The First 499 Years

I know Luther and Calvin did some great things. The Reformation was good, it simply did not go far enough.

It just seems strange to me that Baptists praise to high heaven Reformers, who, if they were in charge today, would banish, imprison, torture, or execute us. I’m not saying we should not observe the anniversary of the Reformation, I just see the strangeness.

I agree there was a great reformation (in favor of the inerrancy of the Bible) in the Southern Baptist Convention beginning in 1979. I am proud to have been a part of that reformation (Conservative Resurgence) from the beginning.

David R. Brumbelow

It should be remembered in Baptist and Church history, that through most of that history those who believed, in all or in part, like Baptists were despised by the authorities. Yet, Baptists get their doctrines directly from the same Bible many of those authorities claimed to believe.

So, much of that historical evidence of Baptists and those similar to them was burned, and the people hunted and killed. We often only know those groups by what the people who hated them, said about them.

I do not believe a straight line succession of pure Baptists for 2,000 years. But I do believe Baptists and Baptist like groups of Christians have been around for 2,000 years. Some of those groups may have had a connection, others did not. They all had a connection to Holy Scripture.

As long as there is a Bible and people to read and believe it, there will be Baptists.

“Give a man an open Bible, an open mind, a conscience in good working order, and he will have a hard time to keep from being a Baptist.” -A. T. Robertson (AD 1863-1934), famous preacher, author, & Greek scholar.

David R. Brumbelow

Our ecclesiastical life is just as shaped by the consequences of the Protestant Reformation as it is by the Christological controversies in the first four ecumenical councils in the early church. Praise God for men who dare to stand for the truth. Praise God for men like William Tyndale, the genius scholar and translator of the English Reformation, martyred for daring to translate the entire NT into English directly from Greek.

[David R. Brumbelow]

II do not believe a straight line succession of pure Baptists for 2,000 years. But I do believe Baptists and Baptist like groups of Christians have been around for 2,000 years. Some of those groups may have had a connection, others did not. They all had a connection to Holy Scripture.

As long as there is a Bible and people to read and believe it, there will be Baptists.

Change “Baptists” in what you wrote above to “Bible-believing Christians,” and I would say the same. I just also happen to believe that though the reformers were flawed (sometimes even greatly so), as Tyler said, they were men of their time. I believe God greatly used the reformation, and for Baptists of today to speak as though their spiritual heritage owes absolutely nothing to what came out of the reformation is to speak without understanding.

One need not believe in the Baptist “Bride to still exhibit Baptist “Pride”!

“Five hundred years ago, on Oct. 31, 1516, Martin Luther was a German Catholic priest questioning whether the pope truly had power to spring souls from purgatory. John Calvin was a 7-year-old in France who had just reached what medievals deemed the ‘age of accountability.’

In the Netherlands, Menno Simons was a 20-year-old headed toward the Catholic priesthood who had never read the Bible…”

http://www.bpnews.net/47808/where-were-they-then—luther-calvin-and-men…

David R. Brumbelow

Saul of Tarsus was a murderer and persecutor of Christians. Also, nearly all the “great” men & women of the scriptures also had great flaws recorded for us, many of them occurring *after* they knew and followed God. And at one point in our lives, all of us who have been saved had hearts that were opposed to God and his word, and knowing the sinfulness of man and the deceitfulness of our hearts, I don’t think I’m being presumptuous to say that all of us have experienced major failures to live up to God’s standard *since* that time.

He had major problems letting go of the perverted Judaism of his day. Can we call him … a half-way kind of guy for a time!? Like many of the Reformers?

One big difference. The Reformers were unrepentant.

David R. Brumbelow

[David R. Brumbelow]

One big difference. The Reformers were unrepentant.

David R. Brumbelow

I’ll agree that many or even most of the reformers got some big things wrong. I’d hesitate to call it a failure to repent unless they agreed those things were wrong and continued to do them anyway. I would suspect in many cases that some of what they did was “a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”

These exchanges remind me of the old “Trail of Blood” guys who would claim that they were never a part of the Reformation and were always a true church or the various fundamentalist groups who act like they separated from apostate groups at the first hint of false doctrine.

Thought some might be interested in this quote.

“Men’s religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the King shall not answer for it, neither may the King be judge between God and man.”

-Thomas Helwys (c. AD 1575 – c. 1616), lawyer and Baptist preacher.

David R. Brumbelow

[David R. Brumbelow]

One big difference. The Reformers were unrepentant.

David R. Brumbelow

Keep in mind, for what it’s worth, that I’d have to guess that future generations will wonder how on earth WE missed things that will be super obvious to them. So to say that the Reformers were unrepentant, and we are, is most likely a gross oversimplification of the matter. To draw a picture, I’d have to guess that a lot of brothers and sisters might be asked “why didn’t you clue in on the sin of gluttony?” when they reach Heaven, sad to say myself sometimes included.