The subject of Christian denominations is often a sticking point in the minds of people when we as believers try to share the gospel. People love to hang tags on others; it helps them identify in their minds how to relate to them. So when the subject of God and the Bible comes up in a conversation, many will ask, “What religion are you?” If they can get the label in their mind, a broad brush lets them pigeon-hole you into their own preconceived ideas. This often makes it a little more challenging to share the gospel, because now you have to first break down the walls of their ideas before you can get to the truth of God’s word.
Some people believe that the Baptists began with John the Baptist. That’s the first man in the Bible and in history with the “Baptist” tag around his neck. But John was the forerunner of the Jewish Messiah. He died before the Lord ever went to the cross. He was the last of the Jewish prophets and is not even a Christian in the New Testament sense of the word. Obviously, John is in heaven. But as we rightly divide the word of truth, he is assigned to a different dispensational age and cannot be the “first Baptist preacher”.
As church history unfolds, we see that there have always been “Baptists” starting at the inception of the church age after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. At its core, the Baptist denomination is, ironically, the one which places the least emphasis on baptism as it relates to salvation. Baptists essentially believe and practice baptism after salvation as a picture of the identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. People with that belief and practice can be found at any point in history over the last 2,000 years. Paul separated baptism from the gospel (1Co 1:17), so if you wanted to technically find the first Baptist in history, he would be a good place to begin. I have a book in my library titled A Concise History of Baptists which was published in 1838. It is basically a list of those in history who believed baptism was not part of salvation and only for professing believers. Virtually none of the groups mentioned carry the title of Baptist in their church or association names.
If you want to find the first group with the Baptist tag in history, look to the Anabaptists of the 16th century in Switzerland. Baptists are usually classified as Protestants as opposed to the Catholics, but true Baptists from this line and heritage are neither. The Protestant Reformation was kicked off in earnest in the early 1500s based on a lot of factors and with many different movements, but the most famous of the reformers was Martin Luther. He is the founder of the Lutheran denomination, but Martin Luther, though Protestant, was not a “Baptist” as he continued the practice of infant baptism in his churches.
Another of the famous reformers was John Calvin. He also was not a Baptist since he continued the same practice of infant baptism, but Calvin added persecution and state religion to his brand of evangelical Christianity. Calvin teamed up with a man named William Farel in Geneva, Switzerland to form what many called a perfect Christian society. Laws were passed against Catholicism and required the populace to attend their services. Then another reformer by the name of Huldreich Zwingli built the same sort of society in Zurich, Switzerland. But a group of independent Bible-believing men did not go along with the new laws and took their evangelical Christianity a step further. Rather than trying to reform anti-Biblical doctrines and practices, they went to the word of God alone. History refers to these men as the Anabaptists. The name was given to them by their enemies as a slur, the same way “Christian” was a label given to the “little Christ-followers” in Acts 11:26.
Anabaptist means “another baptism”. These people were harassed and persecuted by both the Catholic Church and the reformers. In fact, it was the reformers under Zwingli who inflicted the greatest persecution against the founders of this movement. As time went on, the “Ana” was dropped, and they became known as “Baptists”. The first real “Baptist” church in history was chartered on January 22, 1525 in Zurich, Switzerland, although we must always keep in mind that this doctrine has been part of church history ever since the New Testament was written. Here is an excerpt from my book Church History detailing the five men who began this church:
Balthasar Hubmaier (1480-1528)
Hubmaier was once a friend of Johann Maier Eck, the adversary of Martin Luther. He earned a Doctor of Theology from the University at Ingolstadt under Eck. But then he got saved. He read Luther’s writings in 1522 and began preaching in Northern Switzerland. His theology began with Luther, but went much further. Hubmaier initially had discussions with Zwingli about the subject of infant baptism and they agreed that it was not Biblical. Then Zwingli changed his mind. On January 17, 1525 a public debate was held in Zurich on the issue. Zwingli was not only the leader of the Protestants but he also had his views passed as law in Zurich. So he “won” the debate because he was “the man”. No other reason was necessary. The result was an edict ordering all parents in Zurich to have their babies baptized within 8 days or face banishment from the city. Hubmaier fled to Waldshut in Northern Switzerland. He began a rather significant work as the common man responded to his preaching. The authorities chased him down there also. He was arrested, brought back to Zurich and was imprisoned and tortured. He escaped and fled to Austria and started another large movement of Anabaptists. He was arrested again, and this time they took no chances. He was burned at the stake in Vienna on March 10, 1528 and his wife was drowned in the Danube.
Conrad Grebel (1498-1526)
When Zwingli “won” the debate in Zurich, he banished all the leaders of the Anabaptist movement and passed laws against them. Grebel was from a prominent family in Zurich and was educated in Vienna and Paris. Zwingli considered Conrad Grebel the leader of the group. The public debate was on January 17, 1525. Five days later on January 22, a prayer meeting was called by the five leaders of the group. Grebel baptized George Blaurock who baptized the others. In effect, this was the first chartered “Baptist” church in history. The order to execute Anabaptists missed Grebel because he died before it could be carried out.
Felix Manz (1498-1527)
Felix Manz was a Hebrew scholar well versed in the Old Testament. After the controversy over baptism exploded in Zurich, an order was given in March 1526 by the Zwingli government to drown all Anabaptists in parody of their beliefs. No, really. Zwingli said that if they insisted on putting adults under the water, that he would help them out. Manz was the first to suffer this fate. He was bound hand and foot and thrown into the river near Lake Geneva on January 5, 1527.
George Blaurock (1491-1529)
George Blaurock was a monk and came into Anabaptist teaching and believed it. Of the five founding fathers of the movement, he was the “preacher” of the group; considered as the most eloquent orator of the early Anabaptists. Blaurock was arrested for his preaching and burned at the stake on September 6, 1529. Shortly afterward, in December of the same year, the city council of Basel, Switzerland passed a law prohibiting the Anabaptists, and many executions followed.
Wilhelm Roubli (1484-1559)
Wilhelm Roubli was the “old man” of the Anabaptist group. Somehow he managed to escape the death sentence. Roubli lived to the ripe old age of 75. Grebel died of the plague at age 28. Hubmaier was executed at 48, Manz at 29, and Blaurock at 38. But the disciples of Roubli were not so lucky. He started an Anabaptist church in 1526 in Strasbourg, Germany and turned it over to Michael Sattler who became the pastor. Sattler was burned at the stake on May 21, 1527, and his wife was drowned. Despite the persecution, the church flourished. Again we see the enemy trying to stamp out Bible Christianity, only to have the reverse effect. You would think he would learn. You would also think historians would learn how to examine history through the word of God and get a clue. Fat chance.
The “Anabaptist” movement proceeded throughout the Reformation. Again, it would be impossible to chronicle all the groups who held to this doctrine and practice. They are found in church history by the names of Puritans, Pietists, Bogomiles, Huguenots, Lollards, Albigenses, and many others. But the group we can clearly link to Baptist doctrine would be the Waldenses. The main reason for this is because their writings have been preserved, whereas many of the others have not.
There are certain “Baptist Distinctives” marking these faith groups in history that are fairly common for the most part in anyone who claims to be a Baptist. As with any large broad-brush label like this, there are always variations within the group. But most true Baptist believers major on some key elements:
Salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ
The deity of Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, and His bodily resurrection
The authority of scripture alone
The separation of church and state
The independent local church apart from ecclesiastical central government
Heaven and hell as literal and the only two eternal states
The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ physically to earth
Baptism by immersion picturing the death, burial, and resurrection and not essential for salvation
The Waldensian articles of faith can be found online and in many of the standard church history books. The original Waldensian articles of faith were first published around the time of the founding of the movement under Peter Waldo around 1200 AD. There were 14 articles. In 1544, the Waldensian faith was refined to 12 articles, and then again in 1655, a “Waldensian Confession” was published with 30 articles of faith. It is highly Calvinistic owing to the time period it was published, but all of the main points above are clearly presented in this Confession. Again, understand that the name “Baptist” is not generally connected to these groups. So tracing the Baptists through history gives us quite a few stops and starts, because most people would be trying to identify the exact label rather than the core beliefs.
For example, I pastor Crest Bible Church. The label of “Baptist” is not in our name, so someone tracing the current line of Baptists would likely not think to look in our direction. People ask me often, “So, what is a Bible Church?” They are looking for the label to pigeon-hole us. Not having the name Baptist in our church gives me more of an opportunity at times to present the truth, because I can explain what we believe without the tagline clouding their opinions. Then at other times, I get people connecting us with other “Bible Churches” who have no relationship with our doctrinal beliefs. There are also many times when in order to get to the point (if pressed for time), I will say, “We are essentially Baptist.”
Tracing the Catholic Church in history is easy because of its denominational nature. The Lutherans are easily traced beginning with Martin Luther. Presbyterians essentially began with John Calvin and Methodists with John Wesley. These mainline Protestant denominations have a wide variety within their ranks as well (though not nearly as many as the Baptists), but their histories are more easily traced.
The Reformation in Europe (and specifically in England) ultimately produced the King James Bible and the missionary movement that took the gospel to the world. The Baptist influence in world missions came primarily from what were called Separatist churches in Europe who held to most of the basic core beliefs I outlined earlier. Again, the title of Baptist was not connected to many of these groups. They were called Separatists because they believed the church should be separate from government and also separate from ecclesiastical control. But the title was not a denomination like the Lutherans or Presbyterians or even Baptists. It simply identified them as holding to a “separatist” position. The founding of the United States was from this group of people. Here is another brief excerpt from my Church History book about the planting of the gospel in the “New World” by Separatist (“Baptist”) groups:
The original Mayflower group was a local assembly in England. With the passing of the Act of Uniformity by Elizabeth, a standard Anglican prayer book and liturgy was enforced upon all. The Separatist movement was growing in England. These were the independent Bible believing people I have noted many times throughout this book. These groups were being pressured into conforming to the Anglican Church and they wanted the freedom to worship as they saw fit. The pastor of the church was John Robinson, and they fled England to Holland to escape persecution. After about a ten year stay in Holland, the heat was on there as well, so they returned briefly to England to prepare to go to America.
In September of 1620, a group of 102 colonists set sail from Plymouth, England. On November 11, 1620 they landed on the northern tip of Cape Cod with 102 people; one had died during the trip, and a baby was born at sea. They set up their first settlement and named it Plymouth. During the first winter, 45 of the 102 original colonists died. By November of 1621, there were only 4 adult women in the group. The first “Thanksgiving” of urban legend was actually their first harvest in the new land in October of the next year. William Bradford was the leader of the group. The famous “Mayflower Compact” was drafted as an initial governing document, and carried a specific statement of the purpose of the group to “advance the Christian faith”. They fled persecution, but they knew there were people here and were intent on getting the gospel to them. From 1629 to 1640, over 20,000 “pilgrims” came to America for the same purpose. The vast majority of them were “Separatists”. Their doctrine was the independent local church, the need for a born again profession of faith for salvation, baptism by immersion of believers only, and the authority of the Bible. Their educational system had two basic tenets: first, learn to read so you can read the Bible for yourself, and second, learn a trade so you can do an honest day’s work to provide for your own. Despite the hardships, the migration of Separatist church people to the New World survived and thrived under the hand of God as the United States of America was born. But the real key to the story is what they found when they got here. Yes, they were fleeing oppression for freedom of religion. But most people are also aware of their interaction with the “Indians” who were here. This is what God saw. While man was looking for a new home, the white chess master was moving his pieces to get his word to the world.
The first Baptist churches in North America were founded as a result of this movement, with two men as key figures in its establishment. John Clarke was a medical doctor who was saved in London in a Dutch Mennonite church that held to Separatist doctrines. He came to the New World and helped establish the colony of Rhode Island and served three terms as its deputy governor while also propagating his faith. He founded the first “Baptist” church in Newport, RI in 1639. Roger Williams founded the city of Providence, RI in 1636 as a refuge for religious freedom, naming it for the “Providence” of God upon his life. I wonder how many residents of Providence today know that. He began a church in his home shortly after John Clarke founded his church. Roger Williams is responsible for the phrase “separation of church and state”, although he intended it much differently than how it is flippantly used today. This was Separatist or Baptist doctrine that meant the government was to stay out of the business of the church and an established “Church” or religion was not to run the government. Today, many use it to separate God from society.
From this beginning in North America, the Baptists grew as the United States grew. As with any movement, divisions took place within the group. This usually happens because of differences and squabbles within a movement, but it is not always a bad thing. The split between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15 resulted in two mission teams taking the gospel to the world. God expects his people to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth. He wants us to spread out and take his truth to the world, and since God is a God of variety, diversity is welcomed. Many different Baptist groups can still carry out the mission while also continuing to stay true to the word of God, each group with their own unique perspective and flavor.
By the 1800s, the Baptist movement in the United States was quite large and comprised of many different organizations. The Northern Baptists were perhaps the largest of these groups at the time. In 1845, a faction within the Northern Baptists broke off over the issue of slavery. The Northern Baptists were opposed to it, and a new group in favor of slavery was formed called the Southern Baptists. Perhaps you have heard of them. The Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the United States today with a membership totaling about 15 million. It took a while, but the Southern Baptists finally repudiated slavery as well. Typically (not always), when you see a “First Baptist Church” it is Southern Baptist. This is an association of churches with far more structure than the Living Faith Fellowship. The Southern Baptists have a Denominational Headquarters and produce Sunday School materials and other Bible programs for its member churches. There is also an extensive missions program operated by this denomination.
We could spend a great deal of time on some of the main Baptist groups in the United States and around the world, but with as many as there are, it would take far too long for a blog post such as this. Remember, this is supposed to be a brief overview. It would also be very difficult to survey all of these groups with all of their nuances of doctrine and practice. Surely, we would end up painting with a broad brush, and those within the groups would object to the generalization.
As we look at Baptists today, the first point to make is how there is such a wide disparity of them. Baptists are like Baskin-Robbins; there are 31 flavors. Fred Phelps was the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas of “picketing the funerals of gays” infamy. Broadway Baptist Church in Kansas City marries and ordains homosexuals, and the pastor wrote a book claiming God is female. It is pretty hard to get more “diverse” than those two extremes, and you can find a Baptist in virtually every range in between them. In fact, I sold Baskin-Robbins short. Wikipedia lists 212 different Baptist groups world-wide, including Conventions and Denominations, with 66 in the United States. Some of those 66 groups are small and “eccentric”. There are the “Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists”. Don’t ask me to explain that; it would take too long and it is pretty far out from the mainstream of Baptist theology. There are “Seventh Day Baptists” who claim the same heritage yet try to take us back under the law to meet on the Sabbath. Then there are the “Primitive Baptist Universalists” who teach that everyone will eventually be saved and the only “Hell” anyone will ever experience is here on earth. But again, these “Baptist” groups are generally small off-shoots of genuine fundamental Biblical positions.
Looking at Baptist churches today from a more focused lens into our particular brand in the Living Faith Fellowship, we best begin around 1900. God was actively at work at that time with a national and worldwide revival movement led by men such as Dwight Moody, Billy Sunday, and R. A. Torrey along with many others. As a result, a significant percentage of the population was born again and most of these revival leaders held to Baptist doctrine whether they carried the title or not. In 1923, a group was formed known as the Baptist Bible Union to propagate their faith. It was led by three men: J. Frank Norris who ran the southern wing, W. B. Riley in the north, and T. T. Shields in Canada. Norris then later formed the World Baptist Fellowship after he was asked to leave the Southern Baptists over his rabble-rousing personality and often eccentric and unorthodox manners. One of Norris’ closest associates was George Beauchamp Vick. A few of you might know who G. B. Vick was, and to inform the rest, he was Dr. Bill Bartlett’s grandfather and Brett Bartlett’s great-grandfather.
In May of 1950, Norris and Vick had a falling out, and Beauchamp Vick founded Baptist Bible Fellowship based in Springfield, Missouri with 150 churches. It grew rapidly to over 4,000 churches by the time of Dr. Vick’s death in 1975. The Fellowship established Baptist Bible College in Springfield, which by 1975 had about 2,500 students and supported over 500 missionaries on the foreign field. One of the churches founded by BBF was Kansas City Baptist Temple in 1943 by Wendell Zimmerman.
Many of the pastors and churches in the Living Faith Fellowship find their spiritual heritage through the BBF. This organization is still quite strong and is used by God to bring people to faith in the risen Saviour, and there are still a large number of BBF missionaries around the world sharing the gospel. But like virtually all groups and movements such as these, the BBF has drifted a bit from its original positions, most notably how the issue of the authority of the King James Bible is taught in the college in Springfield. The Baptist Bible Fellowship is still very much family for us in the Living Faith Fellowship, albeit more akin to first cousins than brothers.
There is an old joke that illustrates how some within the Baptist ranks view their faith a little too exclusively. A man goes to heaven and is given the initial grand tour. He is taken to one large room after another occupied by various groups of believers. In each room, a raucous party and celebration is taking place. Then the man is led down a long corridor to another room. The tour guide tells him he must be very quiet as they enter this hallway. The man asks why, and the guide responds, “This is where the Baptists are. But we have to be very quiet, because they think they’re the only ones here.”
Obviously, a person or a church does not require the tag of Baptist in order to be biblical. But the Baptist movement in history is essentially and fundamentally linked with the movement of the church of Jesus Christ as a whole. I mentioned earlier that we do not carry the title of Baptist in our church. Crest Bible Church was founded in 1950 by Dwight Johnson who was a disciple of Walter Wilson from a Plymouth Brethren background. Dwight was as Baptist as any of us; he just chose not to put the name on the church. I am very proud of my Baptist heritage and will never shy away from proclaiming and promoting it. But don’t think we are the only ones with the truth. God still has 7000 (or many more) the world over who have not “bowed the knee to Baal” (1Ki 19:18). Many of them will carry the name of Baptist, and many more will not for various reasons. Some who carry the name are not related to us in any fashion whatsoever. What is far more vitally essential than denominational labeling is the core doctrine of the need for man to be born again by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the authority of the plain words of the living God in our Bible. When you find people like that, you have found the Baptists.
