Featured Oriental orthodoxy and the Eucharist

On the other hand, the Didache does not seem to be in general circulation in the 4th century. Why else is it not considered an ecumenical document?

 

33ad---

I would suggest that you take some time to investigate the true origins of the people we now call "Baptists."

To begin with, we were never really Protestants in the first place.

If you investigate the true origins of our Baptist heritage without the blinders of Catholic (be it Eastern or Western) propaganda, and if you are truly honest with yourself, you'll come to realize that the true, Bible-based people of God were never in what we'd today call the Catholic (With a capital "C") church in the first place.

If anything, they left us about 300-600 years after Christ bodily departed from this planet.

I'd encourage you to do some research on your own instead of relying on the man-made dogmas that the Catholic church has promoted for at least 700-800 years.

(If you wish to find some reliable resources for this research, feel free to PM me.)

 

So, where is the evidence that there were 'Baptistic' churches in first few centuries after Pentecost? Where is any evidence that these mythical churches hammered out some kind of sytematic theology?
Or do Baptists lean on Protestant works?

I am certain that Baptist hold to hypostasis, infralapsarianism, etc...

But all you who believe you go all the way back to Pentecost (or wherever you think you start) having never been a part of the Catholic or Protestant churches- where is the evidence that you came to the same conclusions that Catholics did and Catholic doctrines that they hammered out?
There is absolutely no evidence is there?

Shouldn't you have your own theologians in history who worked these things out rather than leaning almost fully on Catholic theologians?

 

I never asserted that there were no nominally baptistic groups that went off the deep end on various doctrines or practices anymore than I would make that claim for every group (or individual) today that calls themselves Baptist. (EX: Our last two Democrat presidents were Baptists.)

Moreover, one needs to consider the bias of any historian. If all I ever knew about the US was from books authored by Soviet-era historians, I'd be glad that I didn't live in the US, or here in our own country, I'd take with a grain of salt most of the pro-slavery historians who used the Bible to justify their beliefs/practices.

Most history books about baptistic groups were written by their enemies. Because the true baptistic groups were persecuted by these enemies, those groups seldom had the luxury of being able to write very much about themselves. Moreover, even if they did, such writings were either destroyed, or dismissed by their enemies as "heresy" (Kinda like what you read on some of BB forums).

Also, I do not recommend absolutely every book on the history of baptistic groups by authors who are Baptists. A good starting place might be H. C. Vedder's books.

 

And I still refer you to my comments in my preceeding post.

The "altar call" was a relatively new invention, popularized by such early 19th century revivalists as C. G. Finney, et. al., and therefore wouldn't have existed in earlier writings.

As to "people waiting to an age or reason to be baptized," there are no records of any early truly baptistic groups baptizing any candidates for baptism who were not old enough to make a profession of faith in Christ. Those groups merely followed the pattern found in Acts (EX: The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8).

The fact that H. C. Vedder was an American of less than 200 years ago has no relevance to what I'm referring. That's about as valid as saying there cannot be any accurate ancient history historians today.

For your comments relating to the lack of any ACCURATE primary historical documentation of early baptistic groups, I would again refer you to my explanation I gave for this in my last post.

I'm not discounting the worth of all of the early church fathers, but you need to consider that even in the latter NT era there were already people who tried to introduce non-scriptural practices among the early believers. Galatians and the epistles of Jude and John (plus his Rev. 1-3) already bear witness to that fact.

One needs to examine each individual early church father to determine whether his beliefs are in line with the whole of NT.

I believe that you are making the mistake of trying to impose 20th - 21st century impressions of what we'd now call Baptists on what existed outside the established churchs that cropped up in the c. AD 2d- 4th era. For the most part, most of these early true baptistic groups would not have had fine church buildings with what you refer to as "altars."

Most of them would have either met in private houses or in secret meeting places. Why? Because they probably couldn't afford what we'd today call church buildings.

The vast majority of them were people on the fringes of society and were poor (just as the vast majority of people who followed Jesus and the apostles).

Moreover, they probably wouldn't invest what meager financial resources they did have to erect structures that would have been subsequently destroyed by those that sought to annilate them. Would you?

Codex Sinaiticus was a source document for the NT, and the Dead Sea Scrolls primarily written prior to the first advent of Christ so neither one of them would have much bearing on the era of history to which I'm referring.

Try analyzing what I posted in my previous post before making any sweeping generalizations about the true baptistic groups. OK?

 

The claim that there are is no early documents giving evidence of 'baptistic' churches in the early church because they were all destroyed by their enemies is a weak one. Gnostics and other enemies writings survived. Were only the 'Baptistic' writings singled out for destruction? No, they don't exist because these mythical churches did not exist.

 

33ad, you are aware catholics are not allowed on this board?

 

That is true for the most part, but people such as 'Thinkingstuff' who were Baptist when they came here and then, like myself, decided to become Catholic are allowed to remain and post. I believe 33 AD is not a member of the Catholic Church. He certainly seems to be leaning in that direction though.

Webdog, you are making a good point. There are probably no more than three actual Catholics on this board, but there are plenty of people who insist on starting threads intended to show that Catholics can not defend their faith. Even read, more than a few times, posters stating 'see, I challenged them to show that (insert Catholic belief) is biblical and not one of them can do so'.

BTW, this is actually not a 'Catholic' thread, but one intended to discuss 'Oriental Orthodoxy' (Coptic) and the Eucharist. They do have common roots back to the Early Church just as the Catholic Church does.

 

I believe 33AD is Orthodox. So he isn't Roman Catholic though he might argue that he hails from the original Catholic which he believes is not Roman. On the other hand I do not view this board as a means of evangelizing but like Peter says " but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect". I just want to give an answer for my faith and discuss theological issues because 1) I enjoy it. 2) It challenges me rather than keep me complacent. 3) I know that the people I have these discussions with know the bible. And I believe that though we may differ on theology and our view of the bible there are Baptist here who really have a heart for Jesus and want nothing more than to serve him. Though, I often bang heads with DHK and Biblicist I don't believe that they want evil for me personally but genuinly believe in the knowledge they have that I'm wrong and wish to set me straight (in their minds for my own good and salvation). So I don't see them as advisaries to me personally. Though I do get caught up in the arguments and a bit emotional at times. I don't blame them entirely for their views. DHK is from a heavy populated Catholic area in which it seems over 90% of the Catholics are what is known as cultural catholics which is saying that they are secular christans not really holders of that faith. DHK may disagree but I would have to point him to the fact that Catholics who practice abortion, contraception, divorce and re-marriage are going against the documented faith they profess to have which means they really don't have faith in their claimed faith. There are many Protestants in this boat as well

 

Thinkingstuff-- You're probably right in your observation(s).

We really don't know much about the backgrounds/situations that most of the posters here on BB, and, when you think about it, it's extremely difficult to try to help some of them via the BB format.

I hope that I've not given any of the posters/readers of my posts on this thread the idea that I prefer the "Bull-In-The-China-Shop" approach to replying to some of these postings. If I have, I humbly apologize for giving that impression and would ask their forgiveness in this matter.

Probably the best approach would be to handle these discussions via PM rather than coming on these forums and appearing (allbeit unintentionally) to be in the "Take No Prisoners!!" mode.

I hope that we all can agree with the words of wisdom we find in Ecclesiastes 3:1 ff --- There's a right time and a right place for everything (Eccles 3:7).

 

Thank you for responding in ways that is not offensisve and does no harm to the cause of Christ. I think we sometimes forget that people outside of the faith sometimes visit this board and watching to see if we treat each other in a way becoming a follower of Christ.

It is also probably unreasonable to think that given the nature of the debates presented on this board that we would always refrain from getting caught up in the heat of debate since all of us desire to 'earnestly contend for the faith.' For the most part and for the sake of Christ, we should try.

 

Tell me a little bit more of your experience at Mar's Hill and how long you were there and why you left

 

Mars Hill is pretty...er...leftfield to put it mildly.