Baptist Questions, Baptist Answers: Exploring Christian Faith

By Bill J. Leonard

Respected Baptist historian and theologian Bill Leonard takes readers through the theological and practical questions that are important to Baptists. In a clear style and with great sensitivity to the varieties of beliefs among Baptist bodies, Leonard considers the big questions of faith. These include Baptist beliefs about God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, salvation, and the Christian life, among others. Drawing on historic statements of Baptist belief, contemporary history, and his own background and deep scholarship, Leonard provides reliable and accessible discussions of these issues. His work will be highly illuminating for Baptists of all denominational groupings as well as for others interested in the core of Baptist theological convictions and their various expressions. Leonard's is a strong and trusted voice, and this book will be a welcome resource.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2009
• ISBN: 9781611644135

Bill J. Leonard

Bill J. Leonard is Chair of Church History in the Divinity School at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including A Dictionary of Baptists in America, Baptist Ways: A History, and Baptists in America.

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Baptist History and Heritage

1. Who are the Baptists?

Theories of Baptist origins abound. Some believe that Baptists can be traced all the way back to Jesus’ baptism in River Jordan by John the Baptizer, a direct lineage of true New Testament churches. Others suggest a kinship with the Radical Reformation Anabaptists who promoted believers’ baptism and a free church tradition in the early days of the Protestant Reformation. Still others, I am among them, trace the origins to the seventeenth-century Puritans and their efforts to recover New Testament Christianity beyond the state churches and sectarian clamor of post-Reformation Europe.

So let us suggest that Baptists are a second-generation Protestant communion that began around 1609 with a group of English Separatist Puritans exiled in Amsterdam. This group determined that the church should be composed of believers only and that baptism should be given only after persons profess faith in Christ. The earliest Baptists were Arminian in their theology, appropriating the theology of the Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius (1560–1609). Their belief that Christ’s death on the cross was for the sins of the entire world and that all persons were potentially elected to salvation led to their designation as General Baptists. By the 1630s a second group of Baptists had developed in England. Known as Particular Baptists because of their Calvinist theology, they believed that Christ’s death was applicable only to the elect, whom God had chosen for salvation before the foundation of the world. God’s irresistible grace would draw the elect to salvation, overcoming their total depravity and keeping them until the end. Thus, from a historical perspective, Baptists begin at both ends of the theological spectrum with Arminian and Calvinist groups that inform much Baptist life and thought to this day.

In the twenty-first century Baptists claim a worldwide constituency of over forty million persons, with approximately thirty million living in North America. In the United States there are more than sixty different groups that claim the name Baptist in some form or another.

2. What beliefs and practices are basic to all Baptists?

Baptists share many beliefs, even when they define those common doctrines a bit differently. These classic Baptist distinctives include the following:

Biblical authority is normative for faith and practice.

The church is a community of believers who can testify to an experience of grace through faith in Christ.

Baptism is administered to those who testify to faith and is by immersion.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two ordinances (some early Baptists said sacraments) of the church. (Some Baptists add footwashing to that list.)

The authority of Christ is mediated through the congregation of believers. Each congregation has the autonomy to determine its ministry and method.

Congregations may join together in associations of churches for mutual ministry and fellowship.

The priesthood of all believers means that all baptized believers are called to minister to others in the world. Both laity and clergy are called to minister in the church and the world.

Certain persons are set aside for the ministry of the Word and pastoral service in the church.

Religious liberty should be normative in the state.

Liberty of conscience means that believers can be trusted to interpret Scripture aright in the context of community under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This is not to suggest that all Baptists agree on what these ideas mean biblically and theologically. Rather, they represent certain distinguishing marks of identity that are applied variously by Baptist groups and individuals.

3. What are some of the Baptist groups in the United States?

The Baptist family in the United States is vast and diverse. The following are but a few of the groups that claim the Baptist name in some form or another. They occupy various theological and historical positions and are located in various regions and cultures across the country.

1. American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. (ABC USA): Numbering about one million members this group dates its beginnings with the founding of the General Convention of the Baptist Denomination for Foreign Missions in 1814. Spread throughout the United States, with particular strength in the Midwest and West, the ABC was earlier known as the Northern Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Convention.

2. Southern Baptist Convention (SBC): Founded in 1845 in a dispute over slavery between Baptists in the North and South, the SBC is the largest Baptist (and Protestant) denomination in the United States with some sixteen million members. Conservative in theology, its primary strength remains in the South and Southwest.

3. African American Baptists: Major African American Baptist denominations include the National Baptist Convention of the U.S.A., Inc.; the National Baptist Convention of America, Unincorporated; the Progressive National Baptist Convention; and the National Missionary Baptist Convention. African Americans came into the Baptist tradition during slavery under the influence of revivals and camp meetings in the South and Southwest. Debates over such things as denominational ownership of property, improvement of working conditions, and the authority of denominational leaders led to various divisions among black Baptist groups in the United States.

4. Appalachian Baptists: These include several Baptist groups, most of which are Calvinist in one form or another. They are identified with names such as the Primitive, Old Regular, United, and Union Baptists. One small but fascinating faith community is known as the Primitive Baptist Universalists, popularly but mistakenly called the No Hellers because they believe that ultimately all persons will be saved. Appalachian Baptists came into the mountains during the eighteenth and ninteteenth centuries, tend toward various types of Calvinism, and give little or no attention to direct missionary efforts, Sunday schools, or a paid ministry. Their numbers are generally in decline, but their sense of witness to New Testament orthodoxy is as strong as ever.

5. Landmark Baptists: Old Landmarkists insist that Baptists began with Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist and can trace their lineage through multiple Baptist groups in church history. These dissenting communions—Montanists, Donatists, Cathari, Waldensians, Anabaptists, and Baptists—were Baptist in everything but name, offering a succession of Baptist churches all the way from the New Testament to the present. Landmark groups include the Baptist Missionary Association, the American Baptist Association, and various fundamentalist-related Baptist groups. Generally fundamentalist in their theology, Landmark Baptists are strong in the South and Southwest, especially in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

6. Fundamentalist Baptists: Many Baptists hold fundamentalist beliefs regarding biblical inerrancy, Christ’s virgin birth, as well as his bodily resurrection and second coming. Most of these groups are suspicious of denominational alignments and prefer to associate in fellowships of pastors. Adherents to these Baptist communions number several million, and several ministerial fellowships include the Southwide Baptist Fellowship, the World Fundamentalist Association, and the Bible Baptist