Featured Basic question: Are Baptists Protestant?

I may garner some disagreement from my normal allies here,but I would say being Reformed which has to do with most of my theological underpinnings is more basic than my baptistic beliefs.

 

I don't think you have to make it an either-or situation. Baptist doctrine and reformed doctrine are already pretty compatible. Both appeal to Scripture.

 

true to som extent, but there will be tensions between trying to get a working out relationship between the theologies of say Covenant/Dispy/Free will baptists though!

 

Would you say that you have to be in a church that holds tot he Confessions of faith/Creeds then? Haveto be into Covenant theology as primary way to view the scriptures?

if the presby church allowed for believers baptism, would you join them instead then?

 

As most of the previous posts on this thread have pointed out, the people we now call "Baptists" were not really a part of the "Protestant Reformation."

While I'm not completely sold on the concept of a "Chain-Link Succession" of so-called "Anabaptist Groups" as advocated by most of the "Landmark Baptists," the people we now refer to as "Baptists" were severely persecuted by BOTH the Catholics AND those groups who were part of the "Protestant Reformation of the 1500's -1600's.

One also needs to keep in mind that simply because a person or group was designated as "Anabaptist" and/or "Baptist" doesn't necessarily mean that this person and/or group was truly an actual "Anabaptist" and/or "Baptist."

In many cases, these terms were applied to people and/or groups in a rather thoughtless way similar to what we recall such terms of condemnation as "Communist" or "Nazi" or some other terms as these.

IOW, just because some person applied such term(s) as these to a person and/or group doesn't mean that these people and/or groups were actually members of them.

In fact, quite to the contrary, many of them weren't.

A case in point would be the so-called "Anabaptist Uprising in the 1540's in the German city of Muenster." These people were anything but true "Anabaptists," yet that is what many historical commentators designate them as being.

I'm afraid that even today many people and/or groups that call themselves "Baptists" have very little (if any at all) in common with what most of us here in BB Land would consider true Baptist Biblical "values."

Thank God that at least there are still some of us around who aren't afraid to stand up for the truths of God's Word as He has revealed to His children within the contents of the 66 books that we call His "Holy Bible"!! :thumbs:

 

So would you consider reformed baptists to really be reformed with baptistic doctrines then?

 

If by the term "reformed" you mean upholding the "Doctrines of Grace [i.e., 'T-U-L-I-P']," as opposed to the "Arminian" concept of soteriology ["Free-Will"], then I would have to agree with you.

As I stated in my earlier post in this thread, as a general rule most Baptist groups tended to adhere to at least most of the tenets of "T-U-L-I-P" (or the "Doctrines of Sovereign Grace").

Of course, this, in itself, did not spare such Baptists from being persecuted by John Calvin and/or his associates.

To the contrary, many Baptists were severely persecuted by those contemporary Calvinists, primarily because these Baptists adhered to the Biblical concept of one being baptized AFTER he/she received Jesus Christ as Personal Savior.

Moreover, the Calvinists of that era never divorced themselves from the notion that the "state" and "the church" were to be separate institutions and should not meddle with the internal affairs of each other--a tenet that the vast majority of "Anabaptists" and/or "Baptists" strongly contended for in that era of time.

 

As Baptists we are spiritual heirs of the Protestant Reformation. We are Protestants,despite protests to the contrary! ;-)

Here are some scholars/historians who say we are indeed Protestants. Among them are Calvinists and non-Calvinists (in no particular order).
Jim Renihan, Michael Haykin, James E.M. McGoldrick, Nathan Finn, W. Morgan Patterson, Leon McBeth, James Leo Garrett, Henry Vedder, Thomas Armitage, William Lumpkin, David Benedict, Gerald Priest, Walter B. Shurden, Joseph Ivimey, William Cathart, Chris Traffanstedt, and Timothy George.

 

I think many here on the BB have wrongly designated some individuals and groups before the 17th century as Baptistic in their hyper-drive to distance themselves from their rightful heritage. Tue Baptist history began in the early 17th century. Going farther back in time to the misty Middle Ages for a grasping after straws is such a vain attempt.

That's right.

Since "Baptists" are such a smorgasbord --I don't even think you can reduce "us" to a bare minimum.

 

Id prefer the word "bastardized" but the Puritans & Legalistic types would object. Still, there it is.

 

...smorgasbord, probably twenty years ago I'd read or someone told me there was 157 kinds of Baptists, just take a gander at the variety displayed here on the BB.

 

thats why I prefer the other word.....a mongrel or two or three have gotten into the DNA & have "Muttified" (mutated) the litter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH97lImrr0Q

 

wren't puritans though actually reformed, not baptists?

this is where it gets really grey to me, where baptists stops and becomes actually Reformed instead!

 

In your mind Puritanism and Legalism mean the same thing?!

Your understanding is flawed.

I thought you admired D-M-L-J. He loved the Puritans --others called him a Puritan born out of time. Puritans get a bum rap from folks like you because you don't read their works. Puritans were not puritanical --as radical as that thought may be!

Secure a copy of "Puritans: Their Origins And Successors" by Dr. Lloyd-Jones. He will set you straight.

 

And where did you get that idea? Your understanding of my understanding is the only thing that is flawed here.

 

From your very own post where you put Puritans and Legalists in the same box.

 

Suggesting that both would take offence to a certain word.

 

You have used the word "Puritan" in a negative light. You have used it like a club. Have you read D-M-L-J on the subject or not?

And back on 11/12/2013 you called me a legalist out of the blue. I had asked you pointed questions framed around Scripture and you avoided it like the plague.

So in your way of thinking a Puritan and a Legalist are the same thing --and both are bad according to you. I want to know how you arrived at your faulty understanding.

You don't like dealing with direct questions and giving specific answers. You go on rabbit trails a great deal -- excursionary paths.

 

Balcony. But your consistent propensity to want to manufacture situations in order to prove yourself correct in any situation is doubly noted. Ask yourself why you constantly feel the need to be right. Is there something missing in your psychological makeup where you need to compensate some inadequacy?

In any event, I don't feel any need to play along. I have better things to do than entertain your psychotic fancies.

Good day & you can have the last word.

 

Balcony? Are you playing word games?

Upping the ante,huh? Why the ad homs?

First you call me a legalist --then a puritan (as if it's a bad word) now ____.

Back to what I have maintained: You are an evasive character. You don't like answering specifics. You prefer bunny trails.

Read M-L-J on the Puritans. You need a corrective when it comes to that topic.