What is a Baptist?

I've had a couple of people (Muslim and Baptist) ask me this week what Baptist means, so I wrote this in an email. Many Baptist churches do not teach Baptist history or even identity, so I thought this might be helpful for not only Baptists, but for anyone else who wondered. 

What is a Baptist?

Baptists started in an era when people in many places had to follow the state religion. Some of early American history teaches that Puritans and others came to the new world for religious freedom, but what they sought was freedom for themselves. They still were not tolerant of other religions. Baptists believed that if it isn’t religious freedom for everyone, it isn’t religious freedom for anyone. Early Baptists advocated for other religious traditions to have freedom, which is why when Rhode Island was founded, it wasn’t founded as a Baptist colony and welcomed people from other traditions, which is why the oldest Jewish synagogue is in Touro, Rhode Island, and why so many Quakers moved there. There are documents in which Baptists advocated for Muslims, who they often referred to as Turks or Moors.

Here is a letter from the Danbury Baptist Association to Thomas Jefferson: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-35-02-0331

John Leland wrote in A Chronicle of His Time in Virginia supporting religious freedom as opposed to mere toleration,  "The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. ... Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians."

There is a summary of Baptist distinctives in a book called The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms. 

Bible Freedom

The Bible is foundational to us as individuals and as a congregation. Every Christian has the freedom and right to interpret and apply Scripture under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The wisdom and counsel of the larger congregation should nurture individual believers as they seek to interpret and apply Scripture.

Soul Freedom

We are each accountable to God individually without the imposition of creed or the control of clergy or government. This personal experience with God is indispensable to the Christian life and necessary for a vital church. This is sometimes described as the "priesthood of all believers."

Church Freedom

Baptist churches are free, under the Lordship of Christ, to determine their membership, leadership, doctrine and practice. This is sometimes known as "autonomy of the local church." Individual churches should work together to achieve goals that one church by itself could not reach. 

Religious Freedom

Everyone should be able to worship (or not) as they feel led without unnecessary interference by the government. Just as religious freedom involves the freedom to practice religion, it also includes the freedom not to practice religion. If you can't say "no," your "yes" is meaningless. The separation of church and state affords an important constitutional protection of religious freedom for all.

There are a lot of types of Baptists and a lot to Baptist history, but this gets at the basic idea. There are American Baptists, Southern Baptists, Cooperative Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Alliance of Baptists, to name a few. Individuals in a church can think very differently from one another, theologically, politically, etc.