A Brief History of Baptist Church
Introduction: Contemporary Baptist Christians mostly do not know about a
history of Baptist, its beliefs and practices. The history of the Baptists is eminently
worth studying and telling. In one way or another it has been written many times.
There are various denominations and it has their own history, beliefs and practices.
It has been 411 years that Baptists have been writing their history chronologically,
century by century. Baptists are one of the oldest organizations in Protestant
Christianity.
1. The Origin of Baptists
The people called Baptists have their roots within what may be called, for want of
a more precise term, the Free Church Movement, which found variant expression
throughout the history of Christianity. Although the term cannot be defined strictly,
it is useful to describe the effort of Christians of varying theological beliefs and
ecclesiastical backgrounds to restore the New Testament emphasis upon a Spirit-
filled community of faith. The origins of the Baptists lie in the maelstrom of the
sixteenth century Reformation. There has been accepted four theories regarding the
theories concerning the origin of Baptists-Successionist theory, Anabaptist
Spiritual Kinship theory, Protestant theory, and English reformation theory.
According to successionist theory, Baptists have been in existence ever since the
days of John the Baptist’s ministry along the Jordan River. While there are various
statements concerning the exact origin of Baptists, either with John the Baptist or
with our Lord’s public ministry, or at the Day of Pentecost, the chief emphasis of
those who thus trace Baptist history from primitive Christianity is upon the concept
of what may be called an apostolic succession of Baptist churches. However, the
Anabaptists spiritual kinship theory is held by those who trace a spiritual
relationship of Baptists through the long line of Anabaptist sect, such as German,
Dutch, and Swiss Anabaptists, the Waldensians and Petrobrusians, the Henricians,
the Novatians, and the Donatists. According to Protestant theory, Baptists
originated with certain English Separatists who were congregational in polity and
who had come to consider believers’ baptism alone as valid according to the
Scriptures. The origin of Baptists should be dated from 1641, when immersion was
renewed in England by a few English Separatists who came out of the Jacob
Church at Southwark, London, having become convinced that the biblical practice
as dipping under water. Baptists established some basic principles at the beginning
of their history. Typical affirmations included the authority of Holy Scripture, a
regenerate church membership, baptism by immersion as the sign of new life in
Christ and membership in the church, the autonomy of the local congregation, the
priesthood of all believers, and religious liberty, and human rights advocacy.
Baptists origins continued to take place for centuries in one country after another.
Mission efforts, emigration, and immigration accounted for most new Baptist
activity in other countries, but indigenous developments also assisted in some
cases.
2. The Beginning
Baptists can trace their beginnings of antecedents to the Protestant Reformation of
the sixteenth century. One group of reformers, the Anabaptists, some of whom are
called Mennonites, taught many of the principles Baptists came to call their own.
The leader of the revolution was Martin Luther (1483-1546). To say that the
Reformation began with Martin Luther is not to suggest that he was the first to call
for changes in Catholic dogma and practice, but to acknowledge Luther’s seminal
work as controversialist and churchman, theologian and prophet. Luther built on
the work of innumerable reformists who preceded him.
Thus, the name Baptist came into use in the early 1640's. Opponents referred to
them as “Baptists”, they referred to themselves as "Brethren/ "Baptized Churches,"
“Churches of the Baptized Way.” The group had begun to use the name for
themselves by the mid-1650's, but Baptist would not be accepted until the 1750's.
