Baptist Words Works And Worship Essay

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The Baptists: Words, Works, and Worship

The branch of Christianity known as The Baptists was born out of the Radical Reformation, which begun during the 16th century. The Reformation occurred in response to discontent and disagreement within the Christian Church. Prior to the Reformation in Europe, communities of “Anabaptists” (re-baptizers) had begun to form. The Anabaptists differed in their perspectives widely, but were united in their rejection of infant baptism. “The forerunners of present day Baptists were the Anabaptists of the Reformation Period. Some Anabaptist congregations were settled in Holland in the early 17th century when groups of Puritan Independents, or Congregationalists, fled from England to Holland.”

John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, English separatists of Congregational persuasion, founded the first Baptist church on Dutch soil at Amsterdam in 1609. The Baptists essentially began as part of the Separatist movement, but did not think that the Separatists went far enough in distancing themselves from the teachings and practices of the Church of England and in following the teachings of the Bible. Baptists primarily differed from the Separatists on the issue of baptism. “Baptists reserved the rite for confessed believers. These Baptists began forming associations of like-minded churches, giving rise to the first Baptist denominations.” Then, in 1611, the group returned to England, and formed the first Baptist congregation in Spitalfields, near London.

There was a great deal of diversity of opinion among the Baptists. Two groups of Baptists emerged in England during this Puritan reform movement. “While sharing the view that only believers should be baptized, the two groups differed with respect to the nature of Christ’s atonement.” The two groups became known as the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists. The former, believed that the spiritual benefits of the death of Jesus applied potentially to all people; the latter believed, with the Calvinists, that those benefits applied only to the elect, those predestined for salvation. The General Baptists trace their beginning to the Baptist church founded Spitalfields in 1611. Particular Baptists originated with a Baptist church established in 1638 by two groups who left an independent church (not part of the Church of England) in London. Eventually these two groups united in the 19th century, when theological issues had changed and the need of an effective missionary advance helped to draw them more closely together. From their base in England, Baptists have grown to number more than 1 million members in Europe.

It was in America that the Baptists experienced their greatest growth. Baptist origins in the United States can be traced to Roger Williams. Williams, banished by the Puritans from Massachusetts Bay, founded Providence, Rhode Island as a “shelter for persons distressed in conscience.” He was also responsible for founding the First Baptist Church of America in Providence in 1639. In most of the original colonies, Baptists were outcasts, rejected because they did not follow the established religion of the colonies. “Frequently the subject of bitter persecution, the denomination at first grew slowly, but Baptist growth accelerated in the 18th century largely as a result of the movement known as the Great Awakening.” Though Rhode Island remained a Baptist stronghold, the center of Baptist life in colonial America was Philadelphia. The first supra-congregational association was formed there in 1707, and the Philadelphia Baptist Association proceeded to sponsor new Baptist churches throughout the colonies. “The democratic, informal, Scripture centered, relatively untheological mode of Baptist service was ideal for any unsettled, rural, or frontier situation. This the South, the Midwest, and the far West were heavily populated…by Baptists.” Increases were especially drastic in the Southern colonies, where Shubael Stearns established a church at Sandy Creek, N.C., in 1755. From this center revivalistic preachers fanned out across the southern frontier, establishing a Baptist dominance in the region which persists to the present. The membership of revivalistic Baptists continued to grow rapidly in the 19th century, assisted by lay preachers and the congregational church government well adapted to frontier settings.

During the 19th century the Baptists, like most other Protestant denominations, split over the issue of slavery. This led to the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. In 1907 the northern Baptists drew together their various educational and missionary societies to for the Northern Baptist Convention. “Southern Baptists and Northern Baptists (later American Baptists) developed distinct regional characteristics following the Civil War and still exhibit different tendencies in theology, ecumenical involvement, missionary activity, and worship.” In the midst of their growth, the Baptists had a strong appeal for members of the black community., due in part to evangelistic outreach, informal preaching, emotional appeal, and autonomous polity. “Black Baptist churches, now grouped primarily in two large conventions, constitute another major segment of Baptists in the United States. There are currently over 27 million adult baptized members of this branch of Christianity in the United States.

Baptists are Protestants who accept the basic tenants of the 16th century Reformation (justification by faith, the authority of the Scriptures, and the priesthood of the believer) but have added other beliefs and practices, which distinguish them from other denominations of Christianity.

One of the major tenants of Baptist faith is baptism of believers by immersion only. The emphasis on believer’s Baptism, by immersion rather than by sprinkling or affusion, implies sufficient maturity to make a religious decision...

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