Should I Be Baptized Again Going From Protestant to Catholic and Back to Protestant

Question

I have received data that at least some Baptists exercise not consider themselves every bit Protestant, but that they predate the Reformation Period. Can you tell me where the Baptist move in the U.S. came from?

Answer

At to the lowest degree some Baptists do not consider themselves "Protestants." This is to emphasize their sense that, insofar every bit the Protestant Reformation was as a contest between the Roman Catholic Church and reformers who sought to protest certain features of the Catholic Church building and to reestablish the Church on what they considered was a purer basis, the Baptists have non entered into that competition. They have rejected the notion of a "universal Church building" altogether, admitting the potency of merely local organizations, private communities of believers, and, ultimately, each individual before God. As a issue, they take found themselves at odds with the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and mainline denominational Protestantism.

They have rejected the notion of a "universal Church building" birthday.

The entire Reformation, nonetheless, trended in this direction—away from recognizing a central authorisation and toward recognizing "private judgment" equally the touchstone of potency. In this lite, therefore, Baptists are heirs of the Protestant Reformation, and their reluctance to group themselves with other Protestants is a radical form of the spiritual individualism that characterized the Reformation as a whole.

Baptists

The Baptists, specifically, grew within and from, the Separatist movement in England during its civil war in the 16th century. The Separatists wished to separate from the established Church building of England and form independent congregations. They were also called "Nonconformists" because they did not suit in doctrine or exercise with the established Church. Virtually of them were Puritans—that is Congregationalists—and the Pilgrims brought Puritanism to America and established it in New England.

Some of the Separatists also adopted an extreme skepticism regarding civil control over religion. They formed congregations that had essentially no authority over ane some other in matters of doctrine or practise, and they also admitted no overarching religious authority. Some of them were influenced past the teachings of the earlier "Anabaptists" in northern Europe. Although the Anabaptists adopted Calvinist theology, they had some unique views that the early on Baptists adopted.

Views on who should be baptized and when were unique.

The most feature of these was the confidence that Church membership was open up only to believers who had consciously made a commitment of organized religion in Jesus Christ. This meant that children and infants, who were incapable of a mature commitment, could not exist baptized. Their rejection of infant baptism became one of the most pronounced differences between them and the practices of other Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. Converts who had been baptized previously, therefore, were baptized once more (ana-baptist), or, from the perspective of the (so-called) Anabaptists, were truly baptized for the kickoff time. All these groups were convinced that this was the only class of baptism good by the first Christians. The Baptists adopted these views, equally well as the idea that Baptism could only be accomplished past complete immersion in h2o, rather than by pouring water over the caput.

In England, the early Baptists were persecuted. John Bunyan, the Baptist author of The Pilgrim's Progress, for case, wrote his volume while imprisoned for his unauthorized preaching.

Baptists in America

In England and and then in America, Baptists were first drawn from the ranks of Congregationalists whose beliefs had modified to align with Baptist behavior. In New England and elsewhere in America, Baptists were persecuted during the 17th century.

Roger Williams, who had been persecuted for his anti-establishment sermons in Massachusetts, exiled himself out of accomplish of his Puritan opponents and established the colony of Rhode Island. He helped plant what was probably the first Baptist Church in America in Providence in 1638.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Baptists found the religious freedom they sought, at the beginning in Rhode Isle and Pennsylvania, just then elsewhere. Their ranks were enlarged past converts from Congregationalism, only also from other Nonconformist sects. In addition, they embraced the movement of religious revival during the Second Bang-up Awakening, and found an enthusiastic mass of converts every bit they spread down the Appalachians into the S and West. Baptists played a crucial office in influencing the framers of the Constitution to insure freedom of religion and censor in the new Republic, and to promote the idea of a "wall of separation" between church and state.

The highly autonomous nature of a Baptist congregation, recognizing no higher "worldly" authority over the religious beliefs and practices of its members, proved to be a expert fit in many ways with the democratic, populist character of America. It besides appealed to African Americans, who could plant their ain churches with trivial religious interference from others.

Bibliography

William H. Brackney, A Genetic History of Baptist Thought, with Special Reference to Baptists in Britain and Northward America, Macon, Ga.: Mercer Academy Press, 2004.

Bill J. Leonard, Baptists in America, New York: Columbia Academy Printing, 2005.

Marker R. Bell, Apocalypse How? Baptist Movements During the English language Revolution, Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2000.

Images:
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division: Child singing at Sunday School at the Baptist Church building, San Augustine, Texas, Apr 1943, photographed by John Vachon.

Baptism near Mineola, Texas, Summer 1935, photographed past Alan Lomax.

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Source: https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/22329