Jim Curran So who started the Baptists?

Jim Curran So who started the Baptists? For the Lutherans you can point to Martin Luther, for the Anglicans you can point to Henry the 8th, for the Methodists you can point to the Wesley brothers but who started the Baptists? When it comes to that it becomes much more “difficult” as at is almost impossible to point to a specific person in an earthly sense. The fact that this is the case is intriguing. Why is this? Why is there not documentations to origin and founding as we see from other groups? Let’s start with Scripture first as we should. It promises that there will be perpetuity (Math 28:20, Math 16:15-18, Eph 3:21.) The Catholics claim perpetuity but just any even cursory study will see that the Catholic church is radically different from New Testament Doctrine and practice. It is also apparent that the Catholic “doctrine” has been in a perpetual state of flux and far from Biblical doctrine. (Despite claims there is no clear line of “popes” either there were as many as three at once) In this case there is ironclad proof that the Catholic church is not the New Testament church as it does not adhere to the faith and practice of the New Testament. So what about the Baptists? We do adhere with New Testament doctrine but why is there not documentation to deal with history? Many people want an ironclad genealogy going back to Christ and this is the only thing that they will accept as proof. Will this be the case? Let me ask a question to illustrate- how many Baptist Churches are there in the Middle East and in China? Where are they and how many are in them? We would have a very difficult time answering this question wouldn’t we? We might be aware of one or two but there is no directory that we can consult and even in the city that they are in they would be nearly impossible to find unless you knew someone that was in them. Why?- they are underground- their history and records (many do not keep these either for fear of implicating others) are hidden and if captured are destroyed. I have just described the situation through pretty much all of Baptist history. It has indeed been written in blood as the trail of blood describes. So what about the Baptist name and Baptist perpetuity? A lot has been thrown here about since we have the name Baptist it comes from John the Baptist directly. (OK I have even joked about it sometimes used to walk by a St. John the Baptist Catholic Church and had real fun with that) How we got that name was a gradual process and was the result of other names being applied to us. It was a shorting of Anabaptist which was almost all the times applied from the outside. Most of the names that those that preceded us were applied from the outside. (It is to be noted that not all that were called Anabaptist by the Catholics were doctrinally the same they applied the term indiscriminately) There were many names Waldenses, Paulicans, Anabaptists, Petrobrussians, and many others. (DB Ray’s Baprist Perpetuity does a good job of laying out what each of these groups believe- listed in the bibliography in the announcements) “Baptist” as a name used by us started use in the 1600’s although there were earlier variations that were similar such as Duper that were used earlier. It is to be noted that we did not like the teerm Anabaptist as a general rule (for example Spittlehouse rejects it) as we were not rebaptizing- the baptism of the others was not valid baptism. (Anabaptist means rebaptizers) In addition the name had been applied indescriminately by the Catholics to others that were of different doctrine (For example those at Munster) Baptist began to come into use in the early 1600’s as a way to differenciate. (and in the process it gave us a name that was Biblical in origin and pointed to one of the major disagreements that we had stood on- the Biblical view of Baptism as opposed to the Catholic view of regeneration through it) So this brings us to a man that is often claimed in recent history to have started the Baptists John Smyth. This claim and the one that Baptists did not immerse until 1641 were advanced by William Whitsitt. John Smyth did start a church that is considered the forerunner of one BRANCH of the Baptists- the General Baptists- Particulars claimed a different origin. There were other Baptist Churches in England that were actually older than the one that Smyth started- Booking and Braintree, Ethorne Kent, Hillcliffe among others. (See Bye-Paths in Baptist History also noted in the Bibligraphy) It is to be noted that these areas were also noted in secular history as centers of Anabaptist activity before. This is not to mention the churches in the Olscon valley in Wales that are even older. Smyth’s church also started in an Dutch Anabaptist bakery and he was later baptized by them. There are certainly some ties to the Anabaptists as we go back and there are ties going back in Wales. It is often very difficult to trace these as they were underground and in constant danger of the fires at the stake. (There is no surprise in this I am currently reading through a secular history of the Lollards and Protestants in York and it laments the absence of even state records for the Anglicans in many instances) There were ties between the Anabaptists and the Waldenses as well. This takes us even further back. There are multiple streams flowing into one river. This brings us to three men not that far removed from the time of Smyth- what did they say? “By all which ye see by plentiful Evidence, that Christ hath not been without His Witnesses in every age, not only to defend and assert the true, but to impugn, and to reject (yet, even to death itself) the false Baptism. In so much that we are not left without good testimony of a series of succession, that by God’s providence hath even kept afoot, of this great ordinance of believer’s baptism ever since the first times.” Henry D’Anvers, 1674. Even earlier is “A Vindication of the Continued Succession of the Primitive Church of Jesus Christ (Now scandalously termed Anabaptists) frm the Apostles unto this Present Time” Published by John Spittlehouse, and John More 1652 Even though we would disagree with their interpretation of Revelation, here is a book (although incomplete there is only one copy in existence) that asserts perpetuity within fourty years of Smyth. D’Anvers quote is within 35 years of when those that claim baptism was changed. These show clearly that those that would be considered the earliest to carry the name “Baptist” exclusively (as opposed to other names applied) held to perpetuity going back to Christ. This is just a brief synopsis there is much more information in the Bibliographies in the announcement section.