Basic question: Are Baptists Protestant?

[saturneptune]

Invisible.....?!?

I am always glad to have a discussion with you even with I think we might disagree, as your posts are always based on a spiritual principle, even if we disagree, and most of all, it is civil. I think the difference between visible and invisible in the Protestant and Catholic models is that Catholics think their chain of churches and its members, constitute the mass of truly saved people. They basically believe they are the one true church, and Protestants and Baptists are on their way to the other place.

Mainline Protestants on the other hand, look at the true church as believers from every denomination, bonded by faith in Jesus Christ, and emphasize a universal church. The connection between true believers is spiritual or invisible.

I am sure there is wording to better explain it. Baptists accomplish the work of the Lord through the local church. This is where the real debate starts. I do think there is a universal church, but it will not be of any significance until end times. We now work through our local churches.

 

[HankD]

Are you an Anabaptist or Roman Catholic?

Neither.

Anabaptist implies re-baptism.

My parents had me "Christened" in the RCC as a baby.

I was baptised at Tremont Temple Baptist Church.
My wife and I were baptised together.

HankD

 

[ktn4eg]

Invisible.....?!?

Way back in the last century, I recall reading a line in a Baptist newspaper [I'm not 100% positive as to which newspaper it was.] this statement:

"They call it the 'invisible church' because you can't see it in the Bible!"

 

[Iconoclast]

Way back in the last century, I recall reading a line in a Baptist newspaper [I'm not 100% positive as to which newspaper it was.] this statement:

"They call it the 'invisible church' because you can't see it in the Bible!"

:laugh::laugh::laugh:this is the best

 

[saturneptune]

:laugh::laugh::laugh:this is the best

Yes the best. The universal church becomes the focus at the Second Coming. Now, the local church carries out the work of God. The universal church never held a worship service, administered the Lord's Supper or a baptism, took up an offering, helped the poor, visited the sick, sent out folks to tell others about Jesus, or held a Sunday School. At this point in time, the universal church is a useless entity.

 

[Jordan Kurecki]

No Baptists are not Protestants.

Baptists have historically always protested infant baptism and believed in a regenerated church membership.

There is a trail of blood of those who would refuse to submit to infant baptism long before the Protestant reformation.

We have never been part of the Catholic Church and Baptists have historically been in opposition to state churches: While Martin Luther and John Calvin and many of the other protestant reformers had no problem forcing religion with the sword.

The Trail of Blood is there if you look for it.

I am quite aware of the fact that there have not always been a group with the name "Baptist" but there have always been those who have opposed the state churches and opposed infant baptism, Hence the name Baptist.

 

[saturneptune]

No Baptists are not Protestants.

Baptists have historically always protested infant baptism and believed in a regenerated church membership.

There is a trail of blood of those who would refuse to submit to infant baptism long before the Protestant reformation.

We have never been part of the Catholic Church and Baptists have historically been in opposition to state churches: While Martin Luther and John Calvin and many of the other protestant reformers had no problem forcing religion with the sword.

The Trail of Blood is there if you look for it.

I am quite aware of the fact that there have not always been a group with the name "Baptist" but there have always been those who have opposed the state churches and opposed infant baptism, Hence the name Baptist.

I basically agree with your post. No, I do not believe we can point to a generation by generation succession like on a family tree to the apostles, but a little common sense proves your point. As Christ promised to preserve the NT church, how was it preserved until the Reformation? Anyone with any discernment and any common sense can come to the conclusion the RCC did not, so who was it? It was autonomous local churches called various names that were of like faith and order of the modern Baptist church. Certainly since the Reformation, preserving the NT church has been helped by the formation of the mainline Protestant churches, but we did not come from the RCC, and are in no way Protestants.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

I am neither Protestant, nor Baptist, or Calvinist, or Armenian, or religious!

I love this first line of your post, RD2. Absolutely right on the mark! :thumbsup:

I have been born-again, and that means I have a relationship with the Father, and that makes me an heir to the throne, as the Bride of Christ. A Child of the King of King! I am more than that anything this world can label me as, because I am now a Child of God!

Protestant, Baptist, Calvinist, Armenian. Those are things the world uses in order to classify us!

I am a peculiar being now that I am His! I am the salt to the world, the light upon the hill. I am more than a label the world gives in order to define me and my beliefs to fit their understandings!

Those other words are mere attempts to classify me. I am no longer able to be defined in the eyes of this world, because until they know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they can not truly know or understand what God has done within this body of flesh and soul! The Word says, they can't understand because they do not have or possess the spirit of a born-again person! Only when they are born-again will they know what we have that sets us apart from the world.

Thanks for this topic. It is a great one. And I appreciated sharing my view! :wavey:

And I appreciated what you shared. Thanks.

No Baptists are not Protestants.

Baptists have historically always protested infant baptism and believed in a regenerated church membership.

There is a trail of blood of those who would refuse to submit to infant baptism long before the Protestant reformation.

We have never been part of the Catholic Church and Baptists have historically been in opposition to state churches: While Martin Luther and John Calvin and many of the other protestant reformers had no problem forcing religion with the sword.

The Trail of Blood is there if you look for it.

I am quite aware of the fact that there have not always been a group with the name "Baptist" but there have always been those who have opposed the state churches and opposed infant baptism, Hence the name Baptist.

AMEN, Jordan! :thumbsup:

 

[Jordan Kurecki]

I basically agree with your post. No, I do not believe we can point to a generation by generation succession like on a family tree to the apostles, but a little common sense proves your point. As Christ promised to preserve the NT church, how was it preserved until the Reformation? Anyone with any discernment and any common sense can come to the conclusion the RCC did not, so who was it? It was autonomous local churches called various names that were of like faith and order of the modern Baptist church. Certainly since the Reformation, preserving the NT church has been helped by the formation of the mainline Protestant churches, but we did not come from the RCC, and are in no way Protestants.

Amen Brother.

 

[Van]

Historians trace the earliest church labeled "Baptist" back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor.[3] In accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults.[4] Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect.

The commonly found reason for disavowing the title "Protestant" is the belief we separated from the Church of England, rather than directly from Rome.

Note one characteristic is we believe in the separation of church and state, thus mirroring separation from the state church of England.

 

[Van]

The OP seems to share quite a bit with this:

http://www.baptistbasics.org/baptists/b007.php

 

[kyredneck]

Really. Sheesh d-CON, you could've at least linked to that article to give it the credit it's due in your OP. As is it appears, you 'dressed it up' to make it look like it's your composition.

 

[go2church]

Trail of Blood is bad history, at best.

 

[OldRegular]

Baptists are not Protestants. Protestant Churches all carry some baggage from the Roman Catholic Religion. If there is anything in Baptist doctrine that is baggage from Roman Catholicism I wish someone would enlighten all who believe as I do.

I will add on caveat. The Freewill Baptist Churches believe that one can be saved and then be not saved!

 

[Thomas Helwys]

The confusion arises because people fail to take into account that there have been two different kinds of Baptists from almost the beginning, the General Baptists who came out of the Anabaptist movement, and the Particular Baptists who did not but rather came out of British Puritan Independency or Congregationalism. The latter were Protestant, the former not so much.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

The confusion arises because people fail to take into account that there have been two different kinds of Baptists from almost the beginning, the General Baptists who came out of the Anabaptist movement, and the Particular Baptists who did not but rather came out of British Puritan Independency or Congregationalism. The latter were Protestant, the former not so much.

And what of those who were always Baptists...prior to Anabaptists and Particulars?

 

[convicted1]

Yes, baptists are protestants. They'll protest anything/everything... LOL

 

[saturneptune]

Yes, baptists are protestants. They'll protest anything/everything... LOL

In West Virginia, Catholics, Protestants and Baptists are all together in one accord. The tie that binds is that none of them can read, so Bible pictionarys sell like Crum hot cakes.

 

[Rippon]

The confusion arises because people fail to take into account that there have been two different kinds of Baptists from almost the beginning, the General Baptists who came out of the Anabaptist movement, and the Particular Baptists who did not but rather came out of British Puritan Independency or Congregationalism. The latter were Protestant, the former not so much.

I'd say the above is true.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer, as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.

—Charles H. Spurgeon​

Christian history, in the First Century, was strictly and properly Baptist history, although the word "Baptist," as a distinctive appellation was not then known. How could it be? How was it possible to call any Christians Baptist Christians, when all were Baptists?"

—William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881, p. 286.​

You might want to take note that 1608 was at least 100 years before other congregations emerged that took this same stance. It was foreign to the reformed movement, and these Baptists were persecuted by Reformers for preaching what they considered heresy.

The first known Baptist Congregation was formed by a number of these fleeing separatists in Amsterdam, Holland in 1608. It was largely made up of British persons led by John Smyth who along with Thomas Helwys, sought to set up the group according to New Testament patterns. As they saw it, it was important to 'reconstitute' and not just 'reform' the Church. There was emphasis placed on personal conversion and on baptism, which was to be given to individuals who had personally professed faith in Jesus Christ, that is, to believers only and on mutual covenanting between and among believers. Though taking some years to crystallize, the reconstituting efforts of Smyth, Helwys and others gave distinctive shape not only to the group's belief and practice, but the various others which emerged from it. Some affiliated groups started when members of the Amsterdam group went back to Britain and took the name 'Baptist' to identify themselves. This had to do with the distinctive approach to the meaning and mode of baptism.

With the continuing religious and civil disturbances, and with the new awareness in Europe of North America, many persons, including those influenced by Baptists and related beliefs, practices and groups, crossed the Atlantic to build a 'New World'. They sought not only to establish dwellings, but their faith as well. In time the entire continent, but particularly the Eastern section, was affected, Baptist Churches, being among the many institutions, which sprang up in the seventeenth century. All these shaped not only the new American Environment, but eventually impacted beyond it as well.

—William Cathcart, Baptist Historian/Author​

The American Baptists deny that they owe their origin to Roger Williams. The English Baptists will not grant that John Smyth or Thomas Helwysse was their founder. The Welsh Baptists strenuously contend that they received their creed in the first century, from those who obtained it, direct, from the apostles themselves. The Dutch Baptists trace their spiritual pedigree up to the same source. German Baptists maintained that they were older than the reformation, older than the corrupt hierarchy which it sought to reform. The Waldensian Baptists boasted an ancestry far older than Waldo, older than the most ancient of their predecessors in the Vales of Piedmont. All these maintain that it ultimately reappears, and reveals their source in Christ and His apostles."

—(pp. 34-35 - The Testimony of the Baptists, by Curtis A. Pugh quoting William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881, pp. 620-621.)​

Baptists were not part of the Reformation: they existed before it and outside it; they were despised, persecuted, and even killed by the Reformers. Baptists were not Protestants, in that existing outside Rome from the apostles they never protested against it, for they knew her abominations were by prophecy. Baptists have never and would never credit the RCC as ever being a true church. Baptists have never and would never credit RCC baptisms or ordinations as valid. That means, in the strictest sense, Luther and Calvin were never baptized or ordained as were the apostles. Therefore, neither had a valid standing by which to "reform" anything, and they should have been doing as the Baptists did, "restore" or "return" rather than "reform."

This is not to counter what I've said, that much of what Reformed theology teaches I can embrace. But not all of it, and it is so much more than Calvin's five points. Baptists are not from the Reformation. They are from the true church Christ commissioned in the First Century.