“Baptists Through the Centuries”: Blogging Through Bebbington – Introduction
“Baptists Through the Centuries”: Blogging Through Bebbington – Roots in the Reformation
“Baptists Through the Centuries”: Blogging Through Bebbington – The Anabaptists
No doubt any discussion regarding the origin of baptists must deal with the connection, or lack there-of, with the radical reformation. In his book Baptists Through the Centuries, Dr. David Bebbington opens chapter 3 with these words: The most developed historiographical controversy concerning the Baptists surrounds their relationship with the Anabaptists (25). Whether this is an exaggeration or not I will let the reader decide, but no doubt this question certainly ranks at the top. The author then goes on to report:
The idea that there was a bond between baptists and Anabaptists was popular in the nineteenth century with those who wanted to argue that believer’s baptism had never died out since the apostles’ time. The Anabaptists, on this understanding, were those who in the early sixteenth century passed on to the Baptists a perennial witness. When it became clearer that there was no such succession of true baptismal practice down through the centuries, those Baptists in the twentieth century who wished to forge links with features of the Anabaptist testimony such as pacifism were still predisposed to see connections between the two movements in the past. (25)
No doubt the presuppositions behind Landmarkism is a primary means for wanting to find a link between the two, but I want to put forward another reason. I have ministered in rural communities for over a decade where there is a large number of Amish and Mennonites. In an effort of mutual respect and civility, it has been my experience to find many baptists to suggests that we both share the same birth mother.
Nevertheless, Babbington sets forth the case for connecting the radical reformation and the baptists. The strongest evidence regards the connection between the Anabaptists and John Smyth who is considered to be the first baptist.
In Smyth’s biography, the baptist forefather decides to create his own church based on his belief in believer’s baptism.
His solution, reached early in 1609, was to baptize himself and then to baptize the others, so establishing fresh church according to the pattern he had discerned in the New Testament. The repudiation of their earlier infant baptisms by all the members of the congregation was audacious enough, but the act of self-baptism seemed particularly scandalous. There was no scripture warrant for it, and it savored of the despised and hated Anabaptist. Contemporaries wondered whether the Anabaptists were actually responsible for Smyth’s aberration. It is a question for historians as well. (34)
No doubt that Smyth was influenced by Mennonite Anabaptists. One such community was found near Smyth’s church. Babbington even suggests, It is clear, however, that in his final years his mind was at one with the Anabpatists. (35)
Yet to suggest that Smyth is the “smoking gun,” is misleading. Babbington writes:
There is important evidence about Smyth’s attitude to the Waterlanders in his own apology for performing the self-baptism. he undertook it because, he explained, “ther was no church to whome we could Joyne with a Good conscience to have baptisme from them.” If he had already been under the sway of the Waterlanders, he would surely have considered their church to be one he could conscientiously approach. There are no signs of Mennonite influence in Smyth’s writings down to march 1609, after the baptism, but there are indications of familiarity with Menno immediately afterwards. It is far more likely that Smyth entered on his explorations of Mennonite thought after rather than before the crucial act. The Anabaptists, we may conclude were the source of most of the mature convictions of John Smyth, but not of his creation of the first Baptist church. (38)
Furthermore, after Smyth’s death the baptists and the Anabaptists grew farther away from each other. In the end, however, there is no real link between the two. The baptists grew independently from any influence from the Anabaptists and Babbington makes a strong case here. What makes this chapter so important is that Babbington makes the case for the connection rather convincingly (on the surface) only to show why such an argument is inadequate. Ultimately, we must conclude as we did in the previous chapter, baptists trace their origins to the English seperatists, not to the Anabaptists. John Smyth came to his conclusions out of that movement and only afterward was influenced by the Mennonites.
sola evangelii 