

people.• All of the above.

3. The annual Southern Baptist Christmas offering for missions is named in honor of what missionary to China?

• Hudson Taylor• Jonathon Goforth• Eric Liddell• Lottie Moon

4. Though the earliest Baptists (called General Baptists) were Arminian in their theology, a second stream of early Baptists were Calvinist. What were they called?

• Particular Baptist• Predestined Baptist• Depraved Baptist• Infallible Baptist

5. Who of the following was not a black Baptist preacher?• Martin Luther King Jr.• Nat Turner• Frederick Douglas• John Jasper

6. When this Baptist missionary-to-be brought up the Great Commission at a Baptist Association meeting, one minister supposedly retorted, ‘young man, sit down, sit down!...When God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without consulting you or me.’ In response, the young visionary wrote An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to use means for the Conversion of the Heathens.

• Adoniram Judson• William Carey• David Livingston• Hudson Taylor

7. What’s so important about the 17th century Baptist leader, Thomas Helwys?• He rebelled against his church and baptized all the infant children• He was the first missionary to Iceland• He wrote the first defense of religious liberty in the English language• He predicted the rise of the Moral Majority in America

8. What pioneering missionary embarked from America as a Congregationalist and became a Baptist on the way to India?

• William Carey• Hudson Taylor• Adoniram Judson• Lottie Moon

9. slave-turned-Baptist preacher George Liele not only founded one of the earliest black churches in America, he also became one of the first Baptist overseas missionaries when he sailed to which country?

• India• Jamaica• China• Ethiopia

10. When this Calvinist Baptist ‘Prince of Preachers’ died in 1892, the city of London went into mourning and 100,000 people lined the streets for the funeral parade.

• Dwight Moody• A B Simpson• Billy Sunday• Charles H Spurgeon

BAPTIST IDENTITY

Contemporary background

‘Baptists are not evangelicals’

Baptists are freedom loving people who’s personal, internal experience of God is greater that any exegetical truth; greater than anything that can be known outside of us

Soul Liberty

Coherent Truth

“the competency of the soul in religion” the individual subjective experience and perceptions of truths are the basic, fundamental identification of what makes a Baptist

The tenets of freedom and voluntarism would never produce a Baptist church apart from a broader foundation of theological, Christological and soteriological truths

Baptists must be Christian and Protestant evangelical believers before they can be Baptist

Four essential elements to the Coherent Truth view

I. Baptist are Orthodox

•God is a revealing God•God is a Triune God•Jesus is the God/man

II. Baptist are Evangelical

•Justification by faith•Immediacy and necessity of the Spirit’s work for salvation•Necessity and completeness of the Work of Christ•Conversion above nurture

III. Baptist are confessional and catechetical

•Confessions and catechisms have always been essential parts of Baptist church life

•Baptists have seen the necessity of the church being formed on a confession •That is personal•That is corporate

IV. Baptist are Separate

“Baptist have a ‘theologically integrated ecclesiology’ vs. our paedobaptist friends who have an inconsistent ecclesiology” Dr. Nettles

•The Church is the body of Christ from all nations, a new identity for the people of God•Visible saints/Believers church•Baptism of believers only by immersion•Discipline in the local congregation•Absence of interference or special favors from magistrates

“Baptists have traditionally argued for religious liberty for all people by advocating a free church in a free state” Nathan Finn

•The state should guarantee religious freedom for all people and never use coercion in matters of religious conviction.

•The church should concern itself with its primary mission of proclaiming the gospel and nurturing Christians in the faith and never seek to use political means to achieve gospel ends.

Protecting religious liberty for all through the separation of church and staterequires that the government neither advance nor inhibit religion. Rather, itmust be neutral toward religion—allowing people of faith to practice theirreligion as they see fit, rather than as government might want them to.Accordingly, government must accommodate religion without advancing it,protect religion without privileging it, and lift burdens on the exercise ofreligion without extending it impermissible benefits. Religious Liberty and Church State Separation J. Brent Walker

Creating countercultural Christian churches also implies that our politicalalignments will be provisional and loosely held. It also means that we will neverbe comfortably at home with any political movement or even with Americanculture itself. If Christian conservatism is going to ‘conserve’ a Christiancounterculture, we must understand the ways in which our interests aresubverted not only by an overreaching government but by an overreachingsocioeconomic culture as well. First Freedom: The Baptist Perspective on Religious Liberty, Russell D. Moore

THEORIES OF BAPTIST ORIGINS

A Question of Baptist History Dr. William H. WhitsittI. Secessionist Theories

A. Apostolic Unbroken ordinances & appointment of officers

Roman CatholicAnglican

B. Baptismal Unbroken line of proper baptisms back to John and Jesus

C. Church succession

II. Principial Continuation

A. Idealistic

B. Organic Principial Continuation

III. Anabaptist Kinship Theory Wm. R. Estep

Modern day Baptist came about from two streams of influence

AnabaptistEnglish Separatists in London influenced by Dutch traders

IV. English Separatist Descent Theory

Progression of thought amongst English Separatist only

V. A Convergent View Theory

“The (17th century) Baptist were a historically new movement (river) that was influenced to varying degrees by a number of other movements (tributaries). This influence was primarily in the realm of ideas, particularly theological ideas. And even within the category of theological ideas, most of the influence was ecclesiological in nature” NAF Toward a Convergent View of Baptists Origins, Part 2 blog post May 11th, 2009 at Between The Times

Anabaptist and the rise of Baptist

I. Magisterial Reformation

Luther CalvinEnglishDutchZwingli/Zurich

II. Radical Reformation

A. Inspirationists

a. Revolutionaryb. Quietist Inspirationalist

B. Rationalist

SOCINIANS: the view of Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) that denied the divinity of Christ and penal substitution view of the atonement

C. Biblical AnabaptistSource: the Bible and we’re going all the way back to it!

a. Swiss Brethren-Zurich/ZwingliConrad Grebel; Balthazar Hubmaier; Felix Mantz; George BlauachPious, orthodox, sacrificial

b. South German AnabaptistPilgrim Marpeck; The Testaments

c. Communitarian GroupsHutterites; Amish

d. Mennonites

III. Distinguishing Traits of Anabaptists

A. Regenerate Church MembershipB. Believer’s BaptismC. Separation of Church and StateD. PacifismE. Relevance of the Great Commission

Menno Simons