Featured Baptists = Protestants?

It is worthwhile for anyone wanting factual data on the matter to consult this work by Gerald L. Priest from Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.

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The two main origins views of Baptist are

1. The English Separatist view best articulated by historian Leon McBeth.

2. The Baptist successionism/perpetuity view best articulated by John T. Christian. Carroll's Trail of Blood is also in this vein but of significantly inferior scholarship compared to John T. Christian's, A History of Baptists.


I subscribe to the English Separatist view (which is an extension of protestantism). Those who support baptist successionism usually do so because of distaste for association with groups they theologically are at odds with and not because of any actual historical evidence.

 

While there were groups that held to theologies that were similar to believer's baptism and some other theologies we align with the name Baptist, their influence on the first groups to be labelled Baptist (by critics no less) were slim to none. The Anabaptists had a strong influence being a contemporary of the first Baptists but the largest influence of the first Baptists is still from separatist puritanism.

We can try to assign some spiritual significance to these groups in the past who have been persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church and maybe God also sees an association between these disparate groups. But it would be dishonest to say there is any historical evidence connecting these very different groups separated by large gaps in time, geography and theological heritage.

 

Would sate that I see what we call "Baptist theology" as being basically what the Apostles and the earliest christians held to and practiced, but that we also in many ways came out of the reformation, especially those here who hold to reformed baptist teachings!

 

I agree with you on Zwingli. I include him under the heading of Anabaptist whose influence on the early baptists were significant. You are correct that he was not Anabaptist.

 

I don't really know about all that stuff I call my self a Bible believing Christian and a follower of Christ that happens to worship at a independent Baptist Church

 

Baptists = Protestants?

No. Being a former Catholic , I do not "protest" against the Church of Rome, I have separated from it.


The Universal Church:

Hebrews 12
22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

HankD

 

Well, yes that's partially true Jon especially on the individual level.

But there are Anglo-Catholic churches that still call the worship service a "mass". I went to one here in California and it certainly even looked like a mass.

Lutherans call the communion part of the service where the bread and wine are blessed "consubstantiation" in place of the "transubstantiation" of the Church of Rome saying that the bread and wine "contain" the body and blood of Christ (rather than being transformed into the body and blood of Christ) thereby confirming the romish "Real Presence".

I don't see how any Baptist can become a member of any church that teaches infant baptism (which most of the churches of the Protestant reformation practice). There may be a limited coming together under certain circumstances, but even then there would be confusion.

IMO, Infant baptism as a fulfillment of New Testament water baptism cannot be justified by a full study of the NT and that is what is lacking.

To me, infant baptism and anything more than symbolism of the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper demands ecclesiastical separation and not just a "protest" or even less "well, I was never Catholic, so I'm OK".

Yes, there are true born again brethren in these churches and on an individual level we could fellowship with them but personally I would find it difficult to work with them on a church level.

As circumstances recently suggested, I did visit an Anglo-Catholic church my daughter and her husband attended but I refrained from communion (I was the only one) and the liturgy unless it was the reading of the scripture.

But yes, they were "Protestants" (and I would say - just barely).


HankD

 

Please explain. Have you visited some of these "Roman Catholic-flavored Protestant churches? Please flesh-out your answer.

You certainly can't be referencing conservative Presbyterian and Reformed Baptist churches.

 

Philosophically, yes. Historically, it depend on your definition of "Protestant".

 

As an elder in a Reformed Baptist church, I'd be curious to know how you came to this conclusion.

 

Infant baptism is apostasy. It is another gospel which is not another. Paul says such is anathema. He leaves no wiggle room.

How does one reform apostasy? Luther tried to reform Rome. He got defrocked and banished. He persecuted True Baptists, etal. So did Calvin. These folk are pedobaptists; so are their progeny.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James

 

Infant baptism is a man-made anti-scriptural teaching. But to claim that those who abide by it have departed from the faith and fall under the condemnation of Gal. 1:8 and 9 --is going too far BJ.

He wasn't defrocked --he willingly left. He was banished --he stayed right where he was.

You and I are of their progeny --like it or not --it's a fact.