BAPTIST HISTORY Lesson 2

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BAPTIST HISTORYLesson 2

• A STUDY IN ORIGINS

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• How did Baptist founder John Smyth publically
  demonstrate his break from the state Church of
  England in 1609?
• He wrote 95 theses and posted them on the door of
  Westminster Cathedral
• He baptized himself and his followers
• He translated the Bible into English
• He sailed to America to establish a colony of
  Separatists.

• Why was the idea of believers baptism by
  immersion so radical in the 17th century?
• It was a challenge to a very long church
  tradition.
• Infant baptism gave a person a Christian name,
  membership in the official church, and a
  recognized place in society.
• The public ritual of immersion seemed disgraceful
  and unhealthy to many people.
• All of the above.

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• The annual Southern Baptist Christmas offering
  for missions is named in honor of what missionary
  to China?
• Hudson Taylor
• Jonathon Goforth
• Eric Liddell
• Lottie Moon

• Though the earliest Baptists (called General
  Baptists) were Arminian in their theology, a
  second stream of early Baptists were Calvinist.
  What were they called?
• Particular Baptist
• Predestined Baptist
• Depraved Baptist
• Infallible Baptist

• Who of the following was not a black Baptist
  preacher?
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Nat Turner
• Frederick Douglas
• John Jasper

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• When this Baptist missionary-to-be brought up the
  Great Commission at a Baptist Association
  meeting, one minister supposedly retorted, young
  man, sit down, sit down!...When God pleases to
  convert the heathen, hell do it without
  consulting you or me. In response, the young
  visionary wrote An Enquiry into the Obligations
  of Christians, to use means for the Conversion of
  the Heathens.
• Adoniram Judson
• William Carey
• David Livingston
• Hudson Taylor

• Whats so important about the 17th century
  Baptist leader, Thomas Helwys?
• He rebelled against his church and baptized all
  the infant children
• He was the first missionary to Iceland
• He wrote the first defense of religious liberty
  in the English language
• He predicted the rise of the Moral Majority in
  America

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• What pioneering missionary embarked from America
  as a Congregationalist and became a Baptist on
  the way to India?
• William Carey
• Hudson Taylor
• Adoniram Judson
• Lottie Moon

• slave-turned-Baptist preacher George Liele not
  only founded one of the earliest black churches
  in America, he also became one of the first
  Baptist overseas missionaries when he sailed to
  which country?
• India
• Jamaica
• China
• Ethiopia

• When this Calvinist Baptist Prince of Preachers
  died in 1892, the city of London went into
  mourning and 100,000 people lined the streets for
  the funeral parade.
• Dwight Moody
• A B Simpson
• Billy Sunday
• Charles H Spurgeon

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BAPTIST IDENTITY
Contemporary background
Baptists are not evangelicals
Baptists are freedom loving people whos
personal, internal experience of God is greater
that any exegetical truth greater than anything
that can be known outside of us
Soul Liberty
the competency of the soul in religion the
individual subjective experience and perceptions
of truths are the basic, fundamental
identification of what makes a Baptist
Coherent Truth
The tenets of freedom and voluntarism would never
produce a Baptist church apart from a broader
foundation of theological, Christological and
soteriological truths
Baptists must be Christian and Protestant
evangelical believers before they can be Baptist
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Four essential elements to the Coherent Truth view
I. Baptist are Orthodox

• God is a revealing God

• God is a Triune God

• Jesus is the God/man

II. Baptist are Evangelical

• Justification by faith

• Immediacy and necessity of the Spirits work for
  salvation

• Necessity and completeness of the Work of Christ

• Conversion above nurture

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III. Baptist are confessional and catechetical

• Confessions and catechisms have always been
  essential parts of Baptist church life

• Baptists have seen the necessity of the church
  being formed on a confession
• That is personal
• That is corporate

IV. Baptist are Separate
Baptist have a theologically integrated
ecclesiology vs. our paedobaptist friends who
have an inconsistent ecclesiology Dr. Nettles

• The Church is the body of Christ from all
  nations, a new identity for the people of God

• Visible saints/Believers church

• Baptism of believers only by immersion

• Discipline in the local congregation

• Absence of interference or special favors from
  magistrates

Baptists have traditionally argued for religious
liberty for all people by advocating a free
church in a free state Nathan Finn
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• The state should guarantee religious freedom for
  all people and never use coercion in matters of
  religious conviction.

• The church should concern itself with its primary
  mission of proclaiming the gospel and nurturing
  Christians in the faith and never seek to use
  political means to achieve gospel ends.

Protecting religious liberty for all through the
separation of church and state requires that the
government neither advance nor inhibit religion.
Rather, it must be neutral toward
religionallowing people of faith to practice
their religion as they see fit, rather than as
government might want them to. Accordingly,
government must accommodate religion without
advancing it, protect religion without
privileging it, and lift burdens on the exercise
of religion without extending it impermissible
benefits.
Religious Liberty and Church State Separation J.
Brent Walker
Creating countercultural Christian churches also
implies that our political alignments will be
provisional and loosely held. It also means that
we will never be comfortably at home with any
political movement or even with American culture
itself. If Christian conservatism is going to
conserve a Christian counterculture, we must
understand the ways in which our interests
are subverted not only by an overreaching
government but by an overreaching socioeconomic
culture as well. First Freedom The Baptist
Perspective on Religious Liberty, Russell D. Moore
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THEORIES OF BAPTIST ORIGINS
A Question of Baptist History Dr. William H.
Whitsitt
I. Secessionist Theories
A. Apostolic
Unbroken ordinances appointment of officers
Roman Catholic
Anglican
B. Baptismal
Unbroken line of proper baptisms back to John and
Jesus
C. Church succession
II. Principial Continuation
A. Idealistic
B. Organic Principial Continuation
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III. Anabaptist Kinship Theory
Wm. R. Estep
Modern day Baptist came about from two streams of
influence
Anabaptist
English Separatists in London influenced by Dutch
traders
IV. English Separatist Descent Theory
Progression of thought amongst English Separatist
only
V. A Convergent View Theory
The (17th century) Baptist were a historically
new movement (river) that was influenced to
varying degrees by a number of other movements
(tributaries). This influence was primarily in
the realm of ideas, particularly theological
ideas. And even within the category of
theological ideas, most of the influence was
ecclesiological in nature NAF Toward a
Convergent View of Baptists Origins, Part 2 blog
post May 11th, 2009 at Between The Times
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Anabaptist and the rise of Baptist
I. Magisterial Reformation
Luther
Calvin
English
Dutch
Zwingli/Zurich
II. Radical Reformation
A. Inspirationists
a. Revolutionary
b. Quietist Inspirationalist
SOCINIANS the view of Faustus Socinus
(1539-1604) that denied the divinity of Christ
and penal substitution view of the atonement
B. Rationalist
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C. Biblical Anabaptist
Source the Bible and were going all the way
back to it!
a. Swiss Brethren-Zurich/Zwingli
Conrad Grebel Balthazar Hubmaier Felix Mantz
George Blauach
Pious, orthodox, sacrificial
b. South German Anabaptist
Pilgrim Marpeck The Testaments
c. Communitarian Groups
Hutterites Amish
d. Mennonites
Menno Simons
III. Distinguishing Traits of Anabaptists
A. Regenerate Church Membership
B. Believers Baptism
C. Separation of Church and State
D. Pacifism
E. Relevance of the Great Commission