Ancient Christian Witness

I was raised Baptist, and when I was little I was told by both my Mother as well as by a deacon that "we Baptists came from John the Baptist". I believed it then, but as I got older I quickly saw how that wasn't true. Below is a response about the issue:

As seen from the Orthodoxchristianity.net forums

Quote:
"I'm sorry but the history in that quote isn't accurate. The link between Anabaptists and Baptists is weak (John Smyth, Thomas Helwys and company...around 1610 A.D.). This line of Baptists(general baptists and yes they came from English Separatism too) were influenced by the Mennonite Anabaptists but they didn't practice water Baptism by full immersion when they first began(the later particular Baptists would practice and teach it first). They practiced it by pouring. They were also more Arminian in theology and later on they became liberal and I think Uniterian? Hmm, I gotta double check my sources, but yeah, the American Baptists didn't come from them.

Baptists in America came from the English Separatist link by way of Henry Jacob and company. This group of English Baptists were called Particular Baptists(because they were Calvinistic), and they first began to exist some decades after Thomas Helwys's general Baptist group. Like around 1640 or 1680 A.D.....I forgot the exact date. But it was from this group of Baptists that the teaching and practice of Baptism by full immersion would eventually come about.


In America Roger Williams (the 17th century) is seen as being the one who started the first Baptist church in North America. As well as the one who started the colony Rhode Island. Other English Separatists as well as English particular Baptist separatists (in the 17th century) would migrate from England to the Americas. Setting up churches not only in New England, but also in the Mid-Atlantic, and South.

This is where American Baptist churches come from.

I will have to do a youtube video about this. ....well, one of these days."

Eventually I will make a video about the issue on youtube