Dr. James Willinghams last blog post..The Climax of the Reformation

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Okay folks am I just missing it or what?

I find this topic to be both important and inconsequential. It is important since the historic reality is that far more in the Anabaptist / Radical Reformation is undesirable than anyone has mentioned. Are we going to go ahead and adopt the idea of multiple wives as several of the Anabaptists did? Of course not, but the point is that theologically we have more in common with the Reformers (Calvin, Luther, et al) than we do the Anabaptists. Yes they did bring “regenerate church membership and believers baptism” to the table. For that we are thankful, but not much more.

I find this topic inconsequential when seen against the current state of affairs in our convention. We as Southern Baptists are becoming increasingly “Biblically Illiterate” as a denomination, in fact I have noticed in several of our larger churches a very large increase in those who don’t think it necessary to bring Bibles to church with them. We may have won the “Battle for the Bible” while losing the war. It is shocking to see the number of Senior High School students, most brought up in church all their lives, who lack the most basic of Bible knowledge. I teach 12th grade boys, a few years ago we did a survey of our youth and leaders were shocked to find that over 70% of our youth did accept that the Bible is “absolute truth, applicable to all people in all places through out all time”. 65% held that “God helps those who help themselves” was a verse in the Bible, they just didn’t know which book. Less than 20% could pick out a definition of the Gospel among four alternatives which included “We are saved by Grace through Faith in Christ Jesus”, the most common answer was “I am saved by asking Jesus in my heart”. Oh did I mention that 85% affirmed that man is “Basically good a heart” ? Well you get the picture.
Some of these arguments about our heritage are useless when the most basic of biblical truths have been lost. Maybe if we (as a denomination) put a priority back on the Gospel, of teaching our classes and congregations the “whole counsel of God”, building them up for “works of ministry” we would more easily understand and identify the positive influences that have shaped us from both the Anabaptist/Radical Reformers and the Magisterial Reformers while rejecting the negative influences.
Sadly, I see our convention wanting to continue to move either toward a “Purpose Driven” model which may bring great crowds to therapeutic /success-motivation talks or towards a “Missional” model which spends more time trying to ” look like, speak like, act like, drink like, cuss like the culture at large” rather than being Christ’s ambassadors with a message of reconciliation for the culture but both are increasingly a demonstration of “Christless Christianity” to borrow from Mike Horton’s new book.

1. SWBTS obviously is doing precisely what you have suggested that they should do: They have taken only the best and most biblical portion of the Anabaptist legacy and are drawing attention to it.

2. The constant attacks against SWBTS as being “Landmarkist” demonstrate that (a) SWBTS is highlighting not Anabaptists alone but is drawing our attention to all of those who have championed biblical ecclesiology, and (b) there is no safeguard against controversy in restricting oneself to Baptist historical sources while showing precedent for biblical ecclesiology.

Re-reading your comments, you are right that you did not explicitly assert that SWBTS was actually promulgating the unbiblical errors of the Anabaptists, and I was wrong for reading that into your anti-SWBTS criticisms. My apologies.

That would make sense if that was the argument that I made. But, it was not. I don’t think that I claimed that anyone was advocating anything unbiblical. Please show me where I said that. Actually, I know that SWBTS is taking what IS Biblical from the Anabaptists and are highlighting that. I have said that again and again. My question involves why they feel the need to celebrate the Anabaptists in this the way that they are when there are many attendent problems with other aspects of Anabaptist history. It was a question that apparently has no answer. It was not meant to denigrate the Anabaptists. This might seem impossible to you, but I admire them greatly for their stance.

If you think that my questions mean that I do not value believer’s baptism and regenerate church membership, you would be wrong on that count as well.

Peter,

We are basically agreeing on the importance of the Anabaptists, yet you still feel you must argue. Let me be clear: I agree with the link between the Anabaptists and the English Baptists. I believe that it must have existed. Some say that the Calvinism of the English Baptists came from trips to Europe in the time preceding this. Why would they not have been influenced by the Anabaptists. All that was needed was to hear that they were being drowned because they believed in believer’s baptism to spark the thinking of people who were looking for truth. I am not wanting to skip over anything. I have addressed your concerns and told you that is not what I meant. I even apologized for giving that impression. Yet, you continue to think that I am trying to discard the Anabaptists. Not so. I just don’t understand why I am hearing more and more from SWBTS about them, when the case could so easily be made from all of Baptist history and most clearly from Scripture. By the way, that means that I think that their position WAS Biblical on the things that are being highlighted.

Anyway, it was just a question, not a statement of theological position made in opposition to the Anabaptists on the points being affirmed. Is this happening because of the Reformed veneration for Calvin? Do the non-Calvinists feel the need to go back into history and pour over the writings of Calvin’s contemporaries? Does that make people feel more secure in their position? I am a non-Calvinist, by the way. My soteriology is likely more in line with yours and Bart’s. I am just wondering about the recent emphasis from SWBTS (Patterson and Yarnell, to be specific) over the Anabaptists.

Alan Crosss last blog post..The God of Our Many Understandings? Robinson and Warren’s Prayers at the Inauguration

You might note that the same points are indeed simultaneously being advanced by reference to 17th century Baptists, 18th century Baptists, 19th century Baptists, and Anabaptists where appropriate. Yet the prediction that these other avenues of argumentation would not yield controversy has not borne out in experience. If the argument is not an attack upon the Anabaptists, it is an assault against the Landmarkers or the schismatics or whomever.

The ideas of regenerate church membership, believer’s baptism, and the like are controversial in-and-of-themselves and have been since the sixteenth century and before. They are controversial not only among the denominations, but also among those Baptists who have abandoned them or would gladly do so.

Perhaps not every time I offer an opposing viewpoint, but whenever I make the argument that I’m following the Bible and the opposing view is following unbiblical historical tradition, you may indeed infer that my statement has deliberate implications upon the wisdom and/or piety of those whom I am critiquing.

Just wrapping up one itsy-bitsy loose thread and, if you desire, you may have the last word.

In praising Dr. Patterson’s lecture on Anabaptists at Union, you ask, “Why not make the same points [that Dr. Patterson did in appealing to Anabaptists] by appealing to English and American Baptists from the 1600’s and 1700’s? You will accomplish the same thing without the controversy.”

Again, Alan, I must press this point: Post 1610 English Baptists were not spontaneously generated out of nothing. Though you obviously know this since you explicitly asserted “Clearly there are direct links” (emphasis added), the question above assumes an absence of links.

Two full generations before the earliest Baptists appeared on the scene, Anabaptists were rounded up in herds and, with tied hands, hurled into the Limmit River which ran through the middle of the Zurich village. Why? Because they insisted the New Testament clearly revealed repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus were conditions necessarily preceding water baptism. Or, in our terms, regenerate church membership and believers’ baptism.

Granted to skip this significant foundational stone–decidedly one of your “direct links,” if you will–curiously fast forwarding to 17th C England, without a moment’s hesitation, may eliminate some of the duly objectionable traits of our radical reformation kinsmen. Nonetheless, doing so makes our Baptist heritage grossly incomplete and un-understandable, not to mention such absence plants the feet of the Baptist movement squarely in mid-air.

She’s all yours, now, Alan. Grace.

Thanks, again Tony.

With that, I am…
Peter

Peter Lumpkinss last blog post.."The Cussing Pastor" Continues Influence Among Southern Baptists