I just read a pastor's Twitter tweet (We are living in crazy times when
that phrase can actually be considered credible!) where he wrote, "It must
be difficult for a pastor who thinks 1950 is ancient history to truly
appreciate our heritage as Baptists." I understand where he is coming
from. Many of today's Baptists went to just enough school to figure out what
makes for acceptable preaching points in their circle of peers. They will be so
busy building their ministries and so focused on following those who have built
large ministries that they will have little time or inclination to be students
of anything. They will devote themselves to their movement's leaders because
that is the simplest way to practice successful Christianity and they have much
too much to do to explore beyond those bounds of the faith that they already
know.
But there is an observable issue in the case of nearly every Baptist I
know, who does choose to break out of those bounds; they almost always also
reject the traditions they were taught within those bounds. In doing so, they
come to focus on and embrace things they believe old Baptists held to that
their teachers do not. They are, in my opinion, looking for justification for
their rejection of those landmarks their own fathers in the faith had planted.
Now here is the thing about Baptist heritage; it is very difficult to
find anything definitive about Baptists previous to 1600 AD. So much so that
many of these boundary breakers conclude, with the Protestants that Baptists
began in the early 1600's and are just one of many Protestant denominations
that formed about that time. Then, assuming they are only Protestants, they
make another leap and accept Protestant doctrine, namely Calvinism.
Although there is very little evidence that remains of the Baptists prior
to 1600, there is enough to be assured they did exist. What we do know is that
they were significantly diverse and that there are only a handful of doctrinal
distinctives that unite them together
- They were decidedly
not Catholic (and predated the Protestants)
- They were a people
of the Book
- They preached faith
in Christ alone for salvation (not in the church)
- They would die
rather than deny Christ, indicating their faith in life beyond the grave
- They believed in
soul liberty and worshipped God according to how they understood the Bible
and not how the state church enforced worship
- They would not
baptize infants into the Catholic Church and were very often persecuted
for it
Beyond these, we are merely inserting into history what we choose to
insert. There is no real proof one way or the other.
I propose that we embrace what I think is a key to ancient Baptists,
- They were decidedly
anti-Catholic (which in my estimation means decidedly anti-Protestant
also) and
- They practiced soul
liberty
They gave each man the right to worship God according to the dictates of
his own conscience. Of course in order for a church to be organized, there has
to be some agreement. This means that every Christian is responsible to know
what it is he believes well enough to discern if the practice and teaching of a
particular congregation or a potential new pastor is in harmony with his own.
Marvin
McKenzie
In the
fields
