Do Baptists come from the Anabaptist movement?
That is an interesting question. There has been some historical debate about that. I actually do not think the Baptists came from the Anabaptists.
The Anabaptists were a movement beginning in the sixteenth century and are best known today in terms of groups like the Mennonites and the Amish. They reacted viscerally against the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century but saw the antidote as a simple, disciplined life. The Anabaptists were often not very strong on theology or understanding justification by faith alone.
I think the real history of the Baptists rose out of seventeenth century Calvinist circles in England who felt that practicing believer’s baptism was a better way to spiritual discipline and a properly organized church.
This transcript is from a live Ask Ligonier event with W. Robert Godfrey and has been lightly edited for readability. To ask Ligonier a biblical or theological question, email ask@ligonier.org or message us on Facebook or Twitter.
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W. Robert Godfrey
Dr. W. Robert Godfrey is a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow and chairman of Ligonier Ministries. He is president emeritus and professor emeritus of church history at Westminster Seminary California. He is the featured teacher for many Ligonier teaching series, including the six-part series A Survey of Church History. He is author of many books, including God’s Pattern for Creation, Reformation Sketches, and An Unexpected Journey.
Eras and Movements
Resources about major epochs in church history, including: the ancient church, contemporary Christianity, the Enlightenment and Modernism, the medieval church, the Puritans, the seventeenth through twentieth centuries.
