Baptist

From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project

Jump to: navigation, search

Template:ChristianityBaptist is a term describing a tradition within Christianity and may also refer to individuals belonging to a Baptist church or a Baptist denomination. The tradition takes it name from the conviction that followers of Jesus Christ should be immersed in water as a visible and public display of their faith. Some regard Baptists as a continuation of the movement dating back to the time of Jesus and John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus in the River Jordan. Others see Baptists as Evangelical Protestants with origins in the English Separatist movement (see the section below on Baptist origins).

Organizationally, Baptist churches operate on the Congregational governance system, which gives autonomy to individual local Baptist churches. Baptists traditionally have avoided the "top-down" hierarchy which is found in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and many other churches. However, Baptist churches will often associate in denominational groups such as the Southern Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention, USA, and American Baptist Churches USA, among others.

Contents

Membership

Statistics

Template:See alsoThere are over 90 million Baptists worldwide in nearly 300,000 congregations, with an estimated 47 million members in the United States[1]. Other large populations of Baptists also exist in Asia, Africa and Latin America, notably in India (2.4 million), Nigeria (2.3 million), Zaïre (1.9 million) and Brazil (1.2 million). [2]

According to a poll in the 1990s, about one in five in the U.S. claim to be a Baptist. U.S. Baptists are represented in more than fifty separate groups. Ninety-two percent of Baptists are found in five of those bodies—the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC); National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (NBC); National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; (NBCA); American Baptist Churches in the USA (ABC); and Baptist Bible Fellowship International (BBFI) [3].

Qualifications

Only those people who are baptized members of a local Baptist church are included in the total number of Baptists. Most Baptist churches do not have an age restriction on membership, but will not accept as a member a child that is considered too young to fully understand and make a profession of faith of their own volition and comprehension. In such cases, the pastor and parents usually meet together with the child to verify the child's comprehension of the decision to follow Jesus. There are instances where a person makes a profession of faith but fails to follow through with believers' baptism. In such case they are considered "saved" but not a church member until baptized. If children and unbaptized congregants were counted, world Baptists may number over 100 million.

Recent growth

Baptists today are the second fastest growing Christian denomination in the world after the Pentecostals, largely because of the growth in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe in the last century.

Baptists in the United States

Template:ProtestantSee main article Baptists in the United States.

The majority of Baptists worldwide reside in the United States, belonging to four major denominational groups. Baptists make up the second-largest Christian denomination in the USA, the Roman Catholic Church being the largest. Although Baptist churches are located throughout the USA, the great majority of Baptists live in the southern United States, and the Baptist church has historically exerted a powerful influence especially on that section of the nation.

Major Baptist organizations in the U.S. are:

Baptists in Canada

See main article Baptists in Canada.

There are several major groupings of Baptists in Canada.

Baptists in Jamaica

  • Jamaica Baptist Union [1]

Distinctive Beliefs

Template:Baptist Churches do not have a central governing authority, unlike most other denominations that do. Therefore, beliefs are not totally consistent from one Baptist church to another, especially those that may be considered minor. However, on major theological issues, Baptist distinctives are beliefs that are common among almost all Baptist churches. Baptists share so-called "orthodox" Christian beliefs with most other moderate or conservative Christian denominations. These would include beliefs about one God, virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, vicarious atoning death, burial, and bodily resurrection of Christ, the Trinity (the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, together with God the Father), the need for salvation (though the understanding of means for achieving it may differ at times), grace, the church, the Kingdom of God, last things (Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge everyone in righteousness), evangelism and missions. Some historically significant Baptist doctrinal documents include the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, the 1833 New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith, and the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Faith and Message, and written church "covenants" which some individual Baptist churches adopt as a statement of faith and beliefs.

Baptists generally believe in the literal Second Coming of Christ at which time God will sit in judgment and divide humanity between the saved and the lost (the Great White Throne judgment Book of Revelation 20:11) and Christ will sit in judgment of the believers (the Judgment Seat of Christ Second Epistle to the Corinthians 5:10), rewarding them for things done while alive. Amillennialism, dispensationalism, and historic premillennialism stand as the main eschatological views of Baptists, with views such as postmillennialism and preterism receiving some support.

See also: List of Baptist Confessions or Doctrinal Statements

The following acrostic backronym, spelling BAPTIST, is used by some Baptist churches as a summary of Baptists' distinguishing beliefs:

  • Biblical authority (Template:Bibleref; 1 Peter 1:23; 2 Timothy 3:16-17)
  • Autonomy of the local church (Template:Bibleref-17; 1 Corinthians 6:1-3)
  • Priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5-9; 1 Timothy 5)
  • Two ordinances (baptism and the Lord's Supper) (Acts 2:41-47; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32)
  • Individual soul liberty (Romans 14:5-12)
  • Separation of Church and State (Template:Bibleref)
  • Two offices of the church (pastor and deacon) (I Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1-2)

Some Baptist traditions adhere to the "Four Freedoms" articulated by Baptist historian Walter B. Shurden:

  • Soul freedom: the soul is competent before God, and capable of making decisions in matters of faith without coercion or compulsion by any larger religious or civil body
  • Church freedom: freedom of the local church from outside interference, whether government or civilian (subject only to the law where it does not interfere with the religious teachings and practices of the church)
  • Bible freedom: the individual is free to interpret the Bible for himself or herself, using the best tools of scholarship and Biblical study available to the individual
  • Religious freedom: the individual is free to choose whether to practice their religion, another religion, or no religion; Separation of church and state is often called the "civil corollary" of religious freedom

Justification by faith

Justification by faith alone (sola fide) states that it is by grace through faith alone that Christians receive salvation and not through any works of their own (see Ephesians 2:8). Baptists have a strong emphasis on the concept of salvation. Baptist theology teaches that the consequence of human sin is condemnation to eternal death in Hell. Christ's death on the cross paid sin's penalty and his resurrection is evidence that eternal life is available to any who will have it. The only requirements being that each individual willfully repents of sin, accepts the substitutionary payment of his own sin by faith in Christ's death and declares that Jesus is Lord (see John 3:14-18 and Acts 10:34-43). Nevertheless, the Baptist view of soteriology runs the gamut from Calvinism to Arminianism. Many Baptist churches adhere to sola fide while being careful to also teach that faith without deeds is dead (James 2:26).

Biblical authority

Baptists emphasize authority of the Scriptures, or sola scriptura, and therefore believe that the Bible is the only authoritative source of God's truth. This view contrasts with the role of Apostolic tradition in the Roman Catholic Church, direct revelation in charismatic circles, and personal philosophy as in modernism. Any view that cannot be tied to scriptural exposition is generally considered to be based on human traditions rather than God's leading, and though they may be accurate, such views are never to be elevated to or above the authority of Scripture. Each person is responsible before God for his or her own understanding of the Bible and is encouraged to work out their own salvation. A common "proof text" for this idea is found in Philippians 2:12 [2].

Biblical inerrancy is the most common position held by Baptists as is a contextually literal interpretation of the Bible. Liberal Baptists decline to use the tern "inerrant" with reference to the Bible and adopt a more allegorical and modernistic approach to interpretation. Baptists traditionally have resisted any use of creeds. They consider even historic Christian creeds to be on lower footing in comparison to Scripture, even though they may in essence agree with them.

Autonomy of the local church (Congregationalism)

Congregationalist church governance gives autonomy to individual local churches in areas of policy, polity and doctrine. Baptist churches are not under the direct administrative control of any other body such as a national council, or a leader such as a bishop or pope. For each congregation, there is no higher authority on earth than the vote of the congregation's members. Administration, leadership and doctrine are usually decided democratically by the lay members of each individual church congregation. As a result, there is tremendous diversity of beliefs and worship practices among Baptist churches.

Exceptions to this local form of democratic congregational governance include a few churches who submit to the leadership of a body of elders, as well as some Reformed Baptists who are organized in a Presbyterian system and the Congolese Episcopal Baptists that has an Episcopal system.

Most Baptist megachurches lean towards a strong clergy-led style, whereby the membership has little or no oversight into the affairs of the church leadership. Though this does not follow the practice of congregationalist church governance, it is consistent with the principles of individual church autonomy.

In a manner typical of other congregationalists, many cooperative conventions (large national or international administrative organizations) of Baptists have been formed so that individual churches can pool resources, primarily for missions, theological education, and publications. Such conventions have no direct authority over the operations of individual local churches. Local churches decide at what level they will participate in these conventions. Conversely, a local association of Baptist churches can vote a member church out of the association by majority vote of other members. Recently this form of associational excommunication (from association membership, not from salvation) has happened to many local churches in the Southern Baptist Convention for such things as ordaining women, hiring a woman pastor, and condoning sodomy.

Baptist denominations cannot directly enforce any kind of theological or practical orthodoxy among their constituent congregations. The denomination can choose not to accept the money or participation of congregations whose beliefs or practices are outside whatever norms the group has established. Likewise, they can refuse to recognize the ministerial credentials of clergy (which negatively affects the ability of chaplains to be accepted into the military), and set boundaries for orthodoxy for institutions, such as universities, seminaries, schools, and hospitals) owned or operated by the denomination.

There are hundreds of regional and local Baptist associations and many Independent Baptist churches do not fall into any of them, believing such affiliations to be unscriptural. In addition, there are sometimes very strong disputes within conventions which are often divided between Christian fundamentalists and modernists.

Priesthood of all believers

The doctrine of "priesthood of all believers" states that every Christian has direct access to God and the truths found in the Bible, without the help of an aristocracy or hierarchy of priests. This doctrine is based on the passage found in 1 Peter 2:9 and was popularized by Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation and John Wycliff's Lollards before Luther. Baptists are strongly encouraged to discuss scriptural and other issues with their minister and other Christians when appropriate, as a means of developing spiritual maturity. Ultimately the individual Christian is responsible for understanding the Bible and its application to the individual. The Baptist position of the priesthood of all believers is one column that upholds their belief in religious liberty.

Two Sacraments (Baptism and Communion)

Baptist churches recognize only two sacraments or ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper (some baptists prefer the second term term over the first.) They do not confer or mediate grace on those who receive it. Some Primitive Baptists and Free Will Baptists also practice foot washing as a third ordinance.

Believer's baptism

Baptism, commonly referred to as believer's baptism among Baptists, is a "sacrament" or "ordinance" of the church that according to Baptist doctrine plays no role in salvation, being properly performed only after salvation, and is performed after a person professes Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is seen as an act of obedience to the example and command of Jesus given in the Great Commission Template:Bibleref. It is an outward expression that is symbolic of the inward cleansing or remission of their sins that has already taken place. It is also a public identification of that person with Christianity and with that particular local church. Most Baptist churches consider baptism by full immersion, subsequent to salvation, a criterion for church membership. Thus, most churches reject:

  • prior baptisms by any means other than immersion
  • baptisms performed as an infant or child too young to make a personal decision to accept Christ
  • baptisms performed by any means, including immersion, if administered by a church not considered to be of "like faith and order" by the Baptist congregation. There are some groups that call themselves "Christians," baptize beyond infancy by immersion, that would not be considered "Christian" according to Baptist understanding of the word. [4]

Through Anabaptist influence, Baptists reject the practice of pedobaptism or infant baptism because they believe parents cannot make a decision of salvation for an infant. Related to this doctrine is the disputed concept of an "age of accountability" when God determines that a mentally capable person is accountable for their sins and eligible for baptism. This is not necessarily a specific age, but is based on whether or not the person is mentally capable of knowing right from wrong. Thus, a person with severe mental retardation may never reach this age, and therefore would not be held accountable for sins. The book of Isaiah mentions an age at which a child "shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good" but does not specify what that age is. It is important to note that the doctrine of original sin, accepted by some Baptist churches, negates the "age of accountability" as all were born into sin. However, even these churches believe that infants and young children will still be covered by Christ's atoning blood, should they die.

Baptists insist upon baptism by full immersion, the mode presumed to have been used by John the Baptist. This consists of lowering the candidate in water backwards while the baptizer (a pastor or any baptized believer) invokes the Trinitarian formula of Template:Bibleref or other words concerning a profession of faith. This mode is also preferred for its parallel imagery to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Recognition of baptisms by other modes and Christian groups vary. Most Baptist churches only recognize baptism by full immersion as being valid. Exceptions are sometimes made to baptize by sprinkling as a practical alternative for the disabled or elderly or in times of drought. Some Baptist churches will recognize adult baptisms by immersion performed in other Christian churches of "like faith and order," while others only recognize baptisms performed in Baptist churches. In very rare instances, a church may recognize only its own baptisms as valid.

Communion (The Lord's Supper)

Communion, which is alternatively called "The Lord's Supper" or Eucharist (some Baptists avoid the use of the word Communion because of its prominent use by the Roman Catholic Church, and instead use the alternative name), is a sacrament patterned after the Last Supper recorded in the Gospels, in which Jesus says to "this do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). Participants communally eat the bread and drink the cup that are representative of the body and blood of Jesus. Baptists emphasize that the remembrance is symbolic of Christ's body and reject literal views of communion such as transubstantiation and Real Presence held by other Christian groups based on their interpretation of John 6. The passage 1 Corinthians 11:23-34 is also commonly cited as instructional for the practice of Communion.

The bread used in the service may be cubes of unleavened bread, wafers or small crackers, generally of an unleavened variety, which is thought to be the type used at the Last Supper. Some Baptist groups embraced the Temperance movement, prohibition, and teetotalism in the U.S., which led to some churches using non-alcoholic grape juice for the cup, as opposed to using wine (compare Christianity and alcohol). The wine is typically served in small individual glasses, though some churches use one large cup for the entire congregation. Many church buildings are equipped with round receptacles on the rear of the pews for depositing the empty glasses after the service. Both elements of the bread and the cup are usually served by the pastor to the deacons, and by the deacons to the congregation. A deacon will serve the pastor, or if the church has multiple pastors, they will serve each other. The general practice is for the elements to be taken by the congregation as a whole as a symbol of unity, first the bread and then the cup separately, although sometimes both elements are taken together.

Springbrook Community Church in Huntley, Illinois

Communion services may be held weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even annually. It usually takes place at the end of a normal service, but may take place at any time during the service. Participation may be either:

  • "closed,” where only members of that congregation can participate,
  • "close" or "cracked,” where members of other Baptist churches may participate, but not members of other denominations, or
  • "open,” where anyone professing to be a Christian may participate regardless of church membership.

Individual soul liberty

The basic concept of individual soul liberty is that, in matters of religion, each person has the liberty to choose what his/her conscience or soul dictates is right, and is responsible to no one but God for the decision that is made. A person may then choose to be a Baptist, a member of another Christian denomination, an adherent to another world religion, or to choose no religious belief system, and neither the church, nor the government, nor family or friends may either make the decision or compel the person to choose otherwise.

Separation of church and state

Main article: Baptists in the history of separation of church and state

Baptists who were imprisoned or died for their beliefs have played an important role in the historical struggle for freedom of religion and separation of church and state in England, the United States, and other countries. In 1612, John Smyth wrote, "the magistrate is not by virtue of his office to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience.” That same year, Thomas Helwys wrote that the King of England could "command what of man he will, and we are to obey it," but, concerning the church, "with this Kingdom, our lord the King hath nothing to do." In 1614, Leonard Busher wrote what is believed to be