Baptist Distinctives

1. First, Baptists accept the Bible as their only sufficient authority for faith and practice. Because of this they reject the authority of councils, creeds, tradition, and hierarchial utterances unless they agree with Scripture. If they do agree, their authority still depends on Scripture. This does not mean that Baptists do not value the decisions of councils and the creeds which they produced. They just reject them as a final authority and look only to Scripture. It is their supreme court of appeal.

2. Second, Baptists believe in a regenerate church membership. Only those who have been regenerated (born-again) can be received into the membership of the church. Unsaved adults and infants are rejected. Adults must at least profess salvation, and in some cases they have been required to give a verbal testimony of their salvation experience and evidence in their lives that they have been converted. Infants can not be saved, nor do they need to be. Salvation is by grace, through faith, and an infant cannot exercise faith. They are safe, however, not because they are infants but because of God's grace.

3. Third, Baptists believe in baptism by immersion and believers only. This alone constitutes biblical baptism. They reject those who have been sprinkled, etc. They must be baptized biblically. Because belief must precede baptism, they reject infant baptism. Further, they insist that those who went through the baptismal ceremony before they were saved must be baptized after they are saved. Otherwise, theirs is not a biblical baptism. This has caused quite a furor among those who opposed the Baptists. They called it rebaptism, and Baptists suffered much persecution because of this practice. It is in the areas of infant baptism, baptism of believers only, and baptism by immersion that Baptists are singularly opposed by others to this day.

4. Fourth, Baptists believe in soul liberty or freedom of conscience. They do not believe that any civil or religious power has any right to dictate what they must believe in spiritual matters. Because of this belief, they have stood against a practice that has been used much during the history of the church. That practice came about when certain segments of the church used the civil powers to coerce individuals to believe their way....[this use of terror] ...led to the belief in separation of church and state. It was by the union of civil and religious powers that the earth has been stained by the blood of martyrs and the air has been polluted by the stench of burning bodies as men were put to death in the most horrible ways because they refused to believe what some-one else demanded they believe. This would not have been possible, to such an extent, without the cooperation of the civil government.

5. Fifth, Baptists believe in an equal brotherhood of believers. They hold that all believers are priests and that each has direct access to God through Jesus Christ our mediator. They do not have to go through the preacher. Because of this belief they reject any order of priests who could grant them access to God or deny such access. Since their access to God is through the one mediator, Jesus Christ, they do not believe it is necessary or proper to pray through Mary or some saint. They also deny any teaching about the Lord's Supper that requires the mediation of a priest to make it beneficial to them. This would require an unequal brotherhood and deny them soul liberty.
         Further, their equal brotherhood belief based upon the teaching of Scripture leads them to govern themselves by a congregational form of government. They are not ruled by a board of elders or deacons. Nor do they allow any ecclesiastical power outside the local church to exercise control over them.

6. Sixth, Baptists believe in salvation by grace, through faith. The above-mentioned faith is personal faith. The one who is saved is the one who believes. This caused Baptists to reject proxy faith, or parents believing for their children. They also reject any system that makes necessary the intervention of a priest to convey salvation; and neither of the two ordinances, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, has any salvific (saving) value. These things separate Baptists from others by a vast distance.

7. Seventh, Baptists believe in maintaining the original order of the church. This is the primitive order, the way things ought to be done according to Scripture. No matter what kind of order has developed since Bible times, or if no order at all has been maintained, Scripture is still the manual of church order. Since this includes all of the distinctives, it is needless to say that much opposition and persecution have resulted. Maintaining this order has definitely set Baptists apart from many and has evoked a good deal of ridicule and differing opinions from others. They have, however, stood fairly consistently, even during recent days when Baptists seem to desire to "be like all the nations.”

[from "A PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME," by Dr.M.A.Seiver, 1989, University Publishers, Chattanooga, Tennessee] 
                                                                                                                 

Baptists Are Not Protestants
by Dr. Vernon C. Lyons

People are usually put in one of three religious groups. If you are not a Jew or a Roman Catholic, then automatically you are a Protestant. Consequently, Baptists are usually called "Protestants." However, this does not match the facts. Baptists never have been Protestants.

The Protestant Reformation is usually dated from October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany. However, this was only one of a series of acts that led to the open rupture with Rome.

An event of utmost importance, but often unnoticed, is the Second Diet (or Council) of Speier, April 25, 1529. This was a Roman Catholic Council for the purpose of taking action against the Turks and checking the progress of Lutherans and others who were not co-oporating with the Pope. Certain Lutheran princes appeared before this Roman Catholic Diet with a formal written protest against those matters in which the Diet went contrary to the Christian faith as they understood it. This protest was signed by Elector John of Saxony, Margrave George of Brandenburg, Dukes Ernest and Francis of Braunschweig-Luneburg, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt and the representatives of fourteen imperial cities. The protest was designed to protect them from the decisions of this Council. It was a defensive measure. The celebrated church historian, Philip Schaaf, makes the noteworthy statement "From this protest. and appeal, the Lutherans were called Protestants." (History of the Christian Church, Volume VII, p.692). The same facts are stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia (Volume Xll, p.495).

These Lutheran leaders, and a few Reformed, who made this appeal and protest at the famous Diet of Speier were speaking for themselves and not for Baptists, of whom they themselves said in their written statement, "All Anabaptists and rebaptized persons, male or female, of mature age, shall be judged and brought from natural life to death, by fire, or sword or otherwise, as may benefit the persons, without preceding trial by spiritual judges." The Baptists then did not share in this protest and consequently cannot bear the name "Protestant." Here are three reasons why Baptists are not Protestants.

Historically Baptists Are Not Protestants

Protestants date from the sixteenth century. They are the Lutherans, the Reformed, and others who were once Roman Catholics and left the Roman Catholic faith to start denominations of their own. The Baptists never left the Roman Catholic church as did Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. They never left because they were never in. They did not begin their existence at the time of the Reformation, but hundreds of years prior to the Reformation.

Baptists make no effort to trace a historical succession back to the age of the Apesties. Their only claim is that at every age in church history there have been groups that have held to the same doctrines that Baptists hold today. These groups may or may not have been connected and they have been known by various names. There were the Montanists (150 A.D.), the Novatians (240 A.D.), Donatists (305 A.D.), Albigenses (1022 A.D.), Waldensians (1170 A.D.), and the name Anabaptists came into prominence just before the time of the Protestant Reformation. Full historical data immediately refutes the view that there was only one religious group -- the Roman Catholic church -until the time of Martin Luther. Anyone who claims this simply has not done his homework.

l wish to purposely introduce nonBaptist testimony to the great antiquity of Baptist people. Cardinal Hosius (1504-1579) was a Roman Catholic prelate who had as his life work the investigation and suppression of non-Catholic groups. By Pope Paul IV he was designated one of the three papal presidents of the famous Council of Trent. Hosius carried on vigorously the work of the counter-reformation. If anyone in post-reformation times knew the doctrines and history of nonCatholic groups, it was Hosius. Cardinal Hosius says, "Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1,200 years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers" (Letters Apud Opera, pp.112, 113). Note carefully that this knowledgeable Catholic scholar has spoken of the vicious persecution Baptists have endured, that he clearly distinguishes them from the Reformers, and that he dates them 1,200 years before the Protestant Reformation.

It is also evident that the Baptists were not Protestants because they were fiercely persecuted by the Protestant Reformers and their followers. Uncounted thousands of them lost their goods, their lands, and their lives in these persecutions. Konred Grebel died in prison in 1526. Felix Manz was drowned by the authorities at Zurich in 1527. Noted Baptist leader Baithauser Hubmaier was burned alive at the stake in Vienna March 10, 1528. Three days later his wife was drowned by being thrown over the Danube bridge with a stone tied to her neck..The facts abundantly attest that historically Baptists are not Protestants.

Doctrinally Baptists Are Not Protestants

The viewpoint that Baptists share common doctrinal ground with Protestant groups is not an accurate reporting of the facts. There are six striking differences.

1. Baptists believe with all their hearts that God's Word alone is sufficient for faith and practice. We read "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine..." (II Timothy 3:16). Various Protestant denominations have creeds, catechisms and assorted doctrinal standards. Baptists hold to the Bible alone.
   
   

2. Baptists believe that Christ and only Christ is the Head of the Church even as the Scripture says, "Christ is the head of the church" (Ephesians 5:23). There is no man who has the oversight of Baptist churches. Baptists have no denomination in the sense of an organization that controls local congregations. Each local church is autonomous and accountable only to Christ, who is its Head. A Baptist church, while fellowshiping with congregations of like faith and practice, has no earthly headquarters. Its headquarters is in Heaven.
   
   

3. Baptists believe from their hearts in a free church in a free state. Christ plainly taught that the state and the church each had its own realm when he said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things which are God's" (Matthew 22:21 ). Baptists are vigorously opposed to union of state and church and believe that a state controlled church is a wretched excuse for Christianity and a plain departure from Scripture. All of the Protestant Reformers fastened state churches upon their folIowers.
   
   

4. Baptists believe strongly in individual accountability to God because the Scriptures clearly teach that "every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). A priest cannot answer for you, a church cannot answer for you to God. God-parents cannot answer for you. No one is saved because of what his parents believe. No one is ,saved because of his identification with any religion. He will account for himself to God. Protestants .generally do not hold this scriptural doctrine.
   
   

5. Baptist people furthermore have always held to believers' baptism. None of the Protestant Reformers held this Bible teaching. In the Scriptures, faith and repentance always preceded baptism. On the day of Pentecost Peter plainly told the people, "Repent and be baptized" (Acts 2:38). This obviously means that there is no infant baptism since infants are incapable of repenting. No unbelievers are to be baptized. The Reformers followed Rome in their teaching on baptism. Baptists have held stedfastly to the doctrine of Christ and His Apostles on this point.
   
   

6. Baptists, on the basis of Scripture, have always held to a regenerate church membership; that is, a membership that is made up only of people who give a credible profession of faith in Christ. In the apostolic church, only those who became believers, those who received the Word of God and who had repented of their sins, were baptized and received as church members (Acts 2:41). There was no automatic or formalistic membership in apostolic churches nor in Baptist churches today.