In every Christian denomination, baptism marks the moment when an individual joins the church. In a ceremony based on Jesus’s baptism by his cousin John, new members are welcomed into the fold. Baptists, though, reject the traditional Christian practice of doing this in infancy. They hold that baptism can only be administered—often by total immersion in water—when an individual is mature enough to make an informed adult commitment to following Christ’s example in their life.
There are around 110 million Baptists worldwide, spread among many autonomous churches. What unites them is their particular approach to baptism. On all other matters of doctrine there are distinct differences—and in many cases gulfs—between them. In 2004, for example, the 16-million-strong Southern Baptist Convention in the USA left the church’s umbrella body, the Baptist World Alliance, accusing it of being “too liberal.”
“One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.”
John Bunyan, 1678
The origins of the Baptists can be traced back to the Reformation, when dissenters took the message of Zwingli, Luther and Calvin to heart, but carried it one stage further, arguing that since nowhere in the gospels does Jesus baptize infants, neither would they. The original Reformation leaders opposed this decision, but the “Baptists” stood their ground, in the process developing a profound dislike of hierarchy and efforts to impose doctrine and conformity on them.
Anabaptists The historical roots of the Baptists as a movement lie in the Anabaptists, a close relative of the Puritans, who separated from the Church of England in the early seventeenth century, under the influence of John Smyth and Thomas Helwys. This radical group, whose first church is believed to have been founded in 1524 in Augsburg in Germany, came to reject not just infant baptism but all other demands made by secular authority, such as joining armies, attending law courts, taking oaths, and even accepting the right of any prince or king to rule over them. They were as a result regarded as rebels and traitors and suffered prolonged periods of persecution.
The Anabaptist influence was felt in England in the Separatist religious movement—which, as its name implies, rejected any link between religion and the state and therefore repudiated the claims of the Church of England. Among those caught up with Separatism were Smyth and Helwys. In 1609 they were both forced into exile in the Dutch Republic, then a haven for Nonconformists, where they formed an English-speaking congregation that met in the back of a bakery. Smyth led the way by baptizing himself, and developed a body of opinions that have caused him to be described as the founder of the Baptist movement. He rejected all forms of liturgy as coming between believers and God, and advocated a simple twofold leadership structure of pastors and deacons (as opposed to the threefold model favored in other Protestant denominations).
John Bunyan
John Bunyan was originally a traveling salesman, trudging round English towns and villages selling household wares. He became a Baptist in 1653, when he was immersed in the River Great Ouse, and thereafter developed a national reputation as an itinerant preacher of special persuasion. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, in the aftermath of the Civil War and Cromwell’s Commonwealth, tolerance of most forms of Protestantism was curtailed. Bunyan refused to conform and insisted on carrying on with his preaching. As a result, from 1660 onward, he suffered repeated periods of imprisonment. While inside in 1676, he wrote the first draft of The Pilgrim’s Progress, which reflected in common speech the doubts, temptations and tribulations of everyday life as it mapped the spiritual journey between the “City of Destruction” and the “Celestial City.” It remained, until the mid nineteenth century, the most-read book in English after the Bible.
Right to autonomy In 1612, the Baptists returned to England and founded their first congregation at Spitalfields in east London. Helwys published a book dedicated to King James I arguing that the monarch had no right to rule over the consciences of individuals, “for men’s religion is between God and themselves.” As a result, he was imprisoned and died in jail, the first of a line of Baptist martyrs.
In 1620, Baptists sailed on the Mayflower to Massachusetts and founded congregations in the new colony. The organizing principle was democracy. No minister could impose his views on others. Matters had to be decided democratically by each congregation. This belief in individual and local autonomy means that there has never been one single Baptist church, but rather a series of interlinked movements, all of which use the name Baptist.
When the Baptist movement spread to the southern states of America, it was forced to confront the issue of slavery. The majority of Baptists insisted that all men, black or white, were equal before God, but a minority, the Southern Baptist Convention, defended slavery, claiming that it was justified by the Bible, and split off. In Britain by this time, Baptists had become accepted by the establishment, and were in the forefront of the battle to abolish the slave trade, seeing in the treatment of blacks a parallel with their own earlier persecution as religious dissenters.
In 1792, the Baptist Missionary Society was founded in London to bring the Baptist message to India and the East. Among its best-known members was William Carey (1761–1834), a cobbler by trade, who spent the last 40 years of his adult life in India, where he translated the Bible into 25 different local languages and dialects.
“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
William Carey, 1793
Believers’ baptism What continues to unite all Baptists to this day is their emphasis on what they call “believers’ baptism,” to distinguish it from the practice of infant baptism. (In some Baptist churches, children are not allowed to attend at all, and in most they cannot be full members until they reach their teenage years.) Baptism is not seen as the moment when an individual is “born again,” as in other Evangelical groups, but rather as the public expression of an inner commitment to God. So immersion in water has a threefold symbolism—washing away the old life, being resurrected in a new life with God, and living out that faith every day.
Spelling out what it is to be a Baptist
Baptists sometimes use the name of the denomination as an acronym to spell out their core beliefs: Biblical authority; Autonomy of the local church; Priesthood of all believers; Two ordinances (sacraments, by any other name, of baptism and eucharist); Individual soul liberty; Separation of Church and state; and Two offices of the church (pastor and deacon).
Another shared perspective for Baptists is what are often called the four freedoms—of the individual’s soul, of church (the ability to worship wherever and in whatever form you choose), of the Bible (to interpret it as you see fit) and of religion (to pick your own way to God rather than have it imposed by your local overlord). However, all these points of convergence are lived out in different ways in the various Baptist congregations. So there are, for example, 50 separate Baptist churches in the United States alone, while in some countries Baptists favor what is called “open membership”—allowing individuals who are part of another denomination to worship with them, sometimes without even requiring that they go through believers’ baptism. In this way they are truly putting into practice those freedoms they believe in so strongly.
the condensed idea
Only adults can commit to Christ
| timeline | |
|---|---|
| 1524 | First Anabaptist church |
| 1609 | John Smyth exiled |
| 1634 | First Baptist congregation in US |
| 1676 | Bunyan begins The Pilgrim’s Progress |
| 1792 | Baptist Missionary Society founded |