Are Baptists Protestants?

Thank you, I stand corrected. Its been a few years since I took a Church/Baptist History course. I was going off memory which seems to be slipping

 

There has always been "remnant" throughout the world. Believers have existed outside of institutional religion since the time of Christ. The Baptists err when they try to claim the lineage as exclusively their own. Believers have been called many things over the centuries, and no single denomination or group owns the "keys to the kingdom".

I've heard the same "we are the only true church" line from IFB's, Catholics, Church of Christ'ers, etc. My Bible says "the first shall be last and the last shall be first". Those who not only claim to be preeminent but claim to be the exclusive church are in danger of becoming a false church or a cult.

 

It's not a question of if they were Baptist. It is that we Baptists identified with them. Baptists have consistently sought to emulate first-century Christians in doctrine and practice.

We identify with those groups who baptized only confessing believers, by immersion, and refused to baptize infants. Those who held to such belief and practice have worn different labels over the centuries, but we should consider them our progenitors.

 

Tom, are we talking about the Christians who also believed in the active gifts of the Holy Spirit?

 

Well said... Though there have been groups here and there, there are no connections between those groups, either in their own literature or in the literature of detractors and enemies (sometimes we gain more knowledge of history from enemies than friends). The concept that says there is a trail all the way back to John the Baptist is flawed history, nice sounding to a bunch of people looking for an identity, gathered in a tent meeting somewhere, but flawed nevertheless. As far as I can tell, that flawed historical picture came out of the need to substantiate a dispensational view that manufactured several categories of church that had to be fulfilled somehow in the historical record.

Baptists are also (probably) not Protestants either, though we did stem from that movement (instead of from Catholicism directly). The first Baptists (and Ana-baptists) came out of the existing religious structure of their day -- Roman Catholicism or those who had broken from Roman Catholicism, the Protestants. There were no unaffiliated peoples in the world during the time when the Baptists were founded becasue every child born in any given community would have been brought to the priest for baptism. People didn't live in a world of choice then as they do now.

 

I thought it was the brother B. H. Carroll, J. M. Carroll who wrote,"The trail of Blood". I could be wrong, it has been way in the past that I read the little book. I believe in the dispensational view and I have never heard what you are bring up.

I do believe their have always been Christians on this earth from the cross on who were not in the RCC. A lot of them had their problems with the RCC as well as the reformers, if I recall my history correctly.

 

Yes, credobaptists were long persecuted by the RCC as well as the "Reformers".

Cardinal Hosius, writing in the sixteenth century:

"there shall be no faith more certain and true, than is the Anabaptists', seeing there be none now, or have been before time for the space of these thousand and two hundred years, who have been more cruelly punished, or that have more stoutly, steadfastly, cheerfully taken their punishment, yea or have offered themselves of their own accord to death, were it never so terrible and grievous. Yea in Saint Augustin his time, as he himself sayeth, there was a certain monstrous desire of death in them. . . . Neither was there such foolish hardy heretics in Saint Augustine his time only. For four hundred years ago, at what time St. Bernard lived, there were Anabaptists, which were no less prodigal to spend their life, then were the Donatists, some (saith he) did marvel that they were led to their deathe not only patiently but as it semed very frolic and merry.
...If you behold their cheerfulness in suffering persecutions, the Anabaptists run far before all other heretics. If you will have regard to the number, it is like that in multitude they would swarm above all other, if they were not grievously plagued and cut off with the knife of persecution. If you have an eye to the outward appearance of godliness, both the Lutherans and the Zwinglians must needs grant, that they far pass them.
...And surely how many so ever have written against this heresie, whether they were Catholics or Heretics, they were able to overthrow it not so much by the testimony of the scriptures, as by the authority of the Church."

 

This question will probably never be settled for sure, but I am thankful to be part of a local church that believes as I believe the groups did from Acts to the Reformation outside the RCC.

 

I don't doubt that these people existed, but I do doubt that there is a continual line that can be traced to the modern Baptist movement. I also doubt that these people did not spring from the Catholic Church. Literally, they had to. It was the only church for centuries. The word "catholic" means "universal," from the Greek, kata (about or concerning) and holos (whole), or more simply, "general" or "universal." "Church" of course, stems from the Greek, "ekklesisa," (called out ones).

There was no real competing body, though there were and still are sects that do not do precisely or believe precisely what the mainstream Magesterium hold, primarily those people who have actually read and follow the Scriptures instead of Sacred Tradition.

Note that the use of "Roman Catholic" did not come into play until about the time of the Reformation.

We tend to want to vilify the Catholic Church, and to stand against them in as many ways as possible, but in fact, there would be no church of any sort today if not for the catholic (universal) church of the first 1000 years. It is only when the Roman faction and political gain started to take precedence over the Lord that the church started to go seriously astray. Indeed, we are indebted to our Fathers in the faith.

 

(((OF COURSE))) we Baptists are protestants!

Why O why do some Baptists want to shrink back from the truth?

Its nothing to be ashamed of. Its something to be very proud of.

 

Sure do. They err MONSTEROUSLY.

 

What's monsterous about identifying with the first-century Christians, claiming kinship with them, and adopting their legacy.

Disagree if you wish, but monsterous?

 

Whether or not there has always been "baptistic" churches, is a separate question from where the current Baptist churches came from. The churches iin the U.S. for instance, that call themselves "Baptist," can be historically traced to the English Separatists (16th-17th century people who broke off of the Church of England). Whether there were earlier movements which influenced them, is unclear.

 

Same here. :thumbsup:

 

I can hardly wait to know the answer to the two questions that changes the eternal destiny for everyone, "Are Baptists Protestants?" and "Do Baptists have a link to the first century church?" Stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel, next week to get the answers to this and other vital issues of the day, such as "Did King James carry around a NIV Bible?"