Home

Report on Baptist History

(Printer Friendly)

I recently had the opportunity to take a class in Baptist History from the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, a part of Westminster Seminary of California. Dr. Jim Renihan was the professor and I took the class for a couple of reasons. First of all, I wanted to take the course because I had never had a class in Baptist history. In my study of the history of our nation, I had come across many places where Baptist history was an integral part of our nations history but I had never had the opportunity to see the big picture. Of course, the other reason I wanted to go out there was to have the opportunity to visit with our oldest Son, Rob and his new wife Chrissy.
I was not disappointed in any way with the class. Between the lectures by Dr. Renihan and the 5 books, and probably 200 miscellaneous pages of reading, the class was most informative and very useful. There wasn’t anything “new” in the class but it did serve to confirm many things while enforcing some wonderful old truths. I don’t intend to re-teach the class here on our website, but there are some things that were particularly helpful that I would like to point out.
One of the first issues with which he dealt was “Landmark” controversy or successionism. This is the idea that Baptists are uniquely “The Church” and the proof of that is the idea that you can trace the Baptists clear back to John the Baptist with a clear line of succession from the first century until now. My father did some research as a young man, that clearly debunked this position and in fact, he wrote a booklet entitled “CHURCH TRADITION” back in the 1930’s in which he came down against this position and so this was not something that I had to “unlearn” but it was good to verify our rejection of this position.
One of the textbooks for the class was entitled “Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History” by James Edward McGoldrick. In this book he shows what some of these groups who help form the “line” actually believed and although we won’t try to deal with all of them, let me list a few with what the believed.
Montanists – A second century group who followed a man named Montanas. Their beliefs would include women preachers and that the Montanists’ leader was qualified to receive new and extra-Biblical revelation that would conflict with the Bible.
Paulists – A third century group who followed man named Paul of Samosata. They believed that Christ was a man adopted as the Son of God.
Albigenses – A 14th Century group who believed that all flesh was evil and therefore God could never have been made flesh. They did not believe in the humanity of Christ.
There are other groups to numerous to mention, but you can understand from that which we have given, that a line that would go back to John the Baptist simply does not exist. The so-called “Trail of the Blood” is a modern invention that attempts to create something that not there.
The Roman Catholics have, of course, tried to call themselves “The Church” down thru the centuries and other groups, like the followers of Alexander Campbell have done all they could to say that they are the “Church of Christ,” but the Church for whom Christ died is not any local Church or group of churches, but the “Saints of all ages.
INFANT BAPTISM
Another area that I found extremely helpful was the area of baptism. Of course we believe, as Baptists, that baptism is for believing adults. (Adult in the sense that it is that person’s own choice as opposed to the choice of parents in infant baptism.) Of course the Paedo-Baptists, (Infant baptizers) claim that baptism is the sign of the new covenant and since the sign of the Old Covenant, circumcision, was administered to infants, then baptism ought to be similarly administered.
This logic is, of course, fundamentally flawed since, if you were going to carry it out quid pro quo, little girls would never be baptized. However, the textbook for the class was a book. The thing that made this book fascinating is the fact that the authors are themselves Paedo-Baptists but in their book, they brought conclusive evidence that the infant baptism is unheard until the 3rd century A.D. The Early Church practiced adult baptism by immersion.
BAPTISTS FROM THE REFORMATION AND FORWARD
Most of our class time was spent dealing with the men, movements and issues involving Baptists from the time of the Reformation to the present. It was, to say the least, a fascinating study. It was sobering on several accounts. First, and most obvious, it was sobering to again be reminded of how our Baptist forbears suffered for their beliefs. My father has always said that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” and the study of Baptist History is a bloody study indeed. And then, it was a sobering study to realize that our Fathers were human just like ourselves and were subject to the same limitations and excesses that we face. Throughout the study, we looked at men who either fell short of or went beyond the truth while others turned their backs on the truth after coming to the knowledge of it for a time. In that sense, not much has changed.
In the beginning of the study, we looked at the Ana-Baptists, those people, in Europe where the Reformation flourished, who went beyond the truths gained by the Reformers and embraced believers baptism and other truths that have come to be known as “Baptist Distinctives.” It is, however, difficult to really embrace the Ana-Baptists whole heartedly as they also embraced some other questionable and sometimes false teaching. The reason these people came to the positions that they did was because their leadership was generally well intentioned but poorly educated people who did the best that they could came up woefully short of the truth in some areas.
However, Dr. Renihan brought out an interesting fact as he presented their early leadership. The early leaders of the Ana-Baptist movement were very Godly and highly educated men but that leadership was almost entirely wiped out by the persecution that came almost immediately. For reasons known only to Him, God allowed the persecution to effectively eradicate this as an effective movement in the same way the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre effectively wiped out the Huguenots in France. It is difficult to understand why God allowed such to happen, but there is no question that He Did allows it to happen.
Therefore we trace our Baptist heritage to England and not the mainland of Europe. It is not the purpose of this report to run down the lineage of the Baptists but rather; to simply comment on a few observations I had during the course.
First of all, for good or for bad, Baptists have come out of controversy. Everywhere you look at the Baptists they are in a controversy with someone. Now I am sure that some of this stems from the fact that some have just been cantankerous and difficult people. However, the evidence would lead us to believe that far more often, the problem has been the fact that the truth divides and when a person wants to stand for the truth, there are going to be many to resist that truth.
Secondly, English Baptists have been strongly Calvinistic through the years believing in and trusting the Sovereignty of God in everything. And because of this they have faced two extremes that, when not careful they embrace one extreme or the other. The first is the extreme of hyper-Calvinism. This belief goes beyond the belief that God is sovereign to a fatalistic view that takes away all human responsibility. Where fatalism has crept in, Baptists have become lethargic and lifeless.
The other extreme is that of Arminianism, which places all of the emphasis on human responsibility and make God a puppet of man. Over the years, this position has led to other false teachings and practices, including but not limited to a denial of the Deity of Christ, and the bringing of pagan practices into the Church.
The bottom line is gratefulness for our Baptist Heritage with a prayer that God will keep us faithful him himself.