Do you know what I recently discovered? And I'll have to remember this the next time I get razzed about the Crusades...
Protestants are NOT all non-Catholic Christians. I did not realize that until recently. Protestantism denotes one of the religions that broke with the Catholic church (Episcopalians, Lutherans, the Church of England) but remain essentially Catholic at the core.
Baptists, however, have always existed, before the Catholics and since, and are not Protestants. We were never a part of the Catholic church.
I think that's pretty interesting.
Baptist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Origins
There are two main views about the origins of the Baptists: Baptist origins in the 16th and 17th centuries and Baptist perpetuity.
Viewpoint: Baptist origins in the 16th and 17th centuries
Some see the Baptists as the descendants of the 16th century Anabaptists (which some view as a product of the Protestant Reformation and others view as a continuation of the older pre-Reformation non-Catholic churches). Johannes Warns states that the first independent Baptist Church was that at Augsburg, Germany, in about 1524.[12] Others see the Baptists as a separation from the Church of England in the early 1600s.[13]
Puritan separatists John Smyth and Thomas Helwys are acknowledged by numerous historians as key founders of the modern Baptist denomination. The early Baptists were divided into General Baptists who were Arminian in theology, and Particular Baptists who were Calvinistic in theology.[14][15][16]
According to Baptist historian H. Leon McBeth, Baptists, as a distinct denomination, originated in England in a time of intense religious reform. McBeth writes, “Our best historical evidence says that Baptists came into existence in England in the early seventeenth century. They apparently emerged out of the Puritan-Separatist movement in the Church of England.”[13]
Viewpoint: Baptist perpetuity
Main article: Baptist successionism
The Baptist perpetuity view (also known as Baptist succession) holds that the church founded by Christ in Jerusalem was Baptist in character and that like churches have had perpetual existence from the days of Christ to the present. This view is theologically based on Matthew 16:18, where Jesus is speaking to Peter, "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter (Πέτρος[17]), and upon this rock (πέτρα[18]) I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," as well as Jesus' commission and promise to be with His followers as they carried on his ministry, "even unto the end of the world."[19]
The Baptist perpetuity view sees Baptists as separate from Catholicism and other religious denominations and considers that the Baptist movement predates the Catholic church and is therefore not part of the Protestant Reformation.[20]
J. M. Carroll's The Trail of Blood booklet, published in 1931, has been a popular writing presenting the successionist view, pointing to groups such as the Montanists, Novatianists, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigensians, Catharists, Waldenses, and Anabaptists, as predecessors to contemporary Baptists.[21] Baptist historian John T. Christian writes in the introduction to his History of the Baptists: "I have throughout pursued the scientific method of investigation, and I have let the facts speak for themselves. I have no question in my own mind that there has been a historical succession of Baptists from the days of Christ to the present time."[22] Other Baptist historians holding the perpetuity view are Thomas Armitage, G.H. Orchard, and David Benedict.
Those holding the perpetuity view of Baptist history can be basically divided into two categories: those who hold that there is a direct succession from one church to the next (most commonly identified with Landmarkism), and those who hold that while the Baptist practices and churches continued, they may have originated independently of any previously existing church.
While there is no direct evidence to support "Landmarkism" or "Successionism" in church history, the modern Baptist movement owes its theological heritage to the earlier "Frei Kirche" movement as embodied in the writings of Balthasar Hubmaier, an early Anabaptist theologian, who was martyred for his beliefs on the rite of baptism in the early days of the Protestant Reformation.[23] No doubt, the various beliefs of Baptists can be "discovered" through independent study; however, church history does not seem to support the notion that movements began ad hoc or in a vacuum. While the Southern Baptist Convention's stand (as articulated by McBeth) is that the modern Baptist movement is a part of the larger Protestant movement, that does not automatically delete the earlier influences of others who published and advocated some or all of the distinctive views that identify modern Baptists. The Baptist movement is in the larger context of theological movements of dissent since the official birth of the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Nicea."
