The Real History of the Baptists
With the corruption of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, an Augustinian priest named Martin Luther, overreacted in his attack against the corruption of the hierarchy and was then later excommunicated in 1521 for denying the historical understanding of salvation.
In 1517 Germany, during Martin Luther’s first attack on the historic Christian doctrines, another preacher named Thomas Munzer attacked Martin Luther’s position on how the Church should follow Christ and be saved. Just before his execution in 1525, he recanted everything, made a good confession, received Communion, and died united to the Catholic Church.
Though he maintained Luther’s positions on the new doctrines of the Bible Alone and Salvation by Faith Alone, Munzer also believed the sacrament of baptism to infants was not valid since infants couldn’t believe or make a decision in belief. Therefore, his new position was that all babies who were baptized must at the age of reason make a confession of faith and be re-baptized as a sign of the individual’s new belief in Christ.
Munzer also denied the sacrament of the Eucharist claiming Christ did not become transubstantiated on the altar of Catholic churches. He believed the Eucharist was merely a symbolic gesture of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. He once undermined the Catholic Mass by using pretzels and beer as meal offerings in place of bread and wine to prove he did not believe in the sacrificial character or the Real Presence. Most Baptists today use crackers and grape juice to indicate the same belief as Munzer.
In 1525, a Catholic priest named Menno Simons set up the first Anabaptist churches. Their purpose was to establish what they held as a spiritual kingdom of converts to real Christianity independent of all civil and church authority. This historic fact debunks Dr. Carroll’s contention that Anabaptists existed before the Reformation.
The term Anabaptist or “Re”baptist stems from the fact that these new Protestants practiced rebaptism for all those converted out of the Roman Catholic Church. The rebaptisms always took place with water being poured over the top of the head just as the Roman Catholic Church had been doing for 1500 years. Never was total body immersion thought to be necessary.
Menno Simons’ new church came to be known as the Mennonites. The Amish today are one of several sects that have split from the Mennonite Church. They appear to be one and the same to many outside of these two religions.
In 1602, an Anglican priest named John Smyth refusing to conform to the Church of England fled England to Amsterdam, Holland and tried to become a Mennonite. He went so far as to rebaptise himself by pouring water over top of his own head. Again, as an Anglican, he never thought that one needed to be immersed. However, doubting the validity of his self-administered baptism was again rebaptised by the Dutch Mennonites for his third baptism. Due to his views on salvation, the Mennonites later rejected him.
In 1609, he established what we could rightly call the very first Baptist Church in history. In 1611, John Smyth with his friend Thomas Helwys compiled a “Confession” or a “Declaration of Faith” combining Martin Luther’s new doctrines: the Bible alone is the sole authority of faith, and a faith alone for salvation with adult (children but not infants) believers only to be baptized (no mention of immersion as the practice was then of pouring). It also stated the Church must be completely separated from the state. All civil authorities were to take care of temporal affairs only and allow the freedom of religion to all.
The fatal flaws pertaining to these positions is a church constantly dividing, which always comes with a bible only belief, leaving the ultimate interpretation of the Scriptures to each individual. The other is a state that is separated from the Church will always result in an anti-religious state, just as it did in America with its false democratic government which keeps out the reign of Christ as King of its society.
After the death of John Smyth in 1612, Helwys along with his companions returned to England to set up its first Baptist Church at Spitalfields, in London. Thomas Helwys later died in 1616.
The first two churches along with the members were known as the General Baptists for their teaching of the general atonement for all men. They believed in the total free will of man to choose to be saved. Again, they believed in pouring water in baptism until they adopted the method of immersion in 1650 by the splinter group known as the
Immersion Baptists founded in 1644. This group was an offshoot of yet another splinter group called the Particular Baptists founded in the mid 1630’s.
It was the Immersion Baptists with their new confession of faith that sealed forever the name that came to be known as the Baptist church. However, they would merge back with the Particular Baptists and become one.
The Particular Baptists founded by John Spillsbury in Southwark, England did not hold to the belief of the general atonement. This group based its beliefs on the new doctrines first founded by the notorious Protestant Reformer John Calvin who claimed a limited (particular) atonement of Christ’s sacrifice and along with Luther believed in double-predestination.
Though very Calvinistic at first, they were influenced by the teachings of the Anglican clergymen John and Charles Wesley. With this influence, William Carey in 1792 established missionaries following the example of Roger Williams, the Anglican priest turned Baptist convert who came to America establishing its first Baptist church. He later died rejecting his baptism and organized religion altogether.
In 1891, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland were formed by a unification of General and Particular Baptists. However, many Baptist churches refused to join in the union, leaving them to be independent churches.
The Baptist churches in America grew quickly and in 1845 divided in three major Conventions: Northern, Southern, and Colored (Black). Later they divided again and again into many different sects. Today there are American Baptists, American Baptists USA, Baptist Bible Fellowship, Missionary Baptists, Bethel Baptists, Central Baptists, Conservative Baptists, Baptist Church of Christ, Free Will Baptists, General Baptists, Landmark Baptists, National Baptists, National Baptists USA, National Missionary Baptists, National Primitive Baptists, North American Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Progressive Baptists, Reformed Baptists, Separate Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Southern Baptists, United Baptists, United Free Will Baptists, Berean Fundamental Baptists, Bible Fellowship Baptists, Bible Protestant Baptists, and Bible Way Baptists.
. Luther condemned many congregations (for, BTW, holding what is now baptist doctrine) and said that they were "among us but not a part of us." They joined the Protestant movement but quickly wanted to reform the Reformers. Your statement that there was only the Catholic Church (if you mean a Church under the rule of a Pope) is incorrect. But your point is well taken about Baptists who protest being called Protestant.