Overview
History
Notable Baptists include Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, John Bunyan, Benjamin Keach, Isaac Backus, John Leland, John Gano, Adoniram Judson, James Boyce, Charles Spurgeon, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King Jr., W.A. Criswell, Al Mohler, and Rick Warren.
Their relation to the Anabaptists of the 1500s is contested, both inside and outside Baptist circles. While perhaps inspired by, or manifesting similar tendencies as, the Anabaptists, the Baptists originated as a branch of English Puritan Congregationalism in the early 1600s.
Origins in the early 1600s.
1609 - A group of English separatists in Amsterdam under the leadership of John Smyth and Thomas Helwys repudiated their previous baptisms and were baptized upon profession of faith. They also adopted Arminian beliefs and became known as General Baptists. They adopted a confession in 1612. While Symth went on to seek membership among the Anabaptists, Helwys led a group back to England.
1630s - The first Particular Baptist church is founded, in London.
1638 - Roger Williams founds the first Baptist church in the colonies, in Providence, RI. Soon after, John Clarke founds a Baptist church in Newport, RI, securing a charter for RI in 1663.
1641 - A Particular Baptist church in England begins the practice of baptism by immersion.
Growth and maturation in 17th century England.
1644 - The 1st London Baptist Confession is written. Baptists increase and enjoy more freedom during the interregnum under Cromwell.
1653 - John Bunyan is (re)baptized by immersion after his conversion. By 1655 he was preaching. He would become one of the most famous Baptist preachers and writers, especially due to his book, Pilgrims Progress.
1677/1689 - The 2nd London Baptist Confession (2LBC) is written and published, based on the Savoy Declaration, which was based on the Westminster Confession.
Baptists in America: growth in the Awakenings, disestablishment, and westward expansion.
1665 - The First Baptist Church of Boston is established.
Late 1690s - Some Baptist from Maine move to Charleston, SC, founding the first Baptist church in the South.
1742 - The Philadelphia Confession of Faith (the 2LBC with two additional chapters) is adopted by the Philadelphia Association.
1730s-1740s - Baptists grow during the Great Awakening. A number of northern Baptist preachers start Baptist churches in VA and NC in the wake of the Great Awakening, such as former Congregationalists John Leland (MA), Shubal Stearns (MA), Daniel Marshall (CT), and former Presbyterian John Gano (NJ).
1789-1840 - Baptists experience much greater growth amid the disestablishment of Anglican and Congregationalist churches, the Second Great Awakening, and westward expansion.
Formation of denominations
1814 - The Triennial Convention is founded, especially for the sake of cooperation for missions (its full name was the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions). Its founding was prompted by appeals from Adoniram and Ann Judson, missionaries who had switched from Congregationalist to Baptist on their voyage to the mission field.
1833 - The New Hampshire Confession of Faith is written by Rev. John Newton Brown and agreed upon by the Triennial Convention.
1845 - Due to a dispute over slavery (whether slave-owners could be appointed as missionaries, which also impacted the ability to support missionaries in the South), Baptist churches in the South left the Triennial Convention and formed the Southern Baptist Convention.
1865 - Following the Civil War, many Black Baptists form their own churches and associations.
1895 - The National Baptist Convention, USA is founded by representatives of three African-American Baptist conventions (in 1961, a group split off this group called the Progressive National Baptist Convention).
1907 - The Triennial Convention is reorganized as the Northern Baptist Convention (it was later renamed American Baptist Churches USA in 1972).
1925 - The Southern Baptist Convention adopt the Baptist Faith and Message (a revision of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith). The SBC currently (2024) has 46,876 churches and a little over 12.7 million members, making it the largest Protestant denomination in the USA.
Other Baptist associations and traditions developed in the 1800s, such as Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Free Will Baptists, General Baptists, and Independent Fundamentalist Baptists.
The conservative resurgence in the SBC.
Beginning around 1979, after growing concern about the direction of the denomination, there was a conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, with strategic and successful efforts to elect conservatives and bring back denominational boards, agencies, and seminaries from liberalism. Issues included biblical inerrancy and opposition to abortion and women’s ordination. The Baptist Faith and Message was revised in 2000, including a complementarian statement on the family and statements opposing homosexuality and abortion.
What We Have in Common
As a comparison of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 2nd London Baptist Confession shows, Baptists can have much in common with Presbyterians. In that comparison, we share the same doctrines of Scripture, God, God’s sovereignty, the five points of Calvinism, creation, providence, Christ, his benefits, faith, good works, assurance of salvation, the law of God, worship and the sabbath, the Lord’s Supper, the state of the dead, and the resurrection and last judgment.
But Baptists are diverse, and some do not hold all these things in common with us. Many today are Arminian, dispensational, pre-millennial, memorialist with regard to the Lord’s Supper, not very sabbatarian, and sometimes antinomian. Yet, even these Baptists will hold at least to the “five fundamentals” and the Trinity and justification by faith alone and Scripture alone. Also, some Baptists are liberal and have very little in common with us.
In general, we can appreciate Baptists for being evangelical and zealous, eager to maintain Biblical authority and the fundamentals of the faith and to spread the gospel.
Where We Differ
If we are comparing the WCF and 2LBC, the main differences have to do with covenant theology, church and church government, and baptism. There are also differences regarding civil government (omitting the maintenance of piety from the duties listed in paragraph 2, omitting paragraph 3, and rewriting the 4th in the chapter on civil government) and marriage (omitting one end of marriage - the increase of the church).
And so, in addition to the differences we would have with Congregationalists about church membership and government and the autonomy of the local church, we would also differ with the Baptists on the continuity of Old and New Testaments, and the mode, meaning, and subjects of baptism. Also, Baptists, like later Congregationalists, hold to only two offices: elder/pastor and deacon, rather than a threefold division of teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacon.
Baptists hold a variety of views on the covenants. They generally deny that the old covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace and would equate the covenant of grace with the new covenant (the more covenantal Baptists would say that the new covenant was progressively revealed in the Old Testament and was the only way anyone was saved). They say that the new covenant is only made with regenerate believers, and that the infants of believers were never included as such in the covenant of grace. But this does not do justice to the unity of God’s covenant with his people in the Old Testament or the continuity between the testaments and the people of God.
Baptists hold to the necessity of baptism by total immersion, while Presbyterians believe that total immersion is not necessary, but that the essential thing is washing with water, and that pouring or sprinkling is lawful, sufficient, and most expedient.
The 2LBC omitted "the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church" from the meaning of baptism (following Savoy), as well as it being "a sign and seal of the covenant of grace," but did add that it is a sign of fellowship with Christ, in his death and resurrection. The Baptist Faith and Message, following the New Hampshire Confession, adds that baptism is a prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and the Lord’s Supper, and that baptism is “an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith” (as well as the believer’s spiritual death, burial, and resurrection). But describing the sacraments as “acts of obedience” makes as much sense as describing the gospel an “act of obedience.” Both are given by God to us, to be received by us. The sacraments are the gospel made visible, signs of Christ and his benefits.
Baptists would insist that only professing believers be baptized. “Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance” (2LBC). The way many would say it today is that baptism is a public declaration of an inward transformation. Most would say that baptisms of the unregenerate are invalid, so that if a person came to realize they were converted after their baptism they should be baptized again. But these positions remove the visible objectivity of the sacrament, downplay its function as a sign from God to man, and neglect God’s consistent inclusion of the children of believers in the administration of his covenant (Gen. 17, Deut. 29, Acts 2:38-39, 16:31-34, see more here).
The Baptist tradition is a more radical congregationalism that rejects infant baptism.
- Baptists hold to church membership on the basis of conversion, gathered churches formed by church covenants, church government by the congregation, and the autonomy of the local church (sometimes in associations).
- Baptists hold to the baptism of believers only and baptism by immersion only, and a stronger contrast between the Old and New Testaments than is held by Presbyterians.
- Baptists also generally support a greater separation of church and state than the other groups covered thus far.
- Baptists are divided on the issue of Calvinism vs. Arminianism (or, in their terms, Particular Baptists vs. General Baptists). While Particular Baptists (holding to the five points of Calvinism) were more prevalent in the past, General Baptists are more common today.
Notable Baptists include Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, John Bunyan, Benjamin Keach, Isaac Backus, John Leland, John Gano, Adoniram Judson, James Boyce, Charles Spurgeon, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King Jr., W.A. Criswell, Al Mohler, and Rick Warren.
Their relation to the Anabaptists of the 1500s is contested, both inside and outside Baptist circles. While perhaps inspired by, or manifesting similar tendencies as, the Anabaptists, the Baptists originated as a branch of English Puritan Congregationalism in the early 1600s.
Origins in the early 1600s.
1609 - A group of English separatists in Amsterdam under the leadership of John Smyth and Thomas Helwys repudiated their previous baptisms and were baptized upon profession of faith. They also adopted Arminian beliefs and became known as General Baptists. They adopted a confession in 1612. While Symth went on to seek membership among the Anabaptists, Helwys led a group back to England.
1630s - The first Particular Baptist church is founded, in London.
1638 - Roger Williams founds the first Baptist church in the colonies, in Providence, RI. Soon after, John Clarke founds a Baptist church in Newport, RI, securing a charter for RI in 1663.
1641 - A Particular Baptist church in England begins the practice of baptism by immersion.
Growth and maturation in 17th century England.
1644 - The 1st London Baptist Confession is written. Baptists increase and enjoy more freedom during the interregnum under Cromwell.
1653 - John Bunyan is (re)baptized by immersion after his conversion. By 1655 he was preaching. He would become one of the most famous Baptist preachers and writers, especially due to his book, Pilgrims Progress.
1677/1689 - The 2nd London Baptist Confession (2LBC) is written and published, based on the Savoy Declaration, which was based on the Westminster Confession.
Baptists in America: growth in the Awakenings, disestablishment, and westward expansion.
1665 - The First Baptist Church of Boston is established.
Late 1690s - Some Baptist from Maine move to Charleston, SC, founding the first Baptist church in the South.
1742 - The Philadelphia Confession of Faith (the 2LBC with two additional chapters) is adopted by the Philadelphia Association.
1730s-1740s - Baptists grow during the Great Awakening. A number of northern Baptist preachers start Baptist churches in VA and NC in the wake of the Great Awakening, such as former Congregationalists John Leland (MA), Shubal Stearns (MA), Daniel Marshall (CT), and former Presbyterian John Gano (NJ).
1789-1840 - Baptists experience much greater growth amid the disestablishment of Anglican and Congregationalist churches, the Second Great Awakening, and westward expansion.
Formation of denominations
1814 - The Triennial Convention is founded, especially for the sake of cooperation for missions (its full name was the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions). Its founding was prompted by appeals from Adoniram and Ann Judson, missionaries who had switched from Congregationalist to Baptist on their voyage to the mission field.
1833 - The New Hampshire Confession of Faith is written by Rev. John Newton Brown and agreed upon by the Triennial Convention.
1845 - Due to a dispute over slavery (whether slave-owners could be appointed as missionaries, which also impacted the ability to support missionaries in the South), Baptist churches in the South left the Triennial Convention and formed the Southern Baptist Convention.
1865 - Following the Civil War, many Black Baptists form their own churches and associations.
1895 - The National Baptist Convention, USA is founded by representatives of three African-American Baptist conventions (in 1961, a group split off this group called the Progressive National Baptist Convention).
1907 - The Triennial Convention is reorganized as the Northern Baptist Convention (it was later renamed American Baptist Churches USA in 1972).
1925 - The Southern Baptist Convention adopt the Baptist Faith and Message (a revision of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith). The SBC currently (2024) has 46,876 churches and a little over 12.7 million members, making it the largest Protestant denomination in the USA.
Other Baptist associations and traditions developed in the 1800s, such as Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Free Will Baptists, General Baptists, and Independent Fundamentalist Baptists.
The conservative resurgence in the SBC.
Beginning around 1979, after growing concern about the direction of the denomination, there was a conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, with strategic and successful efforts to elect conservatives and bring back denominational boards, agencies, and seminaries from liberalism. Issues included biblical inerrancy and opposition to abortion and women’s ordination. The Baptist Faith and Message was revised in 2000, including a complementarian statement on the family and statements opposing homosexuality and abortion.
What We Have in Common
As a comparison of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 2nd London Baptist Confession shows, Baptists can have much in common with Presbyterians. In that comparison, we share the same doctrines of Scripture, God, God’s sovereignty, the five points of Calvinism, creation, providence, Christ, his benefits, faith, good works, assurance of salvation, the law of God, worship and the sabbath, the Lord’s Supper, the state of the dead, and the resurrection and last judgment.
But Baptists are diverse, and some do not hold all these things in common with us. Many today are Arminian, dispensational, pre-millennial, memorialist with regard to the Lord’s Supper, not very sabbatarian, and sometimes antinomian. Yet, even these Baptists will hold at least to the “five fundamentals” and the Trinity and justification by faith alone and Scripture alone. Also, some Baptists are liberal and have very little in common with us.
In general, we can appreciate Baptists for being evangelical and zealous, eager to maintain Biblical authority and the fundamentals of the faith and to spread the gospel.
Where We Differ
If we are comparing the WCF and 2LBC, the main differences have to do with covenant theology, church and church government, and baptism. There are also differences regarding civil government (omitting the maintenance of piety from the duties listed in paragraph 2, omitting paragraph 3, and rewriting the 4th in the chapter on civil government) and marriage (omitting one end of marriage - the increase of the church).
And so, in addition to the differences we would have with Congregationalists about church membership and government and the autonomy of the local church, we would also differ with the Baptists on the continuity of Old and New Testaments, and the mode, meaning, and subjects of baptism. Also, Baptists, like later Congregationalists, hold to only two offices: elder/pastor and deacon, rather than a threefold division of teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacon.
Baptists hold a variety of views on the covenants. They generally deny that the old covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace and would equate the covenant of grace with the new covenant (the more covenantal Baptists would say that the new covenant was progressively revealed in the Old Testament and was the only way anyone was saved). They say that the new covenant is only made with regenerate believers, and that the infants of believers were never included as such in the covenant of grace. But this does not do justice to the unity of God’s covenant with his people in the Old Testament or the continuity between the testaments and the people of God.
Baptists hold to the necessity of baptism by total immersion, while Presbyterians believe that total immersion is not necessary, but that the essential thing is washing with water, and that pouring or sprinkling is lawful, sufficient, and most expedient.
The 2LBC omitted "the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church" from the meaning of baptism (following Savoy), as well as it being "a sign and seal of the covenant of grace," but did add that it is a sign of fellowship with Christ, in his death and resurrection. The Baptist Faith and Message, following the New Hampshire Confession, adds that baptism is a prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and the Lord’s Supper, and that baptism is “an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith” (as well as the believer’s spiritual death, burial, and resurrection). But describing the sacraments as “acts of obedience” makes as much sense as describing the gospel an “act of obedience.” Both are given by God to us, to be received by us. The sacraments are the gospel made visible, signs of Christ and his benefits.
Baptists would insist that only professing believers be baptized. “Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance” (2LBC). The way many would say it today is that baptism is a public declaration of an inward transformation. Most would say that baptisms of the unregenerate are invalid, so that if a person came to realize they were converted after their baptism they should be baptized again. But these positions remove the visible objectivity of the sacrament, downplay its function as a sign from God to man, and neglect God’s consistent inclusion of the children of believers in the administration of his covenant (Gen. 17, Deut. 29, Acts 2:38-39, 16:31-34, see more here).
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