How Baptist Successionism undermines what it means to be a Baptist

[rsc2a]

The answer to your second question is "not necessarily."  I identify with historic Baptists who are non-creedal.  The Bible is our creed, unlike Calvinists who are doing everything they can to remove scriptural authority as a foundation for our practices.

Martin Luther -- you know, Mr. Sola Scriptura -- obliterated the concept of free will in his book "Bondage of the Will", which preceded Calvin.  And he did it using scriptural authority. 

BB also seems to be ignoring all those creedal proclamations that appear in that Bible he's claiming is the foundation for his practices...

 

[bgwilkinson]

Perhaps the term Neofundamentalist would be more descriptive of PBs dogmatics.

 

[FSSL]

I would like PappaBear to support this... He says that Smyth was immersed instead of poured. On what historical basis does he say this?

PappaBear asked me: 2.  Would you be for receiving believers into your church that were baptized by pouring instead of immersion such as Smyth and Helwys were?

 

[PappaBear]

Why such a drastic edit to your post?

So when I said this, I was pretty much on the money. Why do you work so hard to promote your positions and then cry "foul" when we restate them?

Because you are wrong.  There is a vast difference between rejecting doctrine, and not accepting creedalism.  I feel in good company with the likes of John Leland and the other historical Baptists against creedalism.  Like a good little Calvy, you always try to fit someone into a neat little box like a pinata so you can beat the box to death with a club.  You are much better off stating your positions instead of trying to spin mine or someone else's for them.

As a historian, you do know that the Anabaptists had plenty of confessions.  Besides... "no creed but the Bible" is a creed. As a historian, you also know the phrase "no creed but the Bible" was used against the fundamentalists and made popular by Fosdick to champion the liberal cause.

Well, thank you for the attempt at giving me a compliment.  I am no historian, only a Baptist and lover of reading history.  I see you are no historian, either.  The Anabaptists did not begin with the 16th century creedalists, but the term was first used against the Donatists.  We Baptists have historically been given different labels by our enemies.  Like the Baptists, the Anabaptists are not a close-knit formed group with only a single static doctrine that you can debate against.  I agree that the Bible is the only creed I need or want, and as such is our sole authority for faith and practice.  Too bad you have sold your soul more cheaply elsewhere.  As for Fosdick, I have not studied much of him.

PappaBear claims "once in grace always in grace" which is a creedal statement. He cannot bring himself to agreeing with ANY Baptist doctrinal statement, but has a hidden doctrine. It makes me wonder why he is holding his beliefs so close to his chest. Discussions are always refreshing when we don't have to chase down each other's belief systems. Hence, my straightforward reply to his question about me being a Baptist.

A creedal statement?  As I recall, you denied knowledge of it before and suddenly you declare it a creedal statement?  You would be wise to read what I actually said.  But then, discussing what a person actually said is not exactly your style, is it?  "Once in grace, always in grace" is the way that Pentecostals around here describe those who believe in eternal security.  It is considered by them to be a terrible, terrible heresy.  But I am unaware of any creed that uses that statement.  Perhaps you can point one out?

For your consideration, you might bone up on creeds over at Wikipedia.  I like this quote from that article:

The Baptists have been non-creedal "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another".[14].111 While many Baptists are not opposed to the ancient creeds, they regard them as "not so final that they cannot be revised and re-expressed. At best, creeds have a penultimacy about them and, of themselves, could never be the basis of Christian fellowship".[14].112 Moreover, Baptist "confessions of faith" have often had a clause such as this from the First London (Particular) Baptist Confession (Revised edition, 1646):

    Also we confess that we now know but in part and that are ignorant of many things which we desire to and seek to know: and if any shall do us that friendly part to show us from the Word of God that we see not, we shall have cause to be thankful to God and to them.

[quote author=admin"]BTW I was not picking on your spelling of affrontery. It can be spelled either way. [/quote] 

Thank you.  The spell checker on the forum flagged it, and once you posted it in quotes, I looked it up.  Same type thing happend with "affusion."  I am used to it being spelled as "effusion."  But apparently, it is going through a change from the way i have usually seen it "spelt" in my old books.

I am interested in knowing what is so rude about my post. I spoke rightly about the Baptists and their initial mode of baptism and there is nothing in Scripture that tells us that baptism must be administered by someone else.

No, you did not speak rightly about Baptists.  Baptists have historically been immersionists. It is the Calvy's and their descent from Separatists that have employed the other modes as holdovers from the reformers ways.  Your argument regarding scriptures not demanding baptism by someone else is an argument from silence.  Even Jesus Christ submitted to baptism by John, instead of baptizing Himself.  Just like with those who argue for infant baptism, who have no instance of it to refer to in the scriptures, you have zero illustrations of ANYONE being self-baptized in the scriptures.  BTW, since you seem to accept all the other "reformed" views regarding Baptism, is it safe to say that you are not so upset with infant baptism within Presbyterian or other confessions?  After all, there is nothing in Scripture that tells us that baptism must be administered to an adult believer since Acts 8:37 is not really in the original text, is there?

 

[PappaBear]

I would like PappaBear to support this... He says that Smyth was immersed instead of poured. On what historical basis does he say this?

PappaBear asked me: 2.  Would you be for receiving believers into your church that were baptized by pouring instead of immersion such as Smyth and Helwys were?

Please review your post.  First you claim about me, "He says that Smyth was immersed instead of poured."  I do not claim that.  So, where did you get that from?

 

[PappaBear]

http://levellers.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/john-smyth-1570-1612-puritan-separatist-baptist-mennonite/

[quote author=John Smyth (1554-1612): Puritan, Separatist, Baptist, Mennonite]Smyth baptized himself with a bucket and a dipper or ladle and then proceeded to baptize the rest of the congregation.

This act of self-baptism was shocking to all around. It forever earned Smyth the nickname, “the Se-Baptist” or “self-baptizer.”  Not even Jesus baptized himself, argued Smyth’s critics.  This criticism began to get to Smyth and he investigated the Mennonites more closely. [/quote]

 

[FSSL]

I would like PappaBear to support this... He says that Smyth was immersed instead of poured. On what historical basis does he say this?

PappaBear asked me: 2.  Would you be for receiving believers into your church that were baptized by pouring instead of immersion such as Smyth and Helwys were?

Please review your post.  First you claim about me, "He says that Smyth was immersed instead of poured."  I do not claim that.  So, where did you get that from?

Reread your point 2. You said that Smyth and Helwys were immersed.

 

[PappaBear]

I would like PappaBear to support this... He says that Smyth was immersed instead of poured. On what historical basis does he say this?

PappaBear asked me: 2.  Would you be for receiving believers into your church that were baptized by pouring instead of immersion such as Smyth and Helwys were?

Please review your post.  First you claim about me, "He says that Smyth was immersed instead of poured."  I do not claim that.  So, where did you get that from?

Reread your point 2. You said that Smyth and Helwys were immersed.

Never claimed to be an English teacher.  Try to "hear it" the way I would "say it." 

Would you be for receiving believers into your church that were baptized by pouring as Smyth and Helwys were instead of immersion?

Like that better?  It doesn't fit well to me.  I like the original better.  Perhaps though your Presby leanings give you the impression that immersion would be an abnormality for receiving members into a Baptist church, the subject of the question I asked of you?

 

[PappaBear]

btw -- you do realize this is likely to be the only thread in this new forum for quite some time, and us 2 will most likely be the only ones now discussing this now killed topic?

 

[lnf]

I'm following it, with interest.    I'll interject this one thought:  I understood what you originally wrote, PappaBear, like this:

Would you be for receiving believers into your church that were baptized by pouring (instead of immersion) such as Smyth and Helwys were?

Carry on...

 

[FSSL]

Like that better?  It doesn't fit well to me.  I like the original better.  Perhaps though your Presby leanings give you the impression that immersion would be an abnormality for receiving members into a Baptist church, the subject of the question I asked of you?

Nope. My American-English language leanings were informing me

I don't subscribe to Presby infant baptism, no matter what mode. Like I said before, I am very much like the original Particular Baptists. However, I wear shorts, polo shirts and sandals.

I just thought it interesting that you are asking me whether I would accept a person baptized if their mode was incorrect. It took the first generation of Baptists to get the mode right. They didn't rebaptize each other when they figured out immersion was the right mode. The Baptists were always interested in whether the baptized one was a believer.

 

[PappaBear]

I don't subscribe to Presby infant baptism, no matter what mode. Like I said before, I am very much like the original Particular Baptists. However, I wear shorts, polo shirts and sandals.

But I did not ask if you subscribed to it.  I assume that regardless of your answers to my other questions above, you do not necessarily subscribe to pouring or sprinkling, or that you normally have new Christians baptize themselves.  Instead, I was asking if your Calvy brothers baptism of infants upset you? IOW, do you OPPOSE it.  Like with creeds, a person may not be a creedalist, but that does not necessarily mean they oppose the doctrines within a creed.  You may not subscribe to infant baptism, but the proper question I am asking is if you oppose it?  Would you make an issue of it?

I just thought it interesting that you are asking me whether I would accept a person baptized if their mode was incorrect. It took the first generation of Baptists to get the mode right. They didn't rebaptize each other when they figured out immersion was the right mode. The Baptists were always interested in whether the baptized one was a believer.

You are incorrect on that, again.  Donatists and Waldensians baptized by immersion.  Though some groups of Anabaptists would use the other modes (they did not function as a single denomination), many did insist on immersion.  John Smyth, whom many of your kind would consider the first baptist, rejected his se-baptism and requested rebaptism in his application to the Anabaptists.  Though he died before that was accepted, the remaining 30+ members of his congregation WERE accepted into membership and rebaptized.

You would benefit by reading the article Did Modern-Day Baptists Come Into Being in 1641? by Dr. David L. Cummins.  He has a large section documenting the history of immersion amongst Baptists prior to that time.

 

[FSSL]

Instead, I was asking if your Calvy brothers baptism of infants upset you? IOW, do you OPPOSE it.  Like with creeds, a person may not be a creedalist, but that does not necessarily mean they oppose the doctrines within a creed.  You may not subscribe to infant baptism, but the proper question I am asking is if you oppose it?  Would you make an issue of it?

Enough that I won't become a member of one of their churches.

You are incorrect on that, again.  Donatists and Waldensians baptized by immersion.  Though some groups of Anabaptists would use the other modes (they did not function as a single denomination), many did insist on immersion.  John Smyth, whom many of your kind would consider the first baptist, rejected his se-baptism and requested rebaptism in his application to the Anabaptists.  Though he died before that was accepted, the remaining 30+ members of his congregation WERE accepted into membership and rebaptized.

Donatists and Waldensians were not Baptists.

John Smyth was never immersed. EVEN the Mennonites he wanted to join did not immerse.

You would benefit by reading the article Did Modern-Day Baptists Come Into Being in 1641? by Dr. David L. Cummins.  He has a large section documenting the history of immersion amongst Baptists prior to that time.

I know him quite well. The pastor of my sister-in-law's home church. He is just regurgitating Christian, Richard Weeks* and a host of other spiritual kinship successionists. The first generation of Baptists, as you noted above with Smyth, practiced pouring/affusion. Of that, there is plenty of evidence.

The first recorded evidence of immersion among Baptists was by the CALVINIST Particular Baptists in 1640ish. 30 years after the English Baptists (General and Particular) began.

What Weeks never told us and you will not find Cummins discussing this is that Helwys, Smyth and the earliest Baptists ALL denied a succession. It is a myth that was developed by later historians and made popular by the Trail of Blood book.







*my former prof

 

[PappaBear]

Enough that I won't become a member of one of their churches.

But what about the other way around?

Donatists and Waldensians were not Baptists.

Again, you are in error.  You are swimming upstream, here.  Obviously you are familiar with Christensen and Armitage, but choose to ignore them as if they do not exist in favor of your own revisionist history. The fact still remains that by Baptist distinctives, yes, they are "Baptists" even though their enemies such as you may have called them different names.

John Smyth was never immersed. EVEN the Mennonites he wanted to join did not immerse.

  And your documentation for that is ....????  Here's some of mine...

http://www.allaboutbaptists.com/history_John_Smyth.html

I know him quite well. The pastor of my sister-in-law's home church. He is just regurgitating Christian, Richard Weeks* and a host of other spiritual kinship successionists. The first generation of Baptists, as you noted above with Smyth, practiced pouring/affusion. Of that, there is plenty of evidence.

Perhaps you think you know him too well to actually read what he has written?  Or, strike that!  I've already established that it is your habit to project your own opinions of what people believe onto them.  Nice straw man argument.  It is a shame that you cannot take the time to read the article referenced.  He quotes and refers to Thomas Armitage, one of the first (i.e. "oldest and best manuscripts") Baptist historians.  He also quotes Dr. Leonard Verduin, Dr. William R Estep (I previously also referenced, outstanding historian!), and A.H. Newman.  In fact, of the 33 references at the end of the above article, not a single one is from John T. Christian or Richard Weeks.  Without reading the article, it is obvious you do NOT know nearly as much as you assumed you did. 

Of further concern is your attitude displayed above that you will reject history solely because of the historians' conclusions in their study of "spiritual kinship succession."  That certainly accounts for your revisionist history technique, forcing history to conform to your own ideas of what it should be rather than receiving the testimony of many historical witnesses, including apparently some of your own acquaintances and professors!

The first recorded evidence of immersion among Baptists was by the CALVINIST Particular Baptists in 1640ish. 30 years after the English Baptists (General and Particular) began.

Again, only true if one accepts your very narrow redefinition of what a Baptist is.  Most Baptist historians do not.  And as one who is seemingly not willing to unequivocally state a rejection of infant baptism, would accept self baptism, would accept effusion mode baptism, and frequently identifies with non-baptists in worship, you are imminently UN-qualified to over rule real Baptists in recording their own history. 

What Weeks never told us and you will not find Cummins discussing this is that Helwys, Smyth and the earliest Baptists ALL denied a succession. It is a myth that was developed by later historians and made popular by the Trail of Blood book.

I am not familiar enough with you to know just how wet behind the ears you still are.  Perhaps your teachers taught you before 2003 when Jason K. Lee's "The Theology of John Smyth: Puritan, Separatist, Baptist, Mennonite" was published?  You can read there on page 87 about Helwys' dispute with Smyth over "successionism."

[quote author=Jason K. Lee, The Theology of John Smyth:  Puritan, Separatist, Baptist, Mennonite"]Helwys and some others wrote two letters to discourage the Mennonites from accepting them.  In his second letter to the Mennonites urging them not to accept Smyth, Helwys refers to successionism as "Antichrists chiefe hold."230  He says that holding to succession is Smyth's main reason for seeking the union with the Mennonites.  Helwys' first letter to the Mennonite church is undated, but the second can be dated 22 March 1610.231[/quote]

 

[FSSL]

But what about the other way around?

If a person was only baptized as an infant, they should be baptized when they are a believer.

Again, you are in error.  You are swimming upstream, here.  Obviously you are familiar with Christensen and Armitage, but choose to ignore them as if they do not exist in favor of your own revisionist history. The fact still remains that by Baptist distinctives, yes, they are "Baptists" even though their enemies such as you may have called them different names.

Before we continue... you have never old us what you are.

I thought you were a Landmarker and you denied that. What do you believe? Spiritual Kinship Theory, Landmarkism or are you an Anabaptist? AND what kind of Baptist do you call yourself?

I will gladly answer what you wrote above. If we are going to have an honest discussion, you need to clearly express what you believe. I have.

 

[PappaBear]

But what about the other way around?

If a person was only baptized as an infant, they should be baptized when they are a believer.

That is mumblespeak.  How about a practical application?  Have you been told that Ransom's baptism was following a conversion experience as an adult?  As far as "FFF church" is concerned, you have pretty well laid hands on him.  There is a difference between rejecting infant baptism, and just quiet non-acceptance.  N'est-ce pas?

Before we continue... you have never old us what you are.

  Yes, I have.  Now you have distressed me, shooting down my ideal that everyone around here read my every post!  :'( 

You are right, I am a Baptist.  They are more historically non-creedalists.  And you are a bit hasty with the "5 Fundamentals," too.  I am more of a Six Principle Baptist, myself.  I prefer my foundational principles to come directly from scripture rather than a set of essays edited by even as good a man as R.A. Torrey. 

I thought you were a Landmarker and you denied that.

I did?  Where did I do that?  I find in another thread where you tried to make the claim for me and I rejected your attempt at speaking for me, but nowhere do I find a full-throated denial.  I did and do deny being Baptist Brider.  Are you equating the two?  If so, then understand that is a large part of the reason I do not desire to allow you to pin me down in a nice little box of your own making.

What do you believe? Spiritual Kinship Theory, Landmarkism or are you an Anabaptist? AND what kind of Baptist do you call yourself?

I will gladly answer what you wrote above. If we are going to have an honest discussion, you need to clearly express what you believe. I have.

I do not believe you to be a Baptist.  You are certainly a Calvinist first and foremost, with some baptistic attachments.  What you are using may be good debate technique, isolating your opponent, defining them in your words, then attacking with "guilt by association" arguments regarding certain specifics that many times your opponent will not even accept, but it makes for poor discussion. 

James Beller was a fellow poster on the original FFF of Don's, but took off in exasperation with the Calvinist status-quo shortly after I arrived.  He has some good articles and a book on Baptist History.  I recommend his article, "Are Baptists Historically Calvinist?"  In that article, he stated something which I also have observed about the Calvy-baal's on these different internet boards.  He said,

[quote author=James Beller]I suppose the most irritating thing about the whole issue is the tendency of the majority of Calvinists to want to have it all or nothing. Either you are Calvinist or Arminian, period. If you choose to be neither, you fall into a category based on an examination of your beliefs about the availability of the atonement, free will, etc. In short, you get labeled. Labels are handed out such as: Calminian, Amyraldist, Semi-Pelegian, Paleontologist, Antibleboludicristjunkola and etc.[/quote]

I have had very similar experience, and so tend to thoroughly resist attempts to label me by Calvinists who only want to use pre-defined cut-n-paste arguments to attack scarecrows (straw man arguments).  The problem is that Baptists historically believe in Conscience or Individual Soul Liberty and so no one fits the exact style sheet of any of your labels.  A second problem is that you guys keep changing the meaning of your labels.  The substance of such attacks tend to be, "Oh!  So you call yourself a (Landmarker, Kinship Theory, Anabaptist, Separate Baptist, Principle Baptist, ad infitum), well there is this same group in history over here that called themselves the same thing which believe this heresy, therefore you are a "this kind" of heretic.  BTW, I really like the "Kinship Theory" presented in this article by W. Glenn Jonas, Jr.  But sure as the world, if I identified with that description, particularly from A.H. Newman as described in that article, such as you would attack based on Anabaptist kinship and the differences between modern Baptists and Anabaptists, today. 

So, in short, I like to just say that ... I am a BAPTIST.  I do not fit your little box or label.  King James Baptist is a good label.  For a few years after Hyles declared "If I fall, fundamentalism falls" and I refused the label "fundamentalist" I adopted "Anabaptist" as a good descriptor, but times have changed.  I have long since shed my limited tunnel-vision of Hyles as the papal force among fundamentalists he promoted himself to be among his followers.  Yes, I am simply a BAPTIST, one who believes in the historic distinctives that have survived since New Testament times.  I am a BAPTIST who believes in Individual Soul Liberty, and so some can be heretics if they so choose, and still be a Baptist, but one cannot ignore or deny those same distinctives and claim that title no matter how orthodox their doctrine may be.  Consistent with the arguments I have made on this thread and those in the Calvinism room, I am simply a BAPTIST.

 

[bgwilkinson]

But what about the other way around?

If a person was only baptized as an infant, they should be baptized when they are a believer.

That is mumblespeak.  How about a practical application?  Have you been told that Ransom's baptism was following a conversion experience as an adult?  As far as "FFF church" is concerned, you have pretty well laid hands on him.  There is a difference between rejecting infant baptism, and just quiet non-acceptance.  N'est-ce pas?

Before we continue... you have never old us what you are.

  Yes, I have.  Now you have distressed me, shooting down my ideal that everyone around here read my every post!  :'( 

You are right, I am a Baptist.  They are more historically non-creedalists.  And you are a bit hasty with the "5 Fundamentals," too.  I am more of a Six Principle Baptist, myself.  I prefer my foundational principles to come directly from scripture rather than a set of essays edited by even as good a man as R.A. Torrey. 

I thought you were a Landmarker and you denied that.

I did?  Where did I do that?  I find in another thread where you tried to make the claim for me and I rejected your attempt at speaking for me, but nowhere do I find a full-throated denial.  I did and do deny being Baptist Brider.  Are you equating the two?  If so, then understand that is a large part of the reason I do not desire to allow you to pin me down in a nice little box of your own making.

What do you believe? Spiritual Kinship Theory, Landmarkism or are you an Anabaptist? AND what kind of Baptist do you call yourself?

I will gladly answer what you wrote above. If we are going to have an honest discussion, you need to clearly express what you believe. I have.

I do not believe you to be a Baptist.  You are certainly a Calvinist first and foremost, with some baptistic attachments.  What you are using may be good debate technique, isolating your opponent, defining them in your words, then attacking with "guilt by association" arguments regarding certain specifics that many times your opponent will not even accept, but it makes for poor discussion. 

James Beller was a fellow poster on the original FFF of Don's, but took off in exasperation with the Calvinist status-quo shortly after I arrived.  He has some good articles and a book on Baptist History.  I recommend his article, "Are Baptists Historically Calvinist?"  In that article, he stated something which I also have observed about the Calvy-baal's on these different internet boards.  He said,

[quote author=James Beller]I suppose the most irritating thing about the whole issue is the tendency of the majority of Calvinists to want to have it all or nothing. Either you are Calvinist or Arminian, period. If you choose to be neither, you fall into a category based on an examination of your beliefs about the availability of the atonement, free will, etc. In short, you get labeled. Labels are handed out such as: Calminian, Amyraldist, Semi-Pelegian, Paleontologist, Antibleboludicristjunkola and etc.

I have had very similar experience, and so tend to thoroughly resist attempts to label me by Calvinists who only want to use pre-defined cut-n-paste arguments to attack scarecrows (straw man arguments).  The problem is that Baptists historically believe in Conscience or Individual Soul Liberty and so no one fits the exact style sheet of any of your labels.  A second problem is that you guys keep changing the meaning of your labels.  The substance of such attacks tend to be, "Oh!  So you call yourself a (Landmarker, Kinship Theory, Anabaptist, Separate Baptist, Principle Baptist, ad infitum), well there is this same group in history over here that called themselves the same thing which believe this heresy, therefore you are a "this kind" of heretic.  BTW, I really like the "Kinship Theory" presented in this article by W. Glenn Jonas, Jr.  But sure as the world, if I identified with that description, particularly from A.H. Newman as described in that article, such as you would attack based on Anabaptist kinship and the differences between modern Baptists and Anabaptists, today. 

So, in short, I like to just say that ... I am a BAPTIST.  I do not fit your little box or label.  King James Baptist is a good label.  For a few years after Hyles declared "If I fall, fundamentalism falls" and I refused the label "fundamentalist" I adopted "Anabaptist" as a good descriptor, but times have changed.  I have long since shed my limited tunnel-vision of Hyles as the papal force among fundamentalists he promoted himself to be among his followers.  Yes, I am simply a BAPTIST, one who believes in the historic distinctives that have survived since New Testament times.  I am a BAPTIST who believes in Individual Soul Liberty, and so some can be heretics if they so choose, and still be a Baptist, but one cannot ignore or deny those same distinctives and claim that title no matter how orthodox their doctrine may be.  Consistent with the arguments I have made on this thread and those in the Calvinism room, I am simply a BAPTIST.
[/quote]

Dear Pappabear,

This sure is a convoluted mixed up bunch of clap trap muddy unclear obfuscation tap dancing parsing conflating and spinning over reaching  illogical mush.

After reading what you said I can't figure out what you believe or if you believe.

By the way have you given some time to study Translators to the Reader?

I am simply a Christian.

 

[rsc2a]

[quote author=bgwilkinson]I am simply a Christian.[/quote]

I was going to post this but you beat me to it.

I simply say I am of Christ. Apparently some people thing that it's more important to be of Cephas Baptist.

 

[FSSL]

Do you ever speak for yourself?  Apparently not...

Hmmm....

 

[rsc2a]

I always find it strange when people are spooked by their own beliefs.

A faith that cannot handle honest questioning is a very weak faith IMHO.