The Three Theories of the Beginning of Baptist

Dr. W.H. Whisitt’s answer

Baptist began in 1641, when they recovered the practice of believer’s baptism by immersion in England and that it is historically inaccurate to trace the Baptist denomination back beyond that date (Shurden 1972, 23) (Baptist History, 2)

The three theories of Baptist beginnings are as follows:

1)      Successionist Theory

2)      Anabaptist Spiritual Kinship Theory

3)      English Separatist Descent Theory

1)      Successionist Theory (ဆက္ခံျခင္း သီအိုရီ)

Another name is “Jerusalem Jordan-John Theory” or “Trail of Blood.” This theory maintains that Baptists have been in existence since the time of John the Baptist. It assumes that those people who responded to John’s message were Baptists, that Jesus Christ was a Baptist and so were His disciples.

Baptist Historians have embraced this view. This theory is simple and easy to understand. Baptist succession can be traced from the times of the apostles to the present. Many famous Baptist historians have held this view, most of them writing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Dr. Morgan Patterson- Succ Theory ……RC, Anglican and Orthodox theologians and Methodists, Presbyterians and others …..( rather than a sincere attempt at Historical evaluation)

2)      Anabaptist Spiritual Kingship Theory (Anabaptist တို႔ဆီမွ အေမြဆက္ခံျခင္း သီအိုရီ)

Albery W. Wardin, Jr. –various groups, holding common spiritual principles but not necessarily organically related have existed from Apostolic times to the period of the Anabaptists and modern Baptists. Spiritual relationship among Baptist (Anabaptists, Waldensians and Petrobrusians, Henricians, the Novatians and the Donatists.

Infant Baptism (reject form RC) to Believer’s Baptism (all sects from above). All demanded a regenerated church membership. Baptist historians through Baptists have spiritual relationships with these groups because they shared some common spiritual beliefs and practices.

-Democracy and Social Gospel (identify Baptists with the socially radical Anabaptists.)

3). English Separatist Descent Theory ( အဂၤလိပ္ ခြဲထြက္ေရး သမားမ်ား(အဂၤလီကန္မွ) ထံမွ ဆက္ခံလာျခင္း)

-English Separatists (considered believer’s baptism alone as valid according to the Scripture).

-Baptists and English Separatists (Congregational and believer’s baptism). In 1641, (early than Baptists, there was no Baptist CH) there was Separatists’ record of immersion (baptism). The Anabaptists required believer’s baptism, but their mode of baptism was either sprinkling or pouring.

-Particular or Calvinistic Baptists (of London) and the Arminian Baptists (began to practice immersion).