Baptist History
Poking a little fun at ourselves is a healthy thing, it keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously and honors the principle written by the wisest man who ever lived “why be so righteous and thus destroy yourself?” (Ecclesiastes 7:16). So let’s start our study with the utmost Baptist tradition of debate!
When addressing Baptist origins we might wish for a nice tidy starting line. However, any study of Baptist history has to acknowledge at least 3 if not 4 possible starting points. The first view, and most widely accepted view is that Baptists emerged during the 1600s as one among many separatist movements that sought to establish a religious practice more aligned with the Bible than the Church of England they were separating from. The second view is that Baptists emerged from within a separatist group known as Anabaptists. This community of believers was intimately tied to the belief in believers’ baptism and regenerate church membership. These convictions are shared by Baptists and it is assumed, that Baptists were birth out of the Anabaptists over splits related to the baptism of infants which Anabaptists practice and Baptists do not. The third view is that Baptists have been around since the early church and have existed and persisted in some form from that time up to our own. The fourth view is that like the previous one except that it teaches there has always been a baptist church since the time of Christ explicitly practicing the Baptist faith and practice. It is not the goal of this article to settle the dispute around which origin story is the right one. It is my goal though to point to the earliest example of a Baptist church in Church history where we know the names of the ministers, what they taught, and what they endured to live out their convictions.
To make this argument, I will assume the first view and take you to the capital of the Netherlands, the city of Amsterdam. In 1607 two ministers from England immigrated to Amsterdam after facing enormous social, church, and governmental pressure to conform to the teachings and practices of the British state church, the Church of England (or Anglicanism). In Amsterdam John Smyth and Thomas Helwys found other like-minded people and opened the first Baptists church in 1609. They promoted believers baptism, regenerate church membership, and preached from a position of Biblical Authority.
in 1611 Thomas Helwys returned to England and founded a Baptist Church and wrote the first Baptist Confession called “A Declaration of Faith of English People”. Thomas legacy as a minister is that he advanced principles such as the separation of church and state, believers baptism, regenerate church membership, and religious liberty. His influence is recorded in our very own founding documents in America. But most important, he led a movement away from imperial church authority, into the study and teaching of God’s Word. A whole generation of believers who would otherwise have been shackeled to a state church learned how to read the Bible for themselves. Today Free-Will or General Baptists view him as their forefather, Particular Baptists can appreciate him for his contributions to religious liberty, baptism, and Biblical authority. And every Baptist can acknowledge the origins of their movement by thanking God for one Thomas Helwys.
In the part two, we’ll see where this intense focus on direct Bible study led the Baptist community in England within a generation and why a whole new confession was desired in London in 1689.