Trail of Blood Video.

[saturneptune]

Pick your poison...
Do you trace your religious heritage through the heresies of the Catholic Church
or
Do you trace your religious heritage through the heresies of the donatists, montanists, etc?

The Trail of Blood is fantasy birdcage material.

Tim,
How are you doing? Long time no see. I have read on my own quite a bit on the subject, as I never went to seminary or college for any kind of Chrisitan vocation. My opinion is that there may, and I emphasize may, be a loose connection throughout 2000 years of history with the true New Testement Church that the gates of hell would not prevail against. There is obviously no group to group or person to person succession.

However, the preservation of the church is obviously not the Catholic Church either, before or after the Reformation. It is more a matter of elimination than proof. There are some things that bother me though, when we get into the realm of modern Baptists in the United States, Southern or otherwise, being a direct reflection of the New Testement Church. It is not that individual local churches do not act like the original church, it is just that as an overall trend, the signs are disturbing. Would Jesus Christ want His church today to have a sixty percent attendance rate on a good day? Would the true church have to beg its members to attend church, visit the sick and the lost, and help the poor? Was the church that Jesus Christ established destined to be full of lazy pew sitters? As was pointed out in another thread, would the New Testement Church established by Jesus Christ be more worried about people's vices than their salvation?

Another poster pointed out another good point above, and that is church membership. In Acts, members were received the same day into the local church. Things such as multi week or multi month classes of indoctrination to obtain membership is not Biblical, and is basically another case of the Catholic Church warping the Scriptures. I cannot think of one instance in the Bible where someone walked up front to ask for church membership, and the Pastor told them to enroll in a class, make a passing grade, and come back for a vote. To me, that is a bunch of baloney, and trends like this do not reflect signs of being the church Jesus Christ established.

Our local church does not practice such nonsense. I have always wondered who establishes the standards for what people going to these classes have to learn, and what makes their curriculum correct. It seems to me the Holy Spirit in each individual is a much better guide.

You may not agree with me on this one, but to me, as important as getting a magnifying glass and looking at every group, sect, or whatever that existed along side the Catholic Church to prove something is not near as important as looking at the state of the church that is allegedly the successor. It reminds me of people in the OT who were so worried about genealogy to Abraham, a totally worthless concept.

 

[saturneptune]

In my seminary work, I did a survey of Montanism. There are a number of histories that detail their heresies.

The Donatists were much more normal, but believed that a pure clergy was necessary for the ordinance of baptism. I am not sure I would consider them heretics in the same vein as Manicheans or Arians.

That being said...

As a believer in the local church, I do not need to follow either the Catholic Church or the schismatics. I believe that scriptural local churches existed in either or both sides of these schisms. I can not deny that and still be a believer in the scriptures.

Jesus' words in Matthew 28 were very clear to me, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen."

I am with you until the end of the world. The injuction was clear... go, evangelize, baptist, and catechize until the end of the world. Jesus will be with you as you do. If there was no scriptural baptism for hundreds of years, the Jesus was a liar to promise it.

Further, there is a scriptural pattern to the way that someone is scripturally added to the church. According to the description of Luke in the book of Acts, "those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day" (Acts 2:41).

The biblical pattern is salvation, then baptism, then addition to the church. This pattern must be followed in order to have a scirptural assembly. The Lord in his Word several times promised that such scriptural assemblies would perpetuate throughout human history.

I believe Jesus!

Which is why there are histories that detail the history of those, who, according to the Martyrs Mirror were "baptized only upon Confession of Faith...." Yes, there has been scriptural baptism throughout the ages. Those congregations who baptized those who had already come to faith. Baptists are part of that movement that started with Christ building his first church during his personal minsitry.

Welcome to Baptist Board. As I said to Tim, I think we need to look at the church in modern America, ie the Baptist, and see if it lines up with the characteristics of the churches in Scripture. I totally agree with your points about receiving members. Our local church does not practice going through some kind of indoctrination class. We receive them the day they ask to join. Catholics and Nazis used indoctrination classes. I believe the Holy Spirit in us is our Indoctrinator. Also, how do we stack up as modern day local Baptist churches in carrying out the Great Commission, committment to the Lord in attendance, visiting the sick, helping the poor, and other things that Jesus did? It seems that we are much more interested in being begged to come to church, attend pot lucks, and gossip about other people's vices.

 

[rlvaughn]

Some criticism is of the groups cited by Landmarkers as part of the succession link. Most of the time is that one or more of them held to weird beliefs, which seems to automatically eliminate them as a progenitor of Baptists.

Tom, I have been amazed at those who personally fellowship all sorts of weird beliefs under the name Baptist yet will not allow any weird beliefs among those we claim as progenitors.

 

[Tom Butler]

Tom, I have been amazed at those who personally fellowship all sorts of weird beliefs under the name Baptist yet will not allow any weird beliefs among those we claim as progenitors.

Ain't that the truth!

By the way, welcome back! You haven't posted for a while, but I'm assuming you drop in occasionally. I miss your contributions.

 

[Tom Butler]

I think we can create so many criteria that no New Testament congregation could qualify. But if you narrow the criteria, then the Trail of Blood comes out better.

So, how about this: Let's define a NT church (or Baptist) by its view of the way of salvation and its views on baptism.

First, salvation is through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not of works.

Second, baptism is for believers only, by immersion; non-sacramental, symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus; by the proper authority--that is, a baptized believer authorized by a New Testament church.

That's it. Let's don't mess with ecclesiology or eschatology. Shoot, we don't agree among ourselves in the 21st century about those things.

With those criteria, then some of those groups that folks want to eliminate as Baptist pro-genitors just might be back in the family.

We have enough to debate about baptism, since a lot of Baptist churches are accepting non-Baptist baptism these days.

 

[rlvaughn]

By the way, welcome back! You haven't posted for a while, but I'm assuming you drop in occasionally. I miss your contributions.

Thanks so much. I try to drop by and check on things once in awhile, but most of my posts nowadays are on my blog (and a few others).