How Much Should We Make of Baptist History?

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

Why I Am Opposed to Reformation Theology in a Baptist Church


1. Reformation theology denies the perpetuity of the church as taught by our Lord in Matthew sixteen.

2. Reformation theology assumes that Baptists embraced the doctrines developed by the reformers.

3. Reformation theology leans upon the doctrines of Catholicism.

4, Reformation theology obliterates the evidence of a great cloud of Christian witnesses that never united with the corruptions of Catholicism.

5. Reformation theology leads modern Baptist pastors into a quagmire of false doctrines.

6. Reformation theology is thoroughly universal church.

7. Modern Reformation theologians are reckless socially.
  
Marvin McKenzie
In the fields

Buy the Boat

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