(1689)

While the Independents and the Dissenting Brethren of Westminster were effective in developing and spreading a new tolerant attitude toward other faith-groups with their new denominational theory, this view of the church found only limited acceptance in England, where the Church of England still retained a favored position, even after the Act of Toleration in 1689 recognized the rights of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers to worship freely.

[tags]Act-of-Toleration, Baptists, BlogRodent, church-history, Church-of-England, ChurchRodent, Congregationalists, Dissenting-Brethren, history, Presbyterians, Quakers, Westminster[/tags]

In 1608, John Smyth baptized himself in Amsterdam. He had been a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, but as a Separatist fled from the harsh rule of James I's England. After his death one of his associates, Thomas Helwys, led back to England a group that had split from Smyth's former congregation. They formed the first General or Arminian Baptist congregation in England at Spitalfields, London, in 1612.

By 1638 at the latest there were also congregations holding a Calvinistic theology in London who practiced believers' baptism ("Particular Baptists"). These Baptists grew out of the first congregation of English Independents; although it is not know exactly when they adopted full Baptist views. A radical look at church principles, in the Puritan manner, led first to the understanding of the church as a gathered community, and then to a realization that only the baptism of believers fitted such a view.

The real architects of the denominational theory of the church were the seventeenth century Independents (Congregationalists) who represented the minority voice at the Westminster Assembly (1642-49). The majority at the Assembly held to Presbyterian principles and expressed these convictions classically in the Westminster Confession of Faith and in The Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

The Independents, however, who held to congregational principles, were keenly aware of the dangers of "dividing the godly Protestant party" in England so they looked for some way to express Christian unity even when Christians did not agree.

These Dissenting Brethren of Westminster articulated the denominational theory of the church in several fundamental truths: First, considering man's inability to always see the truth clearly, differences of opinion about the outward form of the church are inevitable. Second, even though these differences do not involve fundamentals of the faith, they are not matters of indifference.

Contemporary and friend of missionary William Carey. Fuller resisted the prevailing Calvinistic idea among Baptists that preaching should avoid application to the hearers as well as appeals to conversion, lest the preacher interfere somehow in God's election of his chosen people. By encouraging each other Carey and Fuller succeeded in breaking free from the restrictive theology of their time. They went back to the New Testament, especially to Jesus' injunction to preach the gospel to all the world.

[tags]Andrew-Fuller, Baptists, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus, William-Carey[/tags]

In 1799, two fellow Baptists, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, joined Carey at Serampore, Calcutta. For the next quarter-century the men worked together to organize a growing network of mission stations in and beyond Bengal.

[tags]Baptists, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Joshua-Marshman, William-Ward[/tags]

Today the direct descendants of the Anabaptists are the Mennonites and the Hutterites. Only one section of the Mennonites today, the Old Order Amish, hold tenaciously to the old ways. What unites the various types of Mennonites is not a style of dress or a mode of transportation, but a shared set of beliefs and values. Many of these beliefs are now accepted by other Christians. So the distant relatives of the Anabaptists today include the Baptists, the Quakers and, in one sense, the Congregationalists.

[tags]Anabaptists, Baptists, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Congregationalists, history, Hutterites, Mennonites, Quakers[/tags]

Calvin's leadership in Geneva shaped a third reformation tradition. Today we call it Reformed or Calvinistic Christianity. It includes all Presbyterians, Dutch and German Reformed Churches, and many Baptists and Congregationalists.

[tags]Baptists, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Congregationalists, history, Presbyterians, Reformed-Christianity[/tags]