Where did Baptists come from?
Is John the Baptist our founding forefather because he was the first clearly committed to baptism by immersion? After all, isn’t “Baptist” his nickname? Or did we arise from the Anabaptists of 16th century Germany, one tributary from the river that also produced the Mennonites and the Amish?
If I took a survey among Baptists about their origins, I’m guessing those would be among the most popular answers.
Though many Baptists naively point to John the Baptist and some respectable Baptist historians hold to an Anabaptist kinship, neither is correct.
Yes, John the Baptist did model for us the proper mode of baptism, and, yes, we do have some things in common with the Anabaptists. The majority of Baptists — and Southern Baptists in particular — sprung out of Puritan separatism in Elizabethan England, the confessional and theological heirs of the Protestant Reformation and its major players, Martin Luther (1483–1546) of Germany, John Calvin (1509–1564) of France, and Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) of Switzerland.
The Reformation is typically traced to Oct. 31, 1517, when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg, Germany, demanding an audience with the Roman Catholic Church to debate its unbiblical doctrines. From that event, Baptists began to appear, carrying forward the Reformation, around 100 years later.
WE ARE HEIRS OF THE REFORMATION CONFESSIONALLY
Baptists, in their strongest iteration, have written confessions of faith, stating clearly before a watching world their theological beliefs.
The confessional stream that fed the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 began with the Particular Baptists, who adopted the First London Confession in 1644. A few decades later, Baptists in England sought to affirm their solidarity with Presbyterians and Congregationalists on the core doctrines of evangelical Christianity in answering accusations to the contrary made by the Church of England.
These Baptists adopted the Second London Confession of 1689 — a modification of the Westminster Confession of Faith of the Presbyterians and the Savoy Declaration of the Congregationalists. When Baptists began to grow in America in the early 18th century, many of their churches subscribed to the 1689 confession in slightly modified form. Early on, this was seen particularly in the Philadelphia Association — America’s first Baptist association — in 1742 and the Charleston Association — the South’s first Baptist association — in 1767.
As Baptist historian and Courier Publishing author Tom Nettles argues in By His Grace and for His Glory, the New Hampshire Confession of 1833 was a Reformed statement of faith, albeit a slightly milder one in which its author, John Newton Brown, chose pithiness over depth, but still a cousin to the London confessions. The BF&M 1925 (the SBC’s first confession) and the BF&M 2000 were enlargements of the New Hampshire statement.
When The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary opened its doors in 1859 in downtown Greenville, faculty members signed to teach “in accord with and not contrary to” the school’s confession, the Abstract of Principles. Drafted by founding faculty member Basil Manly Jr., the confession is an abstract of the Second London Confession.
WE ARE HEIRS OF THE REFORMATION THEOLOGICALLY
Because we are heirs of the Reformation confessionally, we are by necessity sons (and daughters) theologically because confessions are pithy summaries of the biblical doctrines we believe. Our best and most robust confessions affirm the five solas that summarize Reformation theology: sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone) solo Christos (Christ alone), sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), and soli deo gloria (glory to God alone). Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone as revealed in Scripture alone — all to the glory of God alone.
Both London confessions, the New Hampshire, the Abstract, and our BF&M 2000 all affirm core gospel doctrines the reformers sought to recover — doctrines that had, to use Calvin’s words, gone into eclipse behind the unbiblical teachings and superstitious practices of the Catholic Church.
Those standards clearly set forth doctrines such as the inspiration, inerrancy, sufficiency, and authority of sacred Scripture, the sovereignty of God in salvation (and in all things) from regeneration and justification by faith to final perseverance, the exclusivity of Christ as Savior, the Trinity, and other doctrines at the heart of Reformation orthodoxy.
WE ARE HEIRS OF THE REFORMATION MISSIONALLY
One of the cries of the Reformation, and therefore, a central part of the Reformation’s core mission was, and is, captured in the Latin phrase semper reformanda — always reforming (according to Scripture). They moved reform forward in the face of bloody persecution in several areas:
• A free church.
The first generation of reformers, Luther and Calvin, are known as the magisterial reformers, so called because they sought to reform the church while maintaining ties to the magisterium — the civil government. Theirs was a church wed tightly to the state. A generation later, Baptists began to argue that a valid New Testament church must be separate from the state; God calls government and the church to occupy separate domains. Civil government wields the sword of steel, enforcing a society’s laws and punishing evildoers. God calls the church to wield the sword of the Spirit — preaching the gospel for the saving of souls. Baptists argued that the new birth and not government force forms Christians. This was a massive break from the Erastian church model, which then dominated Europe and was viewed as ecclesiological rebellion. Baptists suffered grinding persecution for this doctrine, but the free church tradition emerged as Baptists continued reforming the church consistent with Scripture.
• Regenerate church membership.
Baptists’ theological reasoning was airtight: If God has an elect people and the church is called to be a household of the redeemed, then only persons whose hearts have been renewed by the grace of God and who have followed the Lord in believer’s baptism should be church roles.
• Credobaptism.
Not seeing it taught by precept or example in Scripture, Baptists broke with infant baptism in favor of the more biblical credobaptism — baptizing only those who have made a credible profession of faith.
A generation removed from the early reformers, Baptists continued to work out orthodoxy, breaking from the state and demanding a church membership composed of Christians, in the spirit of semper reformanda.
SOUTHERN BAPTIST BEGINNINGS AND THE REFORMATION
When the 293 delegates met in Georgia in May of 1845, they elected W.B. Johnson (1782–1862) as the denomination’s first president. Johnson was active in the founding of the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1821 and was the only man present at the founding of both the General Missionary Convention in 1814 and the SBC.
At Johnson’s urging, Southern Baptists did not adopt a confession of faith at that first meeting because most churches and associations had their own, many of them derived from the Second London Confession. Thus, theological unity in the early days was not in question; most churches held to the orthodox theology which the reformers recovered as expressed in the Second London Confession.