The original church was almost exactly the same as the current form of the Independent Fundamental Baptist church. That does not say all Baptist churches are of that pattern. The original church was founded in 30 a.d when Jesus started His ministry. The church was started when Jesus recruited Simon Peter to be his first disciple. To be like the first church you have to meet the description of it laid out in the New Testament. The name Baptist for the church came much later, when the Catholics came on the scene. The Christians who did not agree with Catholic doctrines were labeled with many names like Waldenses, Anabaptists, etc. They rejected the false doctrines being perpetrated by the Catholics and so were persecuted by them. The inquisitions, and the crusades of the middle ages were targeted at these groups. They rejected the popes, and the establishment of official government church,such as the church of England. They also vehemently opposed the methods of Baptism and who the catholics were baptising(infants and unbelievers) and the doctrine that Baptism was necessary for Salvation. They were strict followers of the Bible who would not accept any doctrine but Jesus'. This stand causes even today a deep resentment between the parties involved. John 15:18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. John 15:20b ..., The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you;... Matthew 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. We Baptists don't worry much about what the ecumenical churches think of us. Ecumenism is wrong and contrary to the Bible,so we follow this verse: Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. That pretty much shoots down the "universal church" theory for me. The Baptist Church in its pure form, independant and fundamental, is the same church started by Jesus in 30 a.d., and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And now I'll take comfort from John 15:18, and let the howling commence from ecumenicals........

I would say the Anabaptists are the clear influence for the Baptists, here's a good page on them: http://www.angelfire.com/ky/dodone/NA10.html The Anabaptists were very big on the Bible and using it as their sole guide to living (sola scriptura), they believed in baptism by immersion, and were accused of communism because they followed the OT standard of sharing all physical belongings with each other. They were tortured and killed as perhaps no other group in history has. Also, here's a good page of quotes about the origins of Baptists in general: http://web.mountain.net/morton/baptist.htm Isaac Newton, Robert Barclay, John Clark Ridpath, Zwingli, Spurgeon, and Hosius (Catholic Cardinal who was president of the Council of Trent) are all quoted. Here's some of the better ones: Sir Isaac Newton said, "The Baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome." John Clark Ridpath, doubtless one of the greatest historians the world has ever produced and a Methodist by denomination, said, "I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist church as far back as 100 A.D., although without doubt there were Baptist churches then, as all Christians were then Baptists." Catholic Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1564, said, "Were it not for the fact that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1200 years, they would swarm greater than all the reformers If the truth of religion were to be judged by the readiness and boldness of which a man or any sect shows in suffering, then the opinions and persuasions of no sect can be truer and surer than those of the Anabaptist, since there have been none for the 1200 years past that have been more generally punished or that have been more cheerfully and steadfastly undergone, and have offered themselves to the most cruel sort of punishment than these people:" "History has hitherto been written by our enemies, who never would have kept a single fact about us upon the record if they could have helped it, and yet it leaks out every now and then that certain poor people called Anabaptists (Anabaptist was the name given to Baptists before the 16th century. "Ana" means "again," but the entire name, Anabaptist, was applied to those who believed and practiced what Bible-believing, separatist Baptists do today) were brought up for condemnation. From the days of Henry VIII to those of Elizabeth, we hear of certain unhappy heretics who were hated of all men for the truth's sake that was in them. We read of poor men and women, with their garments cut short, turned out into the fields to perish in the cold, and anon of others who were burnt at Newington for the crime of Anabaptism. Long before your Protestants were known of, those horrible Anabaptists, as they were unjustly called, were protesting for the 'one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.' No sooner did the visible church begin to depart from the Gospel than these m e n arose to keep fast by the good old way The priests and monks wished for peace and slumber, but there was always a Baptist or a Lollard tickling men's ears with Holy Scriptures, and calling their attention to the errors of the times. They were a poor persecuted tribe. The halter was thought to be too good for them. At times, ill-written history would have us think that they died out, so well had the wolf done his work on the sheep. Yet here we are, blessed and multiplied, and Newington sees other scenes from Sunday to Sunday As I think of the multitudes of your numbers and efforts, I can only say in wonder, 'What a growth!' As I think of the multitudes of our brethren in America, I can only say, 'What hath God wrought!' Our history forbids discouragements." ==================================================== Responses: I quoted Isaac Newton as saying that Baptists had nothing to do with Catholocism. So with all due respect, you're not just questioning me but also him. As far as Catholocism, the Catholic Church is responsible for some of humanity's greatest crimes, like the Inquisition, Holocaust, conquistador slaughterings, starting witch burning in Europe, the Crusades, etc.. This is a far cry from what Jesus said, that His true disciples will be known by their love for others (John 13:35). The Catholic Church still says it's alright to harm others, in direct contradiction to Mt. 5:38-48 and Rom. 12:17-21. Jesus said you will know them by their fruits (Mt. 7:16), and a bad tree can't bring forth good fruit. This certainly seems true of the RCC. I have already gone over this in detail here and in other places: http://www.answerbag.com/a_view.php/42670 http://www.answerbag.com/a_view.php/43092 http://www.answerbag.com/a_view.php/42410 http://www.answerbag.com/a_view.php/42716

The main category for this section is wrongly cast. There is no such thing as "The Baptist Church." There is only one Church and that is the one founded on the Day of Pentecost soon after Christ's ascension. The Church is the Body of Christ and consists of everyone who trusts Christ as Savior (Christ being properly defined). I am currently a member of a local baptist church. I have never ever heard a person who called himself a Baptist, make the claim that only Baptists were in Christ's Church or that there was such a thing as "The Baptist Church." According to 1 Corinthians 12:13 you get into "The Church" (The Body of Christ) by being baptized by the Holy Spirit, a privilege of every believer. I also don't believe that there is any such thing either as "the Baptist religion." The multitudes of different baptist organizations, conventions, and local churches were all founded at different dates and have lots of variation in doctrine. You may be asking when did some group of people decided to call themselves "baptists." I don't think this name goes back any further than England in the early modern era. I believe that the anabaptists on the continent got that name from their enemies, as the term means "those who baptize again." But since the anabaptists did not believe that the sprinkling of infants was actually "baptism," the anabaptists did not believe that they were in fact baptizing any one a second time. Now what about the baptist way of conducting local churches? When did that start? When did groups of Christians start believing that they should meet in local congregations which were legally autonomous of higher ecclesiastical authority and restrict membership to persons who were immersed at an age of understanding? I believe that this sort of thinking may be partially present in the New Testament (at least as concerns the City Church with some qualification*) and continued on throughout church history down till today. I think that Carrol's (or is it Carroll's) little book "The Trail of Blood" is essentially correct. And this is downloadable on the internet by searching. This book traces various baptistic groups through church history, though they would not have used the name "baptist." In fact, for the life of me, I can't understand why a Christian would choose the name of "baptist" for himself, since it is not a Biblical designation for a Christian. Yet I am convinced that believer's baptism is a correct doctrine, and I find no warrant in scripture for "monarchal bishops," that is, one man ruling all the Christians in a city (nor for cardinals or popes). ------------------------------ *Caveat: the word "autonomous" is not exactly accurate for congregations in the NT. We don't know much about congregations anyway from the NT; but we know a lot about "City Churches." It is true that in the NT the City Church is a a well-recognized unit having a plurality of pastors and elders. But we see that Christians had a great amount of respect and concern for what other Christians thought in different localities. And the NT is the apostolic age and a missionary age. We don't have apostles today.

It was when Christ was on Earth. When Christ choose His diciples they went into all the world and preached the Gospel.IFB have followed the same teachings and have NOT changed anything about the doctrine of Christ. They follow the same teachings that Christ preaches to the people. Alot of different religions will say they are the true church but remember we have to go back to the Word of God to determine this.If they are changing Gods Word or adding to it then that would obviously indicated they are wrong. It says in the bible"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever" His word has not changed so we have no right to change it for Him. The Independant Baptist Beliefs is what Christ told His diciples to preach to the nations!" And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (John the..... BAPTIST!) (Mark 16:15) ** that is why we are called IFB , because we are seperated from every other "baptist" church because they compromised on the Gospel and have strayed from the truth. No not every baptist church is like the church Christ started, it is the IFB that kept .... "And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." (Acts 2:42)

It was started by a baptist

Baptist Member of a group of Protestant Christians who hold that only adult believers should be baptized and that it must be done by immersion. During the 17th century two groups of Baptists emerged in England: General Baptists, who held that Christ's atonement applied to all persons, and Particular Baptists, who believed it was only for the elect. Baptist origins in the American colonies can be traced to Roger Williams, who established a Baptist church in Providence, R.I., in 1639. Baptist growth in the U.S. was spurred by the Great Awakening in the mid-18th century. The 1814 General Convention showed divisions among U.S. Baptists over slavery; a formal split occurred when the Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845 and was confirmed when the Northern (American) Baptist Convention was organized in 1907. African-American Baptist churches provided leadership in the 1960s civil rights movement, notably through the work of Martin Luther King. Baptist belief emphasizes the authority of local congregations in matters of faith and practice; worship is characterized by extemporaneous prayer and hymn-singing as well as by the exposition of scripture in sermons. Encyclopedia Britannica

G'day Anonymous, Thank you for your question. Some Baptists claim that they go back to John the Baptist. Some claim that it came from the 16th century Anabaptist movement but most claim that it came from the 17th century Puritan movement. The Puritan movement was based on removing barriers between worshippers and God. It believes that adults should be baptised not children and has autonomy amongst local churches which puts it firmly in the Protestant tradition. In 1639, Roger Williams established a Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island and John Clarke began a Baptist church in Newport, Rhode Island. Both churches claim to be the first in America which is a stronghold of the Baptist church. I have attached sources for your reference. Regards References Wikipedia Baptist Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist_church Encyclopaedia Britannica Baptist Church Redwood Library http://www.redwoodlibrary.org/notables/clarke.htm Baptist history http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/baptist.htm

Although some would say that they are but a continuance of NT practices (which has some merit), the Baptist movement itself came into being as part of the Protestant movement of the 1600s. It came out of the Anabaptist strain of Protestantism, that believed that only adults could be baptised (as opposed to Lutherans and Calvinists who maintained the traditional child baptism). There is a lot of debate on this, which is discussed in places like Wikipedia: Anabaptists were widely scattered churches in 16th century Europe which rejected infant baptism and "rebaptized" members as adults. They held to many teachings of modern day Baptists, such as believer's baptism by immersion and freedom of religion. Some historians see the Anabaptists and Baptists as one and the same people. Others, pointing to differences between the Anabaptists of continental Europe and the English Baptists (such as pacifism and the communal sharing of material goods) see the Anabaptists only as influencing the Baptists of a later period; in this respect there is some overlap between those who hold the Anabaptist view and those who hold the English Separatist view of Baptist origins. The works of William Roscoe Estep offer a presentation of this viewpoint. The Separatists were English Protestants in the 17th century who considered it their duty to totally separate from the Church of England (in contrast to the Puritans who sought to purify the Church of England from within). In 1608, to avoid persecution, John Smyth led a group of separatists to the more tolerant Dutch Republic where a distinctive Baptist faith emerged among these English émigrés. Open debate among them, and close contact and interaction with continental Anabaptists, led the congregation to question the meaning and practice of baptism, among other things. John Smyth became convinced that baptism should be for Christian believers only and not for infants. The other English émigrés agreed. At the same time as Smyth started to embrace Anabaptist doctrines, Thomas Helwys and a dozen or so others began to formulate the earliest Baptist confessions of faith. This "confession" became the 27 articles in "A Declaration of Faith of English people remaining at Amsterdam in Holland" (1611). Helwys and twelve Baptist émigrés returned to England to speak out against religious persecution. In 1612, they founded a Baptist congregation on English soil in Spitalfields, London. The congregation was comprised of General Baptists subscribing to an Arminian theology. In 1616, Henry Jacob led a group of Puritans in England with a Calvinist theology to form a congregational church which would eventually become the Particular Baptists in 1638 under John Spilsbury. Both groups had members who sailed to America as pilgrims to avoid religious persecution in England and Europe, and who started Baptist churches in the early colonies.

I believe that the Baptist doctrine of Christianity is the clostest to the original Christian Church's doctrine. So, I'd say it dates back to Christ's ministry. After the Catholic religion came to power with Constantine, the true Bible-believing Chrisians had to run for their lives while the "church" of Rome was chasing them down to kill them because they had copies of the manuscripts which held the true Word of God and they wouldn't put up with competition with them and their Bibles. (Which were from altered manuscripts that were from Origen, who was I think a Gnostic or an Arian one.) Later on, we became known as Baptists probably around the time of the Anabaptists or at the Protestant Reformation. I hope that this helps. Thank you and God bless you!

You need to read the small 56 page booklet with explanation time chart titled: "The Trail of Blood".. Following the Christians Down Through the Centuries or The History of Baptist Churches From the Time of Christ, Their Founder, to the Present Day by author J.M. Carroll Address: Ashland Avenue Baptist Church 163 N. Ashland Avenue Lexington, KY 40502 I don't know if the address and phone are current as this is the address and phone I have from December 1983, the phone number is 606-266-4341. It is copyrighted material, but should answer all of your questions regarding when the Baptist faith began, and when established churches called their doctrinal beliefs based on the bible THE BAPTIST CHURCH. I can tell you this that Baptists did not come out of the reformation movement where Protestants, Methodists and Lutherans did when breaking from Catholic dogma. Neither Jesus or his apostles ever gave what's known as a denominational name such as Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Jehovah Witness, Episcopal, Seventh Day Adventists, etc., unless a name may have been given by Jesus Christ to John, if it was intended for such, "John The Baptist," "THE BAPTIST." (Matthew 11:11 and 10 or 12 other times). Individual followers of Jesus Christ where called "disciple" in the Holy Bible. Groups of two or more who followed Jesus Christ's teaching and believed where called "disciples." Organized disciples wherever they established and gathered together where called the Church. If more than one separate established organizations were written of in the Holy Bible they were called Churches. In Acts 11:26 the Disciples I believe for the first time at Antioch were called Christians. Who gave them that name, is under debate. Some feel they were given this name by the Pagan worshipers or possibly Jews in derision. Most historical names given to the true believers and followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible were obtained in a similar fashion, e.g. Montanists, Novationists, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigenses, Waldenses, and Ana-Baptists. Many who followed Jesus Christ's teachings suffered martyr deaths. Jesus Christ the messiah was and is the founder of the Christian religion. John the Baptist died of beheading some time before Jesus Christ's death on the cross. In my opinion and as a Baptist I feel truly in my heart that the Baptist doctrines of faith began at the time of John the Baptist and were established and followed at the time of Jesus Christ's ministry on earth and based upon his teachings which are recorded in his Divinely inspired work and instruction book for our lives, THE HOLY BIBLE. All Baptist Churches are not like the original followers of Christ. I feel Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Churches are the closest to such. I have been in my 48 years a member of 4 different Baptist Churches, and I can tell you, I am glad I am back in an Independent Baptist Church, who hasn't begun, nor will begin to feel like a Nightclub act, with blaring modern music, a feel good sermon, with the Pastors who don't preach much about sin or it's consequences. A good Baptist church is not a place to do networking for your business interest (such as car salesmen, computer store owners, dentists, Mary Kay makeup, etc.), but many congregational members in many churches do just that, unless they have a Pastor who sees why they are really sitting in that pew (for a few future customer contacts and not for the Glory of God). Well, I say, not my will, but thine Dear Lord. I hope the Lord does not tarry, I am ready to see Heaven. I hope everyone reading this knows Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior because time is short, I am sure. As in the Days of Noah, so shall the end of time be. Thank you, lfhpueblo

"“And I tell you, you are Peter,” said the Lord. “And on this rock I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18)." Despite persecutions, scandals, and the sins of her members, the Catholic Church lives on. She has stood invincible throughout two thousand years of history and will last until the end of time, for Christ Himself promised that she would. There are so many division and different of opinion in other Churches no specific authority compared to Catholic Church. Paul had warned against divisions (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10) and said that we are to watch out for those who cause them (cf. Rom. 16:17). “For the time will come,” he wrote, “when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3). I was weary of being “blown about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Surely this disunity and confusion was not the work of the Holy Spirit. Catholic Church is the one that trying their best to bring all Christian and other religion together. They are not to divide but to unite. Just as Jesus said.

For those who were thinking about coming home to the Church Father you are welcome to visit The Journey Home website where you can read and listen to former Protestant, Baptists etc telling you about their Journey Home to the Catholic Church. Not to influence you but just simply to hear and to know their side of the stories why they decided to convert to Catholism. It was not an easy road for them because they were persecuted by their own families and friends bless them because they suffer for Christ in order to find the truth and Praise the Lord they found what they were looking for. Noted that no one influence them they were guided by the Holy Spirit and scriptures. I encourage non catholic to search and read Church Father History by not asking someone that has know nothing about the History of the Church. Do not let the blind lead the blind. Go to the right source. There are many misleading articles, books out there about the Catholic Church. If you were not truthfully try to find truth you are not going to understand and find the truth because Holy Spirit is about guidance and about truthful - come home you Prodigal sons and daughters to the Church Father. No matter what the Catholic Church still loves you because Jesus and His Church is all about love. Come home. http://www.chnetwork.org/converts.htm