The Baptist Story: A Summary

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The “Baptist Story: A Summary” is taken from the book Baptist Beliefs and Heritage that is part
of the Baptist Identity Series by William M. Pinson, Jr. and Doris A. Tinker with Skyler Tinker.
The book alone or the entire Series which consists of nineteen leaflets and two study guides
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Baptist Story” provided that the source www.baptistdistinctives.org is acknowledged on the
printed copy and it is indicated that the material is copyrighted by inclusion of (c).
Baptists have a wonderful story to tell. It is an exciting story, filled with heroic, sacrificial
struggles against oppression and tyranny. It is a long story, winding through many centuries
and cultures. It is a bloody story, highlighted with the crimson stain of martyrs. It is a
bewildering story, characterized by periodic conflict among persons even though they
shared basic, core convictions.
It is also a complex story, containing various answers to basic questions: Who are Baptists?
When did they originate? How did they spread? Why are they organized as they are? What
do they believe? In what ways are they part of the Christian movement as a whole? In what
ways do they differ from other Christian denominations?
The Baptist story clearly is not a simple story.
Baptists defy simple descriptions. Baptists have been and are a diverse people. They are
spread across the spectrum of practically every aspect of human life. Their churches are
found throughout the world. Their history is filled with heroes and villains, martyrs and
survivors, creative leaders and reactionary malcontents. Although some Baptists have led
groundbreaking events in history, other Baptists have objected to any change in the status
quo whatsoever.
Baptists have often been misunderstood and as a result falsely accused. For example, their
unyielding commitment to the Lordship of Christ and the authority of the Bible coupled with
the corollary beliefs in soul competency and the priesthood of all believers have made
Baptists zealous leaders in efforts to secure responsible religious freedom for all persons,
not just for themselves. As a result, some government and religious leaders have accused
them of treason and heresy; some theologians and philosophers have charged them with
fostering anarchy and hyper-individualism. These false accusations have resulted in fierce
persecution of Baptists by those fearing the Baptist effort for freedom.
In some ways Baptist life seems a collection of contradictions. Baptist churches are doggedly
autonomous, for example, holding tenaciously to congregational governance by the
members of each congregation and resisting religious hierarchies. Yet, Baptists have formed
many of the strongest organizations for missions, ministry, education, and benevolence in
the world, all based on voluntary cooperation.
Bewilderingly diverse yet remarkably similar
characterize the people called Baptists.
Baptists are indeed diverse. In a sense there are many Baptist stories. Yet, most all Baptists
share basic beliefs and practices which make them a distinct denomination. These basic
beliefs and practices comprise what some term the Baptist Recipe: the Bible as the sole
written authority for faith and practice, the Lordship of Christ, soul competency, salvation by
grace through faith alone, believer’s baptism by immersion, priesthood of all believers,
regenerate church membership, two ordinances being baptism and the Lord’s Supper,
congregational church governance, autonomy of churches, voluntary cooperation, religious
freedom, evangelism, missions, ministry, social action, and Christian education.
Indeed, many of the ingredients in the recipe are also part of other Christian denominations,
but taken as a whole the Baptist Recipe is what makes a Baptist a Baptist. The following
pages tell the story of how the Baptist Recipe has been developed and expressed in Baptist
life.
It is impossible to tell the whole story of Baptists in broad brush strokes on a literary canvas
of only a few pages. What is offered here is only a brief summary. But hopefully these few
pages will give those persons not familiar with the Baptist story an overview that will be
helpful, and for those who know the story well, perhaps this account will kindle a renewed
appreciation for the people called Baptists.
Baptist Beginnings
Groups of Christians holding certain principles dear to Baptists have existed since New
Testament times. In the 1600s Baptists became known as a distinct denomination. Baptists
may not agree on every aspect of their beginning, but they all agree that it is of primary
importance for Baptists to incarnate the beliefs and practices of the churches described in
the New Testament.
Baptists believe that the New Testament churches were comprised only of baptized
believers in Christ who voluntarily joined with one another in self-governing, autonomous
congregations under the Lordship of Christ and with the direction and empowerment of the
Holy Spirit. These bodies of baptized believers were never supported by government laws or
finances. They depended on the voluntary support of the members. The beliefs and
practices of New Testament churches are what Baptists strive to emulate in their churches.
Within three hundred years of the beginning of the Christian movement, vast changes took
place in the movement. One of the most obvious changes was that the relationship of
churches and governments had altered radically. In New Testament times the churches
were not supported by the government but were persecuted by government officials of the
Roman Empire. The persecution varied in intensity but continued for over two hundred
years.
However, by the end of the fourth century the Christian faith had become the official
religion of the Roman Empire. Roman emperors played a major role in determining what
branch of the Christian movement would be the official one. Eventually, the government
rulers recognized only one form of Christianity and persecuted those who did not embrace
the official government-supported church. Thus, began the long, bloody union of church
and state.
Due to various causes the established (that is the official government-supported) churches
of the eastern and western parts of the Empire drifted apart. They developed different
approaches to theology, worship, organization, and especially the relation to the authority
of Rome and the pope. In 1054 the division was made official. Rome became the dominant
center of the western portion of the state-supported churches and Constantinople that of
the eastern. Thus, the Roman Catholic Church became the official religion in Western
Europe.
Baptist growth initially took place in Western Europe,
and that is where this summary of the Baptist story
focuses.
Religious freedom was unheard of in Europe where the Roman Catholic Church was allied
with the government. Dissenters, that is those who believed in a different approach to the
Christian faith than that of the government-sponsored church, were considered heretics by
the state-supported church and traitors by the government. They suffered frequent
persecution. Thousands of men and women were imprisoned, tortured, and executed.
In the early 1500s the religious monopoly of the Roman Catholic Church was broken by the
Protestant Reformation. Persons who participated in the Reformation were called
Protestants because they protested certain beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic
Church.
Most of the religious movements initiated by the leading reformers, such as Martin Luther
(b.1483–d.1546) and John Calvin (b.1509–d.1564), continued infant baptism and maintained
a close relation of church and state. Persons who disagreed with the views of those who led
the Reformation were persecuted, including those who held many beliefs and practices
treasured by Baptists through the years, such as believer’s baptism and religious freedom.
Some of these persecuted groups were called Anabaptists. The word Anabaptist comes
from two words: “ana” meaning “again” and “baptist” meaning “to baptize.” These groups
were so named because they insisted that infant baptism was not a valid New Testament
form of baptism and declared that only persons who put their faith in Christ as Savior and
Lord should be baptized as believers.
Thus, among the Anabaptists, a person who had experienced infant baptism and later
became a believer was baptized. Many types of Anabaptists existed, but they all held in
common this view of baptism.
The people who came to be known as Baptists made clear in their early confessional
statements, such as the London Confession of 1644, that they were not Anabaptists.
However, they indeed shared some of the basic beliefs of Anabaptists, such as that the Bible
is the authority for Christian faith and practice and that a person should consciously trust in
Christ as Lord and Savior before being baptized.
The Baptist denomination emerged as a clearly distinct
Christian denomination in seventeenth century England.
In England the Reformation took a bit of a different turn when King Henry VIII (b.1491–
d.1547) broke from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 and established the Church of
England, with himself as both the head of the government and of the church. His action
threw England into internal religious and political conflict. Not only were Catholics and
Protestants at war with one another but the Church of England itself became divided.
Many Englishmen remained loyal to the Church of England as it existed. Others, however,
recoiled from what they considered to be non-scriptural practices within the Church of
England and attempted to purify it from within; they were known as Puritans. Still others,
giving up on reform from within, pulled away and formed separate congregations; they were
known as Separatists. All of these groups clung to the belief in infant baptism.
Since they refused to observe the laws supporting the Church of England, both Puritans and
Separatists were persecuted by the Church of England and by the king’s officials. When King
James I (b.1566–d.1625) ascended the throne in 1603, he declared, “I will make them
conform or I will harry them out of the land.” Many refused to conform and indeed were
harried out of England.
John Smyth (c.1570–c.1612), a Cambridge-educated Separatist pastor, took his little flock to
Amsterdam, Holland, by 1607, where more religious freedom existed than in England. His
studies of the Bible led him to embrace many beliefs like those held by Baptists today, such
as believer’s baptism with its rejection of infant baptism, salvation by grace through faith
alone and not by sacraments, the Lord’s Supper as symbolic, and religious freedom with its
corollary of the separation of church and state.
Smyth baptized himself and then the members of the congregation in late 1608 or early
1609. In so doing he established what is generally recognized as the first English speaking
Baptist church of so-called modern times.
The confession of beliefs that Smyth developed for the church in Amsterdam was filled with
scripture references. The availability of the Bible in English was a major factor in the
beginning of Baptist churches in England. For centuries the Bible was not available to people
in general. Until the development of printing in the 1400s, copies of the Bible were rare,
each one having to be written by hand.
Some manuscripts of the Bible were available in Greek and Hebrew, the languages in which
the Bible was originally written, but most were in Latin, the official language of the Roman
Catholic Church. People in the population as a whole could not read Greek, Hebrew, or
Latin, but the scholars in the Church could. When John Wycliffe (c.1328–d.1384), William
Tyndale (c.1495–d.1536), and Miles Coverdale (c.1488–d.1569) translated the Bible into
English, people could read the Bible for themselves.
The Baptists in England were severely persecuted.
Many persons, including Baptists, came to believe strongly that the government-established
church, the Church of England, did not interpret the Bible correctly. One of these was
Thomas Helwys (c.1556–c.1616), a well-educated member of the Smyth congregation. He
took a group of persons back to England from Holland. By 1612 he had started a Baptist
church at Spitalfields, a section of London.
Helwys wrote a book entitled A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity in which he
advocated religious freedom and challenged the authority of the king over the religious lives
of his subjects. In the book Helwys penned a personal inscription to King James, the ruling
monarch who as such was also head of the Church of England. Helwys declared that the
king had no authority over the spiritual lives of his subjects. The king responded by arresting
and imprisoning Helwys. He died in prison, a martyr for holding faithfully to the Baptist
conviction that only Christ is Lord of the churches.
The Baptist light did not go out with Helwys’ death. Baptists soon formed additional
churches in England; many more followed. These Baptists are known as General Baptists;
they believed that salvation was available by grace to all who believed in Christ as Lord and
Savior.
Another group of Baptists known as Particular Baptists came into being in the 1630s; they
believed that salvation was available only to those persons who were predestined to be
saved by the grace of Christ. Both of these groups insisted that salvation was only by the
grace of God and not by the works of man.
The early Baptists in England, both the General and the Particular, suffered severe
persecution from the Church of England and the government of England. For many years
the law required all citizens aged sixteen and over to attend the Church of England and to
worship according to the liturgy of that Church. Baptist meetings for worship were illegal.
Persons preaching without official approval of the government were considered to be
criminals. Baptists continued to meet for worship and to preach. They argued for complete
religious liberty for all and were willing to suffer persecution for their convictions.
As a result, many Baptists were imprisoned in England. One of those was John Bunyan
(b.1628–d.1688), the author of the classic book Pilgrim’s Progress, written while in prison. By
his own account Bunyan’s early years were godless, but his first marriage at Elsto in 1650 to
a poor but godly woman resulted in his conversion, baptism, and commitment to preach.
They moved to Bedford in 1655. Her death in 1658 left him with four children, one of whom
was blind. He continued to preach, and in 1660, the same year that he married his second
wife, Elizabeth, he was arrested for preaching. The law required that worship services be
conducted only in conformity with the established Church of England. To stop preaching
would be to violate his conscience, so he continued to preach in violation of the law. As a
result, he suffered imprisonment for twelve years. His wife Elizabeth’s frequent appeals for
his release were refused by the authorities in spite of the fact that she was left in poverty to
care for their children. He never abandoned his commitment to obey God, not man. He was
freed only after Charles II (b.1630–d.1685)issued the Declaration of Religious Indulgence in
1672.
The degree of religious freedom changed from time to time. Finally, by 1688 Baptists and
other dissenters were tolerated by the laws of England, severe persecution ceased, and
Baptist churches and members multiplied. However, only toleration, not complete religious
freedom, existed. The Church of England still received favored status and was supported by
taxation.
Immersion became the accepted mode of baptism by
Baptists.
In 1644 the Particular Baptists issued a confession of faith (not a creed, but a summary of
their doctrines) in which they advocated believer’s baptism by immersion. Heretofore,
baptism of believers by pouring or sprinkling had been the mode. In this statement of faith,
each point was buttressed by reference to scripture passages because of the Baptist belief
that the Bible is the sole written authority for Christian faith and practice. The word
“baptism” is a transliteration of the Greek word in the New Testament which means to dip or
immerse.
This confession of faith was influential, and Baptists of all kinds began to practice
immersion. Thus, they came to be known as Baptists or Baptizers. During the early years of
Baptists in England, the churches were called by a variety of names, such as “The Churches
of Christ in London, Baptized,” “The Baptizing Churches,” and “Churches of the Baptized
Way.” By the 1800s the term “Baptist Church” in reference to local congregations had
become common, and baptism of believers by immersion had become the Baptist way even
in the face of difficulties associated with it.
The term “Baptist” was at first a form of ridicule aimed at Baptists by those who disagreed
with the practice of believer’s baptism by immersion. However, as is sometimes the case,
the taunting term became a badge of honor, worn unashamedly by the baptizers.
English Baptists have provided strong leaders.
Baptists in England have produced leaders who have helped to shape the Baptist story. For
example, William Carey (b.1761–d.1834) is often termed “The Father of Modern Missions”
because of the role he played in developing the first Baptist mission effort. In 1792 he was a
young pastor of a small Baptist church and helped support his family as a cobbler. As he
cobbled, he prayerfully pondered a map of the world. His study of the Bible and of the
world’s population convicted him that all people everywhere needed to hear the gospel.
He preached a sermon to that effect in a Baptist associational meeting and appealed to his
fellow Baptists to launch an effort to share the gospel throughout the world. The sermon is
referred to by historians as the “deathless sermon” because it initiated a movement that has
continued to live in spite of huge difficulties. It was preached from the text of Isaiah 54:2 and
had only two points: Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.
Although at first Carey’s appeal was rejected, a few pastors decided to join him in his
convictions and established the first Baptist organization for missions, popularly known as
the Baptist Missionary Society. The leaders of the Society asked Carey and John Thomas
(b.1757–d.1801), a medical doctor, to be the first missionaries sent by the Society. They were
to go to India. Carey’s wife Dorothy (c.1756–d.1807), who was pregnant, at first declined to
undertake the journey. However, after further consideration and the birth of the baby,
named Jabez, she decided to join Carey and Thomas with the provision that her sister
Catherine accompany them. Booking passage proved difficult. The East India Company
controlled entry into areas of India under British domination and was opposed to entry of
anyone the Company believed would diminish profits by creating controversy among the
Indian people, and this included the missionaries.
When British ships were unavailable, a Dutch ship finally agreed to take the group which
consisted of William and Dorothy Carey, their four young children, including the baby,
Dorothy’s sister, and Thomas. They sailed in June of 1793 and arrived in Calcutta in
November. Their five-month voyage took them past the shores of Europe, Africa, South
America, and Asia.
Immediately, they encountered huge problems. Thomas’ ineptness in handling the group’s
finances left the Carey family destitute, and funds from the Missionary Society did not arrive
for many months. Carey had to find secular employment. The British and the East India
Company authorities harassed them. Most Europeans scorned their efforts. They had to live
in an area infested with cobras, fierce tigers, and malaria. The hardships of a strange culture
and climate led to the death of their five-year-old son, Peter, and eventually robbed Dorothy
of her sanity; she died in 1807, never regaining her sanity. Carey married Charlotte Rumohr
(b.1761–d.1821) in 1808, who was an excellent helpmate in the mission work; after her
death in 1821, he married Grace Hughes (b.1778–d.1835), a great comfort to Carey in his
later years.
In spite of tragedies and obstacles, Carey established Baptist work which during his more
than forty years of missionary service developed into a successful multifaceted ministry. He
translated the Bible into many native languages, preached in the language of the native
people, baptized converts, helped to start churches, established a college, championed
moral reform, and developed an agricultural program that benefited India.
Initially, only a trickle of others followed Carey’s missionary lead, but soon the missionary
zeal increased until a veritable flood of Baptists spread the gospel around the world. Many
of these also experienced terrible hardships, but they persisted. Carey’s Bible-based vision,
his willingness to sacrifice to bring it to reality, and the establishment of an organization for
missions was a major turning point in the Baptist story.
Many other English Baptists helped to mold the Baptist denomination. John Clifford (b.1836–
d.1923), who was elected as the first president of the Baptist World Alliance at the initial
meeting in London in 1905, as a pastor was active in efforts for religious freedom and social
justice. Charles H. Spurgeon (b.1834–d.1892), a pastor in London of a huge church and
perhaps the most widely known preacher of his time, was often called “The Prince of
Preachers.” Spurgeon’s sermons were printed and widely distributed. He started a school to
train pastors. Alexander Maclaren (b.1826–d.1910), who became famous for his expository
preaching, was twice president of the British Baptist Union and presided over the first
meeting of the Baptist World Alliance in 1905.
Baptists in America
Baptist beginnings in America, as in England, came in the midst of religious persecution and
controversy. In the early 1600s colonists from England began to settle in America. Both
Puritans and Separatists were among the leaders who colonized the territory that came to
be known as New England. Among these was Roger Williams (c.1603–d.1683), a young
Cambridge-educated Puritan who arrived in the Boston area in 1631, having become a
Separatist. A brilliant student of the Bible, he was considered a troublemaker almost from
the beginning of his arrival.
For one thing, Williams believed that the Native Americans should be compensated for their
land rather than allowing settlers to confiscate the land. Also, Williams believed and taught
views on the relation of church and state that differed greatly from those of the governing
authorities.
He taught that on the basis of the New Testament people should be free to worship
according to the dictate of conscience, not the dictate of the government. He insisted that
governments ought not enforce religious beliefs and practices. He was embroiled in
controversy with the official authorities for holding these views. Finally, Williams was tried
and convicted by the ruling authorities of sedition and heresy and sentenced to be banished
back to England.
Before the sentence could be carried out, he left the colony and traveled south in the winter
of 1635–36. He left Mary (b.1609–d.1676), his wife, and their children behind until he found
a safe place for them to live.
The earliest Baptist churches in America were organized
in Rhode Island.
Befriended by Indians, Williams survived a harsh winter and settled in what is today Rhode
Island. His family joined him there. He purchased a tract of land from the Narragansett
Indians, established the town of Providence, and founded the Providence Plantation with
the first government in history to practice religious freedom and separation of church and
state. The area eventually became the colony and then the state of Rhode Island.
Williams’ study of the Bible led him to repudiate not only the union of church and state but
also his baptism as an infant. He came to the conviction that believer’s baptism was
biblically correct. Some persons who had also come to live in Providence shared Williams’
convictions about baptism. One of these was Ezekiel Holliman (b.1586–d.1659). A genealogy
of Holliman’s family contains the following account: “1639. He baptized Roger Williams and
was thereupon baptized by him, both being among the twelve original members of that
church in Providence.” These baptized believers constituted what is considered to be the
first Baptist church in the New World. Williams came to believe that no church completely
embodied the New Testament standard. Therefore, he left the Baptist church he had helped
to start and never joined another. However, his relation with the Baptists remained cordial,
and he maintained his strong convictions about religious freedom.
John Clarke (b.1609–d.1676), a friend and neighbor of Williams, was a medical doctor and
pastor. He had also left Massachusetts due to religious intolerance there. He started a
Baptist church in Newport, near where Williams and others had constituted a Baptist
church. Clarke became a leader in the growing Baptist movement in the area. After years of
petition to the English government, he and Williams finally received a charter from the
government guaranteeing religious freedom in the colony of Rhode Island.
Baptists in America suffered persecution
for two hundred years.
Such freedom did not exist in most of the areas to the north and south of Rhode Island. For
example, in Massachusetts Baptists were severely persecuted. Baptists and other dissenters
were often fined, imprisoned, and sometimes publicly flogged—beaten until bloody. Such
was the case with Obadiah Holmes (c.1606–d.1682).
Holmes was a member of the Baptist church in Newport pastored by John Clarke. Clarke, in
the book Ill Newes From New-England, told of a visit to Massachusetts in 1651 by himself,
Holmes, and another member of the church, John Crandall. They lodged in the home of
William Witter, also a baptized believer. On the Lord’s Day, Clarke conducted a private
worship service in Witter’s home. Government officials burst into the house, disrupted the
service, and apprehended the three men from Newport. They were taken to Boston, jailed,
and convicted without trial. The charges against them, among other things, were conducting
a worship service in violation of the law in Massachusetts and denying “the lawfullness of
Baptizing of Infants.” Fines were levied on all three to be paid or they would “be well whipt.”
Friends paid the fines of Clarke and Crandall, and after several days in prison they were
released.
Holmes, however, refused to accept payment of his fine. As a result, his sentence to “be well
whipt” was carried out. He was stripped naked to the waist, tied to a post in public, and
lashed thirty times by an experienced executioner with a heavy three-corded whip, his bare
back gashed ninety times, shredded into a mass of bloody flesh. He refused anything to
ease the pain before the beating and prayed that God would give him strength to bear the
blows and not cry out in pain but rather to testify of God’s faithfulness. Of this experience
Holmes wrote [original spelling]: “And as the man began to lay the stroaks upon my back, I
said to the people, though my Flesh should fail, and my Spirit should fail, yet God would not
fail; so it pleased the Lord to come in, and so to fill my heart and tongue as a vesell full, and
with audible voice I brake forth, praying unto the Lord not to lay this Sin to their charge, and
telling the people, That now I found he did not fail me and therefore now I should trust him
for ever who failed me not.”
Holmes described what occurred after the terrible beating: “When he had loosed me from
the Post, having joyfullnesse in my heart, and cheerfulness in my countenance, as the
Spectators observed, I told the Magistrates, you have struck me as with Roses.” He declared
that God eased his pain during the brutal beating so that he could bear a faithful witness.
The ghastly wounds required weeks of painful healing.
He rejoiced that he had been able to be a faithful witness, writing, “Now thus it hath pleased
the Father of Mercies so to dispose of the matter, that my Bonds and Imprisonments have
been no hinderance to the Gospel, for before my return, some submitted to the Lord, and
were baptized, and divers were put upon the way of enquiry….”
The courage of Holmes and the brutality of the government authorities indeed made a
profound impression on many people. For example, Henry Dunster (b.1609–d.1659), the
first president of Harvard University, was impressed by the Baptist courage in the face of
persecution. He studied the Baptist views and adopted the Baptist concept of believer’s
baptism and thus rejected infant baptism. He refused to have his infant son baptized, and
the leaders of the established state-supported church, which insisted on infant baptism,
removed Dunster from the presidency of Harvard in 1654.
In the face of government hostility, Baptists continued to preach and start churches. In 1665
Baptists dared to begin a church in Boston in the heart of the Puritan establishment. At first
they met secretly in homes, but in 1679 they constructed a simple building in which to
worship.
One Sunday in 1680 the worshippers found the doors nailed shut by order of the General
Court with the following notice posted:
All persons are to take notice that by order of the Court the doors of this house are
shut up and that they are inhibited to hold any meeting therein or to open the doors
thereof, without license from Authority, til the General Court take further order as they
will answer the contrary at their peril, dated in Boston 8th March, 1680, by order of the
Council.
Undaunted, the Baptists met outside in the cold and rain. Boston’s First Baptist Church’s
history states, “But the following Sunday, inexplicably, the doors were found open and they
were never again closed by the authorities.”
The contrast between the Massachusetts Bay Colony and
Providence Plantation, that is Rhode Island, was great
indeed.
In a sermon by John Winthrop (b.1588–d.1649), one of the Puritan leaders of Massachusetts,
in an allusion to Matthew 5:14, he declared that the colony was to be a “city upon a hill,” an
example of what he believed a society should be. However, the colony lacked religious
freedom and democracy, both of which were rejected by the Puritans.
Winthrop declared that democracy was the “meanest and worst of all forms of government.”
Church and state were mutually supportive in Puritan New England. Those who settled
there came for their own religious freedom, but no one else’s. Persons who disagreed with
the established church, such as Roger Williams and Henry Dunster, suffered at the hands of
the establishment.
In contrast, John Clarke described Rhode Island as a “lively experiment,” an experiment in
religious freedom. Church and state were separate, and religious freedom existed. People
who were persecuted for their religious convictions in other parts of the colonies came to
Rhode Island. Roger Williams in his book The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution clearly set forth the
foundation of freedom on which the colony of Rhode Island rested: “It is the will and
command of God that, since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus, a permission of the most
Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-christian consciences and worships be granted to all men
in all nations and countries.” This wide-open welcome brought a wide variety of persons to
the colony.
Some came to be free to worship according to the dictate of conscience rather than the
dictate of government authorities. Many others came to be free not to worship; they came
to escape religion, not to embrace it. In some colonies worship in the governmentsupported
church was mandatory. In Rhode Island no one was required to attend or
support or believe in any ecclesiastical institution whatsoever. The result was that the
population was far from being homogeneous! Governing such a diverse citizenry proved to
be no easy task. The colony was indeed an experiment and a lively one at that. Yet the
colony prospered.
Baptists endured persecution in the southern colonies.
As Baptists began to start churches in the southern colonies, they encountered persecution,
sometimes as fierce as that in New England. The first Baptist church in the South was
formed in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1696, and Baptist churches were started in the
early 1700s in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.
In the southern colonies, Baptists in Virginia endured especially harsh treatment. The
Church of England was the established state-supported church in Virginia. For daring to
preach the gospel without an official permit from the government, Baptists were fined,
imprisoned, and harassed.
The charge by the government authorities against the Baptist preachers was often that they
were disturbing the peace. For example, in 1768 several Baptist preachers were arrested,
brought before the court, and arraigned as disturbers of the peace. The lawyer who brought
the official charge against them declared, “May it please your courtships, these men are
great disturbers of the peace; they cannot meet a man upon the road, but they must ram a
passage of Scripture down his throat.”
The plight of the Baptists gained the sympathy of some influential Virginians. For example,
Patrick Henry (b.1736–d.1799) reputedly was a defender of Baptists. Accounts indicate that
on one occasion he rode over fifty miles on horseback to Fredericksburg to defend three
Baptist preachers who had been arrested and charged with preaching the gospel without
permission of the government authorities. After hearing the charges against the men read
by the court clerk and listening to comments by the prosecuting attorney, Henry took the
paper which contained the indictment and addressed the court. “May it please the court,
what did I hear?” He then repeated the charge against the prisoners: “For preaching the
gospel of the Son of God!” Then he slowly waved the paper three times around his head,
lifted his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, “Great God!” Henry proceeded with eloquence and
passion to state the case for religious freedom. Three times he referred to the indictment as
he waved it slowly around his head. Moved by the speech, the presiding magistrate
exclaimed, “Sheriff, discharge those men!”
Many other Baptist preachers were also arrested, fined, banished, whipped, and jailed. They
were often confined in jails for weeks, frequently in detestable circumstances. One of the
persons persecuted was James Ireland (b.1748–d.1806), a young Baptist preacher who was
arrested in 1769 and jailed in Culpeper, Virginia, for preaching. In his autobiography Ireland
wrote about the ordeal. He recorded that hostile crowds hurled rocks, sticks, and insults at
him on the way to prison. From November until April he suffered in a cold, filthy one-room
jail. The frigid winds of winter blew under the ill-fitting door and through cracks in the walls.
His persecutors conspired to torment, humiliate, and even to kill him. They exploded
gunpowder under the floor of the jail, filled the jail with choking fumes of burning sulfur and
Indian pepper, and poisoned him. During the terrible months in prison, he preached to
crowds through the iron grate in his cell window, at peril to himself and to the persons who
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crowds through the iron grate in his cell window, at peril to himself and to the persons who
listened. His enemies rode horses roughshod through the crowd, endangering those who
had gathered to listen to Ireland. In his memoirs he indicated that these were but examples
of the abuse he endured: “Thus, I have given some account of my personal sufferings, to
which might be added a hundred circumstances more.” He survived all the abuse, but as a
result of persecution, his health was impaired for life.
Such incidents helped to intensify the efforts of Virginia statesmen such as James Madison
(b.1751–d.1836) and Thomas Jefferson (b.1743–d.1826) in behalf of religious freedom. Yet
the resistance of the government-supported church in Virginia to any such efforts slowed
the process.
Baptist voluntary cooperation began to develop.
In the middle colonies, Baptists experienced more religious freedom than in other areas in
America. The founder of Pennsylvania was William Penn (b.1644–d.1718), a strong Quaker,
and the Quaker teaching on religious freedom influenced the region. Many settlers in the
middle colonies came from Wales. Some were Baptists.
The Welch Baptists brought an emphasis on evangelism, warm fellowship, fervent
preaching, and congregational singing. They also were not as opposed to organizations
beyond the local congregations as some other Baptists were. Not surprisingly, therefore,
one of the first major moves toward cooperation among Baptists took place in Pennsylvania.
Growth of Baptists fueled a desire among some for more cooperation. As early as the 1640s,
Baptists in England had formed associations for fellowship and cooperation in various
endeavors. Baptists in America adopted the pattern, and in 1707 they formed the
Philadelphia Baptist Association, the oldest surviving association in America.
The association was formed with five cooperating churches, all of them small, from New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. By the 1750s the association extended from New
England to the southern colonies. It functioned in some ways as a national body of
cooperation and was influential in further cooperative endeavors.
Baptists also cooperated to found a university, the College of Rhode Island, in 1764. From
the first it espoused the principles of religious freedom. In 1804 it was renamed Brown
University to honor a wealthy donor. The school educated many early Baptist leaders. It also
set an example for Baptists to establish numerous other schools throughout America in the
years to come.
Baptists did not grow rapidly in America until the First
Great Awakening in the 1730s and 1740s.
Thousands of persons experienced genuine conversion during the spiritual awakening
which swept through most of the colonies during the 1730s and 1740s. At the beginning of
the Awakening, less than fifty Baptist churches existed from Maine to Florida with only
about a thousand members. That soon changed.
Although Baptists had little to do with initiating the Awakening, they benefited greatly from
it. Many thousands of people left the government-supported churches in the colonies,
finding them too cold religiously for their newfound spiritual fervor, and joined with Baptists
and other denominations.
The Awakening brought about a division among Baptists. Those who embraced the
Awakening became known as Separates or New Lights. Those who looked with disfavor on
it, primarily because of what they considered excessive emotion, were called Regular
Baptists or Old Lights. Many Separate Baptists were suspicious of education for pastors and
favored informal, emotional worship. Most Regular Baptists favored education and a more
formal worship style. By 1800 the two groups had reunited, but these two distinct emphases
remained in Baptist life.
Baptists became known for their evangelistic zeal.
The emphasis on evangelism among the Separate Baptists began to permeate Baptist life.
This in turn led to the growth in the number of Baptists and of Baptist churches. One
example of the evangelistic zeal of these Baptists who were in a sense the product of the
Great Awakening is the Sandy Creek Baptist Church. Organized in North Carolina by Shubal
Stearns (b.1706–d.1771) in 1755, in just seventeen years this church was instrumental in
helping to start forty-two churches from which came 125 additional evangelistic preachers.
The commitment to both evangelism and believer’s baptism by immersion is recorded in the
journals of John Leland (b.1754–d.1841), a Baptist pastor in both New England and Virginia
in the latter part of the 1700s and early part of the 1800s. His description of baptism in
Virginia indicates the strong commitment of Baptists to immersion as the correct biblical
mode of baptism: “I have seen ice cut more than a foot thick, and people baptized in the
water, and yet I have never heard of any person taking cold, or any kind of sickness, in so
doing.”
The numbers of persons being baptized varied, of course, but Leland’s record indicates the
significant growth of Baptists: “Forty, fifty, and sixty have often been baptized in a day, at
one place, in Virginia, and sometimes as many as seventy-five. There are some ministers
now living in Virginia, who have baptized more than two thousand persons.”
Baptisms were public, joyful events and as such were also means of evangelistic outreach.
Leland wrote: “At times appointed for baptism, the people generally go singing to the waterside
in grand procession: I have heard many souls declare they first were convicted, or first
found pardon going to, at, or coming from the water.”
The Baptist love of singing is also indicated by Leland’s accounts: “At meetings, as soon as
preaching is over, it is common to sing a number of spiritual songs; sometimes several
songs are sounding at the same time, in different parts of the congregation.” And what were
they singing? Leland states, regarding the famous hymn writer, “Dr. Watts is the general
standard for the Baptists in Virginia; but they are not confined to him; any spiritual
composition answers their purpose.”
The American Revolution (1775-1783) aided the Baptist
cause.
The Great Awakening accelerated Baptist growth and influence. So did the American
Revolution. Baptists were second to none in their commitment to help establish a new
nation, separated from England. Part of the Baptist support was due to their inherent love
of freedom, and part was due to a hope that a break with England would break the power of
the government-supported churches in the colonies. Thus, Baptists fought for both civil
liberty and religious freedom.
And fight they did. Baptists were wholehearted patriots. They not only supported the
Revolution with their words but with their deeds, taking up arms with their fellow
countrymen against the British. An example of the Baptist zeal was John Gano (b.1727–
d.1804), pastor of the First Baptist Church of New York City. The First Baptist Church history
states:
Because the pastor and many of its members had joined the Revolution, the British
used the building as a horse stable. Gano served as chaplain to Colonel Webb, General
Clinton, and later George Washington. The present building is located on the site of the
ambush of Gano’s regiment as they fled after defeats on Long Island to join
Washington. When the Treaty of Peace celebration took place in Newburgh,
Washington called on Gano to offer the prayer of thanksgiving. Washington also
requested Gano to baptize him, because he had studied the scriptures and concluded
that as a believer he should be immersed.
In addition to serving as chaplains, Baptists fought side by side with soldiers who were
members of churches which had oppressed Baptists. Such camaraderie against a common
enemy enhanced a wider understanding of who Baptists were and what they stood for. The
identification of the Baptists with the winning cause of the Revolution also gained for them
added respect and attention, not only from the population as a whole but also from leaders
of the new nation.
An example of this appreciation of Baptists by national leaders is a letter written in 1789 by
President George Washington (b.1732–d.1799) to the Committee of the United Baptist
Churches of Virginia. Washington, a lifelong member of the Anglican Church, one of the
denominations that had persecuted Baptists, assured Baptists of his appreciation for them
and affirmed his own commitment to religious freedom:
For you doubtless remember that I have often expressed my sentiment, that every
man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his
religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the
dictates of his own conscience.
While I recollect with satisfaction that the religious society of which you are members,
have been, throughout America, uniformly, and almost unanimously the firm friends to
civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our glorious revolution, I cannot hesitate
to believe that they will be the faithful supporters of a free, yet efficient general
government.
Baptists of all kinds yearned for religious freedom, not
only for themselves but for everyone.
One by-product of the Baptist growth was their increased influence for religious freedom for
all. Throughout the colonies Baptist leaders such as Isaac Backus (b.1724–d.1806) in New
England and John Leland in Virginia worked for church and state to be free from one
another’s control so that persons could enjoy religious freedom. In Virginia they found allies
in such persons as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
In the Revolutionary War, Baptists fought to win freedom from England. But victory did not
bring religious freedom. Government-supported churches continued to exist in some of the
states in the new nation, and the governing documents for the nation, such as the Articles of
Confederation, made no provision for religious freedom.
Baptists renewed their efforts, and along with others finally gained an increase in religious
freedom with the adoption of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as part
of the Bill of Rights. James Madison, regarded as the “Father of the Constitution,” with
Baptist backing, especially that of John Leland, authored and championed the adoption of
the First Amendment, which was finally achieved in 1791.
However, the statement in the First Amendment that “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” applied
only to the Federal Government and not to the states. Some states tenaciously maintained a
government-supported church. Among these was Connecticut.
The Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, concerned that full religious freedom for
which Baptists and others had paid such a high price would never be attained, in 1801 wrote
President Thomas Jefferson about their concerns. He replied in a famous letter dated
January 1, 1802, that set forth the clear ideal of separation of church and state. In the letter
he declared:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God,
that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate
powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with
sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their
legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of
conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which
tend to restore to man all natural rights, convinced he had no natural right in
opposition to his social duties.
The “progress of those sentiments” moved slowly. It was not until 1818 that Connecticut
disestablished its state-supported church. Jefferson did not live to see the last vestiges of
religious establishment done away with. He died in 1826, and it was not until 1833 in
Massachusetts that the last tax-supported church was disestablished. Then America became
more truly the land of religious freedom. Baptists utilized the freedom in efforts to spread
the gospel throughout the new nation.
The Baptist commitment to missions developed.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Baptists had grown to over eleven hundred
churches with approximately one hundred thousand members. However, they lacked any
national organization. The churches were fiercely independent and suspicious of any
organization that would threaten their autonomy and freedom. Congregational governance
and local church autonomy were viewed as the basic New Testament pattern. When Baptist
associations were formed, much was said in the organizing documents about the limits of
the association’s powers as well as about its tasks. Soon this lack of national organization
changed. The initial motivation for the change was missions.
In the early 1800s the missionary fervor which had engulfed the Congregational churches
had an unexpected effect on the Baptists. In 1812 Ann Hasseltine Judson (b.1789–d.1826)
and Adoniram Judson (b.1788–d.1850) along with Luther Rice (b.1783–d.1836), all of whom
were Congregationalists, were commissioned as missionaries to India by the Congregational
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The Judsons, each a very devout
Christian, had been married only two weeks before they boarded the Caravan, the ship that
took them on their four-month voyage from America to India.
Rice traveled on another ship, the Harmony. On their journey on separate vessels and upon
arrival, the Judsons and Rice carefully studied the New Testament in order to refute the
Baptist view of baptism since the Baptists under the leadership of William Carey from
England were already in India. The Congregational churches practiced infant baptism.
As a result of their study of the Bible, the Judsons and Rice came to hold the Baptist view of
believer’s baptism and were baptized as Baptists. Severed from their Congregational
support, Rice returned to America to secure Baptist support for the Judsons, who moved
from India to Burma to conduct their missionary efforts.
In Burma the Judsons encountered severe challenges. Although they shared the gospel
faithfully, the response from the people was either indifference or hostility. They arrived in
Burma in 1813, but it was not until 1819 that the first convert was baptized. The living
conditions, climate, and disease took a terrible toll on their health. Sorrow over the death of
their first child, named Roger Williams, after only eight months of life added to their
difficulty.
Ann’s health finally broke under the strain, and she returned to the United States in 1822 for
recovery. While in the States, she lectured and wrote extensively about missions, stirring
new commitment to the cause among a widening group of persons. Her letters written both
while in the United States and in Burma inspired increased support for missions.
However, her life provided the greatest inspiration. She returned to Burma in 1823 and
remained at her missionary post in spite of horrible difficulties. Her husband suffered
almost two years of torture and imprisonment during which time she risked life and health
to minister to him. She persistently pled for his release while also caring for their infant
child. Her kindness to all persons won admiration and a host of friends. Her translating of
parts of the Bible into the Burmese language helped to bring many to know about Christ.
Finally, the years of toil took away her health, and she died on October 24, 1826, of fever.
Adoniram continued the missionary ministry which he and Ann had initiated at great cost,
including the deaths of their only two children. After Ann’s death, he married Sarah Hall
Boardman (b.1803–d.1845), who was herself a wonderful helpmate and missionary.
Following her death, he married Emily Chubbuck (b.1817–d.1854), who also served diligently
the missionary cause. Through the many years of Judson’s service, the missionary work
prospered, and the Baptist population in Burma continued to grow, becoming one of the
largest in the world.
The Baptist missionary zeal led to national
organizations.
The missionary efforts in Burma by the Judsons, the inspiration provided by their example
and by Ann’s writings, and the appeals of Luther Rice in America for support of the
missionaries helped to change Baptist life in America in remarkable ways. Baptists
embraced missionary endeavors. They formed national organizations for missions.
Rice traveled widely urging support for missions. The result was the formation in 1814 of the
first national organization of Baptists, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist
Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, better known as the
Triennial Convention because it met every three years.
Soon other organizations followed, such as those for home missions and publications. State
conventions were launched, the first being the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1821.
Baptist women formed organizations to help support missions both by missionary
education and by financial support.
Most Baptists came to believe that churches could cooperate voluntarily to form
organizations for the spread of the gospel without losing their autonomy. A few Baptists
continued to object to these organizations on the grounds that they were without biblical
precedent, but soon missions, denominational organizations, and voluntary cooperation
became major factors in Baptist life.
Baptists grew rapidly both in numbers and
organizations.
Throughout the nation Baptists grew rapidly through missionary and evangelistic efforts.
Throngs of persons responded to the gospel and were baptized into Baptist churches.
Baptist preachers and laypersons carried the gospel and the Baptist witness everywhere,
including the western frontier. Among these were Squire Boone (b.1744–d.1815), a preacher
and brother of Daniel Boone (b.1734–d.1820), who gathered believers together in Kentucky,
and Thomas Lincoln (b.1778–d.1851), a Baptist deacon and father of Abraham Lincoln
(b.1809–d.1865), who helped develop churches in Kentucky and Indiana.
Baptists require no formal theological training for a person to become a preacher. As a
result, Baptist farmers, merchants, and others who felt called to preach did so and started
churches wherever they settled. They were joined in these efforts by college and
seminaryeducated
preachers who were equally committed to evangelism and church starting.
Baptists were known as an evangelistic people. They carried out their evangelistic zeal in
various ways. Accusations of being overly zealous, even fanatical, did not dampen their
efforts to share the gospel with all persons everywhere.
New churches, often more effective than older congregations in evangelism, were started in
cities, towns, and rural areas. Evangelism was considered every Baptist’s responsibility and
opportunity, not just that of preachers and evangelists. Churches provided training
opportunities for members in how to share their faith in Christ with others.
Meetings were organized for the specific purpose of evangelism, sometimes held by
individual churches and at other times by entire associations of churches. Usually termed
“revival meetings” or “protracted meetings,” these events sometimes lasted for weeks, often
resulting in many professions of faith and baptisms. Baptisms frequently took place outside
of church buildings in ponds, rivers, creeks, and lakes, and this afforded an additional
means of publicly sharing the gospel.
The dispute over slavery separated Baptists North and South resulting in the formation of
the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. The Southern Baptist Convention became the
largest Baptist convention in the world. The American Civil War slowed growth among
Baptists nationwide for awhile, but after the War growth resumed.
The earliest Black Baptist churches are generally acknowledged to be the Bluestone Church
on the William Byrd plantation in Virginia (c.1758) and the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in
South Carolina (c.1773). The South Carolina church was founded as the result of the
evangelistic efforts of George Liele, sometimes spelled Lisle or Leile, (c.1750–c.1828), a slave,
who after securing his freedom immigrated to Jamaica. In 1784 he began to preach in
Jamaica, helping to develop a strong Baptist work in that country. African Americans,
liberated from slavery by the Civil War in the 1860s, formed hundreds of Baptist churches
and some of the largest Baptist conventions to be found.
Native Americans, responding to Baptist mission efforts, started churches. In addition,
various immigrant groups, such as Germans, Swedes, and Hispanics, started Baptist
churches, formed conventions, founded schools, and published materials.
Overall the Baptist growth has been phenomenal.
About eight hundred thousand Baptists in 1850 became over five million by 1900, over
seventeen million by 1955, and over thirty million by 2000. The Baptist growth has been not
only in numbers of members and churches but also in many other ways.
Baptist missionary organizations, publishing ventures, schools, and other entities blanketed
America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Baptists established outstanding
universities, seminaries, child and elder care institutions, and medical centers. They formed
entities to publish newspapers and other materials and to provide information via electronic
media as resources for churches and other Baptist organizations. Baptists sent thousands of
missionaries throughout the nation and the world. They founded organizations to deliver
ministry to the total needs of persons, including physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
Baptists created national and regional organizations to provide support for these various
efforts. They came to realize that fulfilling the Lord Jesus Christ’s Great Commission
(Matthew 28:18–20) and Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37–40) called for cooperation.
Voluntary cooperation enabled Baptists to do together what no single person, church, or
other entity could do alone in sharing God’s love through both word and deed.
As the Baptist denomination has grown, Baptists have continued to make major
contributions in various aspects of society. They have populated the classrooms of
academia and boardrooms of major corporations. They are found in the ranks as well as in
the leadership of various arenas, such as business, the arts, sports, entertainment, the
military, and government.
Once banned from public office, they have served as judges, governors, mayors, senators,
congressmen, and presidents. Samuel “Sam” Houston (b.1793–d.1863) is an example of this.
He was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas in 1836. He was baptized
November 19, 1854, into the Independence Baptist Church in Independence, Texas, while he
was a United States senator, and he later served as governor of the state.
In the world of religion, Baptists have provided a veritable army of pastors, teachers,
missionaries, and church leaders. They have furnished great evangelists such as Billy
Graham (b.1918– ), influential authors such as Walter Rauschenbusch (b.1861–d.1918),
outstanding educators such as Francis Wayland (b.1796–d.1865), visionary organizers such
as Nannie Helen Burroughs (c.1879–d.1961), and courageous proponents of social justice
such as Martin Luther King, Jr. (b.1929–d.1968).
A number of factors contributed to the Baptist growth.
From a tiny band of exiles nestled in Rhode Island in the 1600s, Baptists became the largest
denomination in America, apart from the Roman Catholic. The Baptist growth in America did
not come primarily from immigration, as much of the Roman Catholic growth did, but from
robust evangelistic and missionary efforts.
Baptist church organizations and activities focused on evangelism. For example, Sunday
Schools for all ages have contributed to the growth; they combine Bible study with
fellowship and evangelistic outreach. Churches organized visitation programs in which
members visited the homes of unchurched persons inviting them to Sunday School and
worship and sharing Christ with individuals who were not Christians.
Furthermore, as previously indicated, Baptists do not require any level of formal education
for their preachers and missionaries. Some Baptist churches and other entities have
educational requirements, but the denomination itself does not. This enabled hundreds of
farmers, merchants, and others who felt called of God but who lacked formal theological
education to preach, pastor, start churches, and provide leadership. Some of these were
highly educated in fields other than theology, while others had little or no formal education
but had great zeal and ability. Baptists for the most part were not anti-education, as
evidenced by the many Baptist schools that exist, but they did not allow formal education
standards to stand in the way of sharing the gospel on the expanding frontier. This
approach contributed greatly to Baptist growth and diversity.
Baptist schools and other institutions contributed to the Baptist increase. Colleges,
universities, seminaries, child and elder care entities, and hospitals have aided the Baptist
witness. In addition, organizations that deliver assistance in times of disasters, such as
earthquakes, floods, fires, and tornadoes, expand evangelistic outreach through ministry.
Baptist expansion has also been enhanced because various basic Baptist characteristics are
compatible with the spirit of the American dream. These characteristics include an emphasis
on freedom, personal responsibility, and the benefit of cooperation.
With Baptist growth came increasing diversity.
Baptists have grown not only in numbers but also in variety. Baptists have formed
numerous different regional and national organizations, some with a few members and
others with millions. They range theologically from Free Will Baptists to Primitive Baptists.
Various ethnic groups maintain conventions, such as the Hispanic Baptist Convention.
Several organizations are the result of divisions, such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
from the Southern Baptist Convention and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
from the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
Baptists vary greatly. Educationally, Baptists range from those who are illiterate to famous
scholars. Economically, they include the very poor and the enormously wealthy. Politically,
they encompass those considered liberal and those considered conservative. Culturally and
racially, they come from scores of different groups. Even with such diversity, Baptists in
America are remarkably alike in basic beliefs and practices, what is termed the Baptist
Recipe.
Baptists in America are not without faults; no group is. Yet in spite of these shortcomings,
Baptists in America have grown and contributed in many positive ways.
Baptists Worldwide
In addition to England and America, Baptists have spread throughout the world.
Missionaries from England and the United States helped launch Baptist work in Africa, Asia,
South America, and Australia. Immigration of Baptists from England and the United States to
places without a Baptist witness further expanded the Baptist worldwide presence.
In many of the areas where the Baptist witness was established by missionaries and
immigrants, the Baptists in those places have sent missionaries of their own to further
spread the Baptist witness. And Baptists continue to migrate to various locations, planting
churches.
Indigenous Baptist churches came into being in some places. For example, in Germany
Johann Gerhard Oncken’s (b.1800–d.1884) study of the Scriptures led him to accept Baptist
views. He heard about an American Baptist who was in Berlin, sought him out, and with six
others was baptized in the Elbe River in 1834. Oncken’s evangelistic efforts led to the
expansion of Baptists on the European continent to such an extent that he is referred to as
the “Apostle of European Baptists.”
Advanced types of travel and communication have greatly facilitated the expansion of
Baptists worldwide. The increase in financial resources of Baptists has enabled them to
utilize these extensively.
The Baptist emphases on evangelism, missions, church
planting, and ministry have contributed to the Baptist
expansion.
Baptist growth has not been confined to any one area. The largest Baptist population
developed in the United States, but Baptists in some other countries came to number more
than a million, such as in Nigeria, India, Myanmar (previously Burma), and Brazil. All told,
Baptist churches extended to more than 120 countries by the end of the twentieth century.
Baptist churches are located on every continent except Antarctica. New Baptist churches are
formed every day. Baptist churches number in the tens of thousands and their members in
the tens of millions. Baptists in these various places throughout the world have established
not only churches but also various kinds of cooperative organizations.
These organizations go by different names, such as associations, networks, societies,
conventions, fellowships, and unions, but they all have in common the idea that
participation is always voluntary. In addition, Baptists have established schools, hospitals,
child and elder care entities, and other types of institutions for ministry. Baptists field a huge
missionary force taking the gospel to the “uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Wherever
they go, Baptists advocate religious freedom for all persons.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the number of Baptists worldwide was
estimated to be approximately fifty million. This is indeed only an estimated number. The
number of Baptists is difficult to determine for several reasons. In some places, Baptists are
persecuted and often do not make any information about their activities or membership
public. Other Baptist groups view keeping statistics as relatively unimportant. Baptists have
no central authority that can require statistics to be reported by Baptist groups around the
world. Baptists count as members only those who have made public professions of faith,
been baptized, and joined a church. Thus, a report that includes only members significantly
underestimates the total number of persons involved in Baptist churches, such as
unbaptized children of members and persons who attend faithfully but have never officially
joined a Baptist church.
Baptists throughout the world relate voluntarily with
one another.
Baptists cooperate throughout the world in various ways. For example, Baptists in some
countries form partnerships or cooperative efforts with Baptists in other countries for
church planting, evangelism, or ministry. Also, churches and associations of churches in one
part of the world cooperate with similar entities in another part. Some of these cooperative
efforts are formally entered into and others are very informal, but all are voluntary.
Baptist institutions in one country also cooperate with those in another. For example,
Baptist medical centers in America contribute equipment and expertise to Baptist medical
centers in other nations. Baptist colleges and seminaries form partnerships with similar
entities in other countries.
In 1905 the Baptist World Alliance was established to help encourage cooperation and
fellowship among the Baptists of the world. As with all organizations in Baptist life, the
Alliance has no authority over any other Baptist entity. It serves as a conduit for Baptist aid
to persons in need, as an advocate for religious freedom, and as a source of encouragement
and fellowship for Baptists worldwide.
An evidence of Baptist growth worldwide is the various places from which Baptist World
Alliance presidents have come. These include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Great
Britain, Hong Kong, Liberia, South Korea, and the United States. The countries where the
BWA World Congress has met also indicate the worldwide Baptist growth. These include
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, England, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and
the United States.
Key Characteristics of Baptists
Baptists are clearly a diverse people. Amidst this vast diversity, a kind of uniformity also
exists. It is not an imposed or organizational uniformity but rather one derived from certain
commonly held beliefs.
The authority of the Bible and the Lordship of Christ
form bedrock Baptist convictions.
Baptism only of believers in Christ after their conversion and by immersion is often cited as
the distinguishing characteristic of Baptists. While it certainly distinguishes Baptists from
most of the rest of the Christian family, believer’s baptism by immersion actually rests on
other basic convictions. Among these are a steadfast commitment to the Bible as the sole
written authority for faith and practice and a passionate belief in the Lordship of Jesus
Christ.
Coupled with these is an unwavering devotion to freedom. The unyielding insistence on the
authority of the Bible, the Lordship of Christ, and responsible freedom serve as the basis for
other Baptist emphases.
Since Christ is Lord, all persons ought to be free to find and follow his will. Since the Bible is
the authority for faith and practice, all persons ought to be free to read, interpret, and apply
the teachings of the Bible.
In turn these convictions lead to other Baptist beliefs and practices, such as salvation only
by grace through repentance and a personal response of faith in Christ, soul competency
and the priesthood of all believers, believer’s baptism by immersion, regenerate church
membership, governance of autonomous congregations by their members, voluntary
cooperation, evangelism, missions, efforts to correct wrongs in the social order, Christian
education, and ministry to the total needs of persons in Christ’s name.
Baptists have insisted that all of these function best where there is religious freedom and a
friendly separation of church and state. As John Leland, a Baptist pastor who helped lead
the struggle for religious freedom in America, wrote in The Rights of Conscience Inalienable:
Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men, than it has with the
principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the
principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three
Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing.
Because Baptists have held fast to these convictions and have defied laws regulating
religious practices, they have suffered ridicule and persecution by governmental and
religious authorities. What has been the response by Baptists to this persecution? Frank S.
Mead (b.1898–d.1982), a Methodist historian, stated about Baptists, “Never once in their
bitter, bloody history have they struck back at their persecutors or persecuted any other for
his faith.”
The Baptist emphasis on freedom includes responsibility
The Baptist emphasis on freedom includes responsibility
and accountability.
Herschel Hobbs (b.1907–d.1995), noted Baptist pastor and theologian, concerning Baptist
freedom, wrote, “This does not mean that Baptists believe that one can believe just anything
and be a Christian or a Baptist. The competency of the soul in religion entails the authority
of the Scriptures and the lordship of Jesus Christ.” Indeed, Baptist freedom is to be
responsible freedom.
Christ as Lord calls for responsible discipleship, for obedience to his will, for evangelistic
witness, for missionary outreach, and for ministry and service to others. The Bible teaches
that those who believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord are to give evidence of that belief, not by
isolated pietism but by being part of a worshipping, witnessing, loving, serving community of
fellow believers.
Accountable freedom is especially evident in Baptist
church life.
For Baptists the word “church” relates primarily to local congregations of baptized believers.
Each church is autonomous and free from outside control.
Baptist church life embodies accountable freedom. Baptists insist that church membership
ought to be freely entered into, never coerced. The members of a church ought to be free to
govern the church under the Lordship of Christ apart from any outside human interference.
Freedom characterizes Baptist financial support of a church. Although Baptists teach that
tithes and offerings are the biblical method for church support, the denomination does not
mandate any financial standard or method of giving. Individual church members decide
what, when, and how they will give. Receiving tithes and offerings is part of Baptist worship
services; persons are encouraged to give, but no one is required to do so.
Furthermore, churches are free to determine how much will be given by the church to
denominational causes. No assessments are levied on individuals or churches by the
denomination.
These freedoms, as are all others in Baptist life, are to be exercised with accountability,
abiding by the teachings of the Bible and the direction of the Holy Spirit under the Lordship
of Christ, the Head of the church.
Worship by Baptists exemplifies freedom.
Baptists herald the importance of individual, family, and church worship and insist that such
worship ought to be free from government or denominational control or interference.
Baptists believe that corporate worship by congregations is a vital ingredient in the life of
every Christian and church. The Baptist denomination does not prescribe worship patterns
for churches. The Bible is the authority for faith and practice for Baptists, and the Bible does
not contain a prescribed form for worship. However, it does indicate that certain practices
were present in worship by New Testament churches, the pattern for Baptist church life.
These practices included scripture reading, preaching, praying, singing, receiving offerings,
and appeals for persons to make decisions. Looking to the Bible for guidance, each
autonomous church through congregational governance is free to choose the way it uses
these elements in worship.
The Bible is central in Baptist worship. The denomination does not determine for corporate
worship the translations of the Bible to use, what place in the service the Bible is to be read
publicly, what scripture passages to read, or who is to read the Bible publicly. A biblical
sermon is a major part of a Baptist worship service, and the preacher, not the
denomination, chooses the topic, theme, text, and type of sermon.
Prayer is basic to all Baptist worship services. Again, freedom prevails. The denomination
does not prescribe who is to lead in public prayer, the content of the prayer, or places in the
order of worship for prayer.
Music also plays a significant role in Baptist worship services. Churches are free to use
whatever music and musical instruments they choose. There are no denominational
directives for music in worship.
The two ordinances of Baptist churches, believer’s baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are
conducted as part of a worship service. For Baptists each of these is very important, but not
necessary for salvation. As important as these are, there are no denominational
requirements for how they are to be conducted. Each church is free to determine how,
when, and where the ordinances are to be administered.
Appeals for decisions are also included in Baptist worship services, such as for the unsaved
to trust in Jesus as personal Savior and for the unchurched to become church members.
Many churches include a time in the service for individuals to make such decisions public;
others have a time and a place set aside to provide counsel for persons interested in making
such decisions. The denomination does not dictate the nature of these appeals. The
response to these appeals is to be voluntary and free.
Clearly, the Baptist emphasis on freedom leads to great variety in corporate worship. The
day, time, length, content, order, and leadership for congregational worship are determined
by the church and not by any directive of the denomination. Some worship services are
informal; others are formal. Such variety does not lead to worship anarchy, however,
because Baptists endeavor to follow the New Testament directive that “everything should be
done in a fitting and orderly way” (I Corinthians 14:40 NIV).
The organizational pattern of Baptist churches
demonstrates freedom.
Baptist church freedom is seen in the various ways that Baptist congregations are
organized. The Baptist commitment to the autonomy of local churches and congregational
governance has resulted in many different organizational patterns. There are no officially
prescribed rules by the Baptist denomination for congregational organization. Some
churches are highly structured, while others have little formal structure.
Baptists use an assortment of names for leaders in local congregations. For example,
various titles are used for the person who is called by the church to be the primary preacher
and teacher, such as pastor, elder, and even bishop (though rarely); for many years the
preferred title in the United States was elder, but pastor became more and more preferred.
Most Baptist theologians consider that the New Testament uses the titles pastor, elder, and
bishop to refer to various aspects of the same office.
Whatever title is used, the person is chosen by the members of the local congregation and
not assigned by some denominational entity outside of the church. Furthermore, the person
does not serve as a mediator between members of the congregation and God. Each Baptist
is a priest and relates directly to God, exercising his or her soul competency under the
Lordship of Christ and with the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
Baptist organizations beyond local congregations also
evidence freedom.
The Baptist emphasis on freedom and rejection of any human authority to dictate religious
faith or practice has resulted in multiple expressions in the organizational life of Baptists
beyond local congregations. A denomination is a group of persons who hold a common set
of beliefs, practices, and values. A denomination usually develops various organizations
based on those beliefs.
In addition to local congregations of believers, these organizations among Baptists include
associations, societies, unions, fellowships, and conventions as well as institutions of various
kinds for evangelism, education, missions, ministry, publications, and health care. There are
no denominationally dictated patterns of organization or names for these various
organizations. Furthermore, local churches are free to associate or not associate with any of
these organizations, and none of the organizations has any authority over local churches.
Baptist freedom is also evident in the titles for leaders and officers of the various
denominational organizations. There are no prescribed denominational titles, and each
entity can choose whatever title it prefers. These titles vary according to the nature of the
organization, the function of the leader, and tradition.
For institutions such as schools, child and elder care entities, and hospitals, common titles
are superintendent and president. For organizations such as associations and conventions,
common titles are director, executive director, director of missions, president, general
secretary, and corresponding secretary. All of these positions, whatever the title, have in
common that the person has no authority over local congregations; each church is
autonomous and self-governing.
Baptist freedom is expressed in the various ways Baptist
churches and other organizations relate to non-Baptist
groups.
The Baptist denomination does not dictate how Baptist entities relate to non-Baptist
religious organizations, such as local ministerial alliances and state, national, and worldwide
ecumenical bodies such as the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.
Some Baptists associate closely with such groups, while others do not.
Most Baptist churches and organizations cooperate with non-Baptists on certain specific
causes, such as efforts to promote religious freedom. Many Baptist groups cooperate with
other religious bodies as well as with secular organizations in various matters, such as social
action and disaster relief.
The nature and results of the Baptist emphasis on
freedom have shaped the denomination.
Freedom is also evident in the various controversies that are part of the Baptist story.
Baptists have experienced many controversies, often leading to division and the formation
of new churches, organizations, and institutions. One of the reasons that controversy in
Baptist life often results in such division is that there is no human authority in the
denomination that has the power to settle disputes or render a final verdict when
differences erupt. The Bible is the authority for Baptist faith and practice.
When differences arise, Baptists appeal to the Bible as the basis for their convictions, not to
any human creed or denominational pronouncement because Baptists are free to interpret
and apply the Bible for themselves. There is no official interpretation which all Baptists must
accept. In case of conflicting interpretations, there is no human authority to dictate which
interpretation is correct.
The Baptist emphasis on freedom does not mean that a person can believe just anything
and still be considered a Baptist since Baptists have certain basic beliefs that define what it
means to be a Baptist. For example, Baptists would defend the freedom of a person to
believe that baptism is essential for salvation but would indicate that such belief would
render the person outside the Baptist fold since a basic Baptist conviction is that salvation is
only by grace through repentance and faith and not by works or sacraments.
Baptist freedom has resulted in vast and continuing diversity, and yet Baptists are amazingly
alike. Thus, Baptists are characterized by unity and diversity which do not rest on structure
but rather on the beliefs and practices that they treasure. With all of their differences,
Baptists share basic convictions. These beliefs and practices, taken as a whole, make
Baptists a distinct family of Christians. The Baptist Identity Series sets forth these beliefs and
practices which comprise the Baptist Recipe.
The Baptist Recipe is truly remarkable. A careful examination of the recipe reveals a
marvelous balance and wholeness. For example, the emphasis on individual, personal
response to the gospel is balanced by an emphasis on the community of believer priests in
the loving fellowship of churches. And the ingredients in the recipe are bound together in a
wholeness by love as each relates to God’s love and is a means of sharing God’s love.
Conclusion
The Baptist story is indeed a wonderful story. It is an inspiring story, filled with examples of
dedication and courage, often in the face of painful persecution.
It is an ever expanding story. Baptist commitment to evangelism and missions, based on
obedience to Christ and on love for all persons, has resulted in an increasing number of
Baptist Christians and churches. The Baptist denomination has grown to be one of the
largest parts of the total Christian family.
It is an increasingly diverse story. As the Baptist family of Christians grows, it includes an
increasing variety of persons; the family is enriched by the insights, emphases, and worship
styles they bring.
Baptists function in a multitude of ways caring for hurting persons. Individual Baptists,
churches, associations, conventions, societies, fellowships, networks, unions, and
institutions meet spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and social needs.
Baptists have developed a wide variety of organizations, but the congregations of baptized
believers remain the bedrock of the Baptist denominational structure. These churches differ
in size, location, ministries, worship styles, and facilities. Pastoral leadership varies from fulltime
to part-time, from those with seminary degrees to those with little formal education.
While diverse, these churches share a common commitment to basic Baptist beliefs.
Challenges and difficulties have been numerous in the past, and as the future unfolds, no
doubt others await the Baptist family of Christians. As Baptists in the past have encountered
and overcome these with God’s help, persons in the days ahead will surely do likewise, and
Baptists will continue to help fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Great Commission
“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'”
Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)
The Great Commandment
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your
mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your
neighbor
as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
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