I don’t normally deal with “Baptist” questions on this website. However, I was raised in an Independent (Fundamentalist) Baptist Church, and am now a member of a Southern Baptist Church, and teach at a (Filipino) Southern Baptist seminary. I suppose it is good once in a while to discuss some issues.

One of our seminary graduates shared an image that expressed some attitudes about what Baptists ARE NOT. I won’t share the image here. However, here are the main points:

1. “A Baptist is NOT a Religion.” The grammar is poor, but that was the way it was worded. Baptists are from a tradition of Christianity that is a religion. So technically, the statement is correct, but I am pretty sure that was not the point. The thing is Christianity IS a religion, and Baptists are part of Christianity. I am aware of the arguments away from it. Some say that Christianity is not a religion because (a) It is a RELATIONSHIP NOT A RELIGION, or (b) Religion is about man’s desire to reach God, while Christianity is about God reaching out to Man. Neither of these is any more convincing than what an Imam told me, saying that Islam is an Ideology NOT a Religion. The fact is that of the dozens of different definitions for the word “religion,” Christianity (and Islam) fit very well under pretty much all of the definitions. There are faith movements that don’t fit too well with common understandings of the term “religion,” but Christianity is not one of them.
2. “A Baptist is NOT a Denomination.” Again, the grammar is not from me. A lot of groups don’t like the term “denomination.” Among these are Baptists. Southern Baptists prefer to describe themselves as being part of a “convention” rather than denomination. Others prefer Association or Fellowship. Much like the previous point, there are many definitions for the term “denomination,” but one would have to look long and hard for a definition that would exclude all Baptists (if such a thing was possible). Now I was raised in a church that was fully “independent” but it was a member of a “fellowship” of churches that had a relationship with an association of churches. The use of terms like “convention,” “fellowship,” or “association” does not change the fact that almost any common definition for the term “denomination” also applies.
3. Baptists were NOT founded by John Smyth. Okay, here we are getting into the history stuff. When we look at Baptists in history, we can trace back into the 1600s quite well, and that historical tracking goes back to John Smyth. Were there people who were Baptist-ish before this. Sure, but one has to either appropriate other groups and apply one’s label to them, or one has to simply assume that Baptists exist hidden in the dark corners that history has not found. Admittedly, “founded” is a loaded term, especially for a group as anti-hierarchal as the Baptists. Still, the statement seems to be pushing for an anti-historical understanding of the Baptists. More on that later.
4. Baptists are NOT Protestants. Much like the rest of these, one can look at it more than one way. One could look at the Baptists as Dissenters from the Anglicans, with the Anglicans being the Protestants. As such, Baptists are protesters against the Protestants who were in turn protesters against the Roman Church. In that sense one might argue that Baptist are not Protestants. However, that did not appear to be the argument here. The argument used was that the Baptists do not come from the Roman Church but “from Christ.” Again, this is an anti-historical view of Baptists. It also does not make much sense. Coming from Christ is the Church (however, one wants to define it… Universal, Local, otherwise). That does not say anything about history. There were 1600 years between Jesus establishing “His Church” and the Baptists identified as a movement. The Primitive Church, the Apostolic Fathers, the Antenicene Fathers, the Church of the West and East over the centuries are part of that history. Baptist cannot be ripped out of its historical context any more than any other group can. Baptist formed as a historically identified movement out of groups that have their roots in the Western (read Roman) Church. The argument that there was a “trail of blood” of secret Baptist groups coming from the beginning is building a doctrine that is not identifiable in history. The Pentecostals have the same problem— often identifying some pretty dubious groups that pop up occasionally in history to show some sort of shared religious “DNA.” By why would the Baptists and Pentecostals (and others) seek to distance themselves from history? Part of it is the desire to see their own tradition as a “restoration” of the original primitive church. Of course, one can identify oneself has having a restored faith without ignoring history— but that is still the tendency.

My problems with the image are pretty deep. There is an Exceptionalist spin being suggested. In that view, Jesus established independent local Baptist churches in the first century, and as other groups apostasized, “real churches” continued in secret until reviewed publically in the modern Baptist movement. I have friends in the Pentecostal movement who have suggested similarly that they are a restoration of the Primitive Church. Church of Christ, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness, and others have done similar things. Obviously the Roman and Greek movements have done similarly. Again, one has to ignore history or drastically simplify historical analysis to make these work.

Additionally, I feel like the Baptists, among many other groups, are not comfortable with history. This is strange since Baptists claim to be Biblically based, and the Bible is a very historical book, involving God working historically. Some religions downplay history… focusing on dogma or timeless myth rather than history.

I feel that Baptists would do much better if they were comfortable with history. We are a part of a great Church that exists in both time and space with many different flavors and contexts. I am not saying that every group is an excellent or equal manifestation of the Body of Christ. There are groups with deep problems. But I believe we understand ourselves better when we see ourselves as part of a history of the Spirit of God at work in the world.