Do we have any Reformed Baptists on our site now then?

[DaveXR650]

I think you have switched from claiming Reformed Baptists adhere to traditional baptist distinctives, to claiming "reformed baptists" established the Baptist tradition. So we go from scripture based doctrines, to discussion of history.

No. What I'm saying is what your Wikipedia quote is saying. That the origin of all Baptists came out of the Puritans, specifically Congregationalists and Separatists, and thus all the Baptists can trace our origins to the Reformation and to the Puritans, the vast majority of whom were Calvinists. If you like Wikipedia then look up the entry on John Smyth. It goes into more detail on what I was talking about with his later connection with Mennonite and AnaBaptists and the problems it caused.

So, relating this to your earlier statement:

Bottom line, Reformed Baptists are really just a subset of Reformed churches.

That is true of all Baptists and while I don't deny that in any given church you could move from non-Calvinist to Calvinist or vice versa, in general, you don't want to give the impression that a Calvinistic Baptist church is a relatively new thing when it fact it was there from the beginning of what we call "Baptists". The fact is Reformed Baptists did establish the Baptist distinctives, at least those explained in the Wikipedia article. We have the names of people and we have their writings, as the Wikipedia article cited so this is not arguable. If anyone has some different information please let me know as I don't claim to be an expert on this and haven't looked at it in a while anyway.

 

[Van]

No. What I'm saying is what your Wikipedia quote is saying. That the origin of all Baptists came out of the Puritans, specifically Congregationalists and Separatists, and thus all the Baptists can trace our origins to the Reformation and to the Puritans, the vast majority of whom were Calvinists. If you like Wikipedia then look up the entry on John Smyth. It goes into more detail on what I was talking about with his later connection with Mennonite and AnaBaptists and the problems it caused.

So, relating this to your earlier statement:

That is true of all Baptists and while I don't deny that in any given church you could move from non-Calvinist to Calvinist or vice versa, in general, you don't want to give the impression that a Calvinistic Baptist church is a relatively new thing when it fact it was there from the beginning of what we call "Baptists". The fact is Reformed Baptists did establish the Baptist distinctives, at least those explained in the Wikipedia article. We have the names of people and we have their writings, as the Wikipedia article cited so this is not arguable. If anyone has some different information please let me know as I don't claim to be an expert on this and haven't looked at it in a while anyway.

Sir, it is pointless to continue. I post "A" and you claim the post said "B."

 

[DaveXR650]

Sir, it is pointless to continue. I post "A" and you claim the post said "B."

I was just trying to point out the errors in your first post where you incorrectly describe Reformed Baptists and don't seem to be aware of the origins of Baptists. But you are correct that it is pointless to continue.

 

[Van]

Here is a question that I expect no "Reformed Baptist" will answer:

What are the distinctives that differ between a "Reformed" believer and a "Reformed Baptist" believer?

​

1) Not all Reformed Churches adhere to infant baptism, some to only believer's baptism. For example, John MacArthur, John Piper and others.​

2) Not all Reformed Churches adhere to "Amillennialism," some hold to Premillennialism.​

3) Not all Reformed Churches adhere to the "Regulative Principle of Worship," some hold to the Normative Principle of worship.​

4) Not all Reformed Churches adhere to the membership of the children of members, or allow these children to participate in Communion.​

Reformed Baptists are really just a subset of Reformed churches. Like Reformed, they deny the lost have the liberty to believe, being unable due to Total Spiritual Inability. However, Soul Liberty is a distinctive of Baptists. Baptists believe the lost have the actual opportunity to obtain salvation by grace through faith, whereas the Reformed believe the lost were saved or damned from before time began.

Another Baptist distinctive is that each local assemble of believers have the liberty, ability, to decide for themselves based on scripture, what they believe. At the other end of the spectrum are those that believe that the traditional beliefs determined in posterity dictate what we must believe, such as the London Baptist Confession of Faith. All those that adhere to the TULIP seem unwilling to accept any scripture that precludes its doctrines. They read into scripture "no one ever seeks after God" and refuse to consider it might mean no one always seeks after God, because we all sin.