What is a Baptist?

Dr. Steve Lemke, my old hermeneutics prof, has published another article dealing with the matter of “Calvinism.”  The new article appears in the Fall 2008 edition of The Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry entitled, “What is a Baptist? Nine Marks that separate Baptists from Presbyterians”.   Dr. Lemke has provoked several sharp responses from some.  On the one hand, I empathize tremendously with “Calvinists” within SBC life who feel disparaged. Conferences, such as the ones being held at Clear Creek and Woodstock, seem as though they will tear down the walls uniting the Baptist house rather than weaving a diverse tapestry at which may all Baptists may set their feet.  On the other hand, in no way to I intend to call Dr. Lemke’s scholarship or Christian character into question.  Doing such is neither helpful nor appropriate.

There are many things with which I agree in Dr. Lemke’s article and also many assertions with which I disagree. I will spend several posts providing my own response to the article, hoping to do so in a manner which reflects my respect for Dr. Lemke while being pointed in my opposition.

I must confess I take exception with something contained within the Journal itself, apart from Dr. Lemke’s article. The Journal deals with two issues, Southern Baptists & Calvinism and The Emerging Church, The Emergent Church, & The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints. The introductory page to the first section, that dealing with Southern Baptists & Calvinism, it gives that heading and then places John 3:16 on the page. This page follows an advertisement for a Reformation Study Tour. The tour permits students, NOBTS alumni and guests to “visit sites in Germany and Switzerland associated with: Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the Anabaptists.” I would remind my Baptist friends that Evangelicals at the time of the Reformation – including the Reformers themselves (Luther, Calvin and Zwingli) – affirmed God’s love for the world (John 3:16) and the doctrine of election. In other words, John 3:16 is not the domain of “non-Calvinists” and Baptists, but of Christians in general. To employ the use of the verse in a manner which either explicitly or implicitly denigrates the theology of “Calvinists” erects a wall of separation between Christians which should not exist.

As to the article itself, Dr. Lemke asserts, “Baptists and Presbyterians are both products of the Protestant Reformation. They do not share precisely the same heritage, however, since Presbyterians arose from the Magisterial Reformation and Baptists arose from the Radical Reformation. Baptists arose in a separatist tradition, and suffered horrible persecution at the hands of Calvinist authorities.”  It seems Dr. Lemke finds it vital to reemphasize Baptist persecution at the hands of Calvinist authorities, speaking of it as being the primary reason Roger Williams migrated to America (Dr. Lemke does not mention Williams was himself a Baptist “Calvinist”).

Depending on which view of Baptist history is considered, there are essentially four views regarding Baptist origins. The Anabaptists certainly emerged from the Radical Reformation, but Particular Baptists grew from the Separatists (Puritans) within the Magisterial Reformation. There was, unfortunately and much to the shame of “Calvinist authorities” (and Lutheran ones), an aggressive persecution of “Anabaptists.” What Lemke fails to mention is that a major reason for this persecution was the Münster Rebellion led by Anabaptists. Radical Anabaptists sought the violent establishment of a theocracy in the German city which had become an Anabaptist center between 1534-1535. In 1536, various Anabaptist leaders (many influenced by Melchior Hoffman, who laid the foundations for the events in Münster) met in Bocholt in a final attempt to maintain their unity. Unity was not established, however, as different Anabaptist groups quarreled over the validity of polygamy and the use of force against non-Christians. While Menno Simons, Obbe Philips and Dirk Philips took a pacifist approach and rejected the “distinctives” of the Münster Anabaptists, civil authorities viewed the Anabaptists as a homogeneous unit and adopted stringent measures to prevent future insurrections from those who vowed publicly to overthrow them. After the Münster Rebellion the very name “Anabaptist” was considered illicit throughout Europe.

A decade prior to the Münster Rebellion, the cause of Anabaptists may have found progress in Switzerland if not for the obstinance of Anabaptist leaders there.  As early as the Second Zurich Disputation (October 1523), some of Ulrich Zwingli’s disciples were discontent with the pace of reformation taking place in that city.  Though the city council declared at the Disputation that the Roman Mass was unbiblical, they decided not to overhaul the practice immediately.  Zwingli sided with the coucil, believing the citizens needed to be prepared more thoroughly for such a drastic change in religious worship.  A Zwingli disciple, Conrad Grebel, declared Zurich’s theologians placed Scripture “on its head, trampled it under foot, and put it into slavery.”  He refused to have his infant son baptized and ended up baptizing a fellow Zwingli disciple, George Blaurock.  The baptism took place in a home, that of Felix Manz.  An Anabaptist conventicle emerged in Zollikon and those disaffected by the slow pace of reform took the matter into their own hands.  Baptismal fonts in churches and chapels were dismantled and destroyed, worship services were interrupted by Anabaptist preachers when officially recognized pastors were in the pulpit, and Anabaptist congregations gathered in direct defiance of the law.  In June 1525, Anabaptists marched through the streets of Zurich.  They ridiculed Zwingli as “the old dragon” and cried out, “Woe, woe, woe, O Zurich!”, giving the citizens forty days to “repent.”  The city council considered these disturbances as a direct threat to civil authority and responded by banishing the offenders and threatening capital punishment by drowning as the penalty for rebaptism.  The future persecution of Baptists emerged, not simply because Baptists affirmed believer’s baptism, but because rebellion and wickedness (i.e., polygamy) was identified with those calling themselves “Anabaptist.”

For further reading on the issue please see the 2WC post, “Not Anabaptist“.

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