History

Just Making History Up

159 Comments

Here Stan Martin gives us the rundown on Baptists through history. For those of who are familiar with the convoluted attempts of fundamentalists to establish their pedigree I’m going to bet you can guess the ending before he gets there.

(For those of you who don’t want to bother listening to the entire six minutes you can just click here)

159 thoughts on “Just Making History Up”

  2. For you history buffs out there, I just learned that the Montanists were early baptists. Excellent.

  3. I hate it when people narrow the “trail of blood” (from the cross to themselves) to only CERTAIN Christians who meet their approval.

    I’m grateful that my parents encouraged me to read missionary stories and hymn histories. From them, I realized that there were true believers from many different backgrounds.

    1. AMEN SISTER!

      In all seriousness, that is absolutely true. There are believers from so many different backgrounds that I believe fundamentalists will be very uncomfortable with that realization after this life is o’er.

      Our Lord is so gracious to us even when we are so narrow and find it our duty to put Him in a box.

      1. On the other hand, God then simply keeps making the box bigger than His believers want.
        By the way, how do we get our emoticons back?

    2. Of which the ultimate theoretical end state is they narrow it to only ONE Christian who meets their approval (guess who?)

    3. I hate it when people narrow the “trail of blood” (from the cross to themselves) to only CERTAIN Christians who meet their approval.

      “LET ‘EM ALL GO TO HELL
      EXCEPT CAVE SEVENTY-SIXXXXXX!!!!”
      — Mel Brooks, “2000 Year Old Man: The First National Anthem”

  4. Somebody say “Amen” anybody?!?! Sure i’m just squawking the same pseudo-history that even many members in the IFB recognize as BS but surely there are a “fathful few”….a “remnant” of old-time, Bible believing, Christians…I mean Baptists that will soothe my burning conscience by validating my regurgitated swill by giving me a freakin’ “Amen” isn’t there????

    And if you don’t believe that Jesus was a baptist then you’re just a liberal new-evangelical. After all our glorious physical incarnate divine KJV1611….ish Bible tells us that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.

    Now, every head bowed, every eye closed, nobody (but my loyal deacon minion) looking around. As Sister Eunice quietly plays just one verse of Just As I Am, I wonder if there’s someone here tonight who etc. etc. etc….

      1. Of course it won’t really be just one verse 🙂 We all know it will stretch into eternity into some gracious person decides to appease the MOG by going down front to the altar.

    2. Yeah, the King James Bible was commissioned by Anglicans and Puritans, neither of whom was very friendly toward Baptists. How do these people explain that?

  5. No, no, we’re nothing like those wicked Roman Catholics… our divine line of succession doctrine doesn’t stink because we use Independent Fundametal Baptist Popepurri.

    3. … and we never set up a man (“of God”) as pope that everyone should obey or risk the wrath of God.

  6. I have better things to do that watch that video. There must be some lint in my navel or may be I can trim my toe nails.

    1. I do like the new look of the site, but reading black type on a gray background is a lot harder than reading in black and white. And tiny gray type on a gray background is headache-inducing. Lighten up the background a bit? Please?

      1. Agreed. I also find the huge empty space to be inefficient. Tiny comment areas, lots of unused space. And I personally would find a warmer color palette to be more welcoming.

    1. I DISSINFECT! GIMME THE OLE-TIME SFL WEB DESING!!! IT WAS GOOD ENOUHG FOR J THE B AND IT’S GOOD ENOUHG FOR ME!!!

      [J/K – someone had to say it]

      1. I agree. It’s one thing to be backslidden, but the way SFL has wholeheartedly embraced modernism with this liberal updated (per)version is skeery. God is sure to send some earthquake, volcano eruption, or perhaps some vicious Fiery Toe Warts in punishment. Hide and watch. It’s a-gonna happen. Amen?

  10. I know some Lutherans and Episcopalians who would be very offended to be called liberal Roman Catholics.

    1. Most Lutherans and Episcopalians I know are out of earshot from hearing anything that any fundy might have to say about them, unless they’re kin-folk.

    2. I’m Lutheran, and we sometimes call ourselves “evangelical catholics”. Actually, in Germany, “Lutherans” are just called evangelischkirk, or “evangelical church”. We often really dislike being named after a person. Anyway, I can’t thank of anyone inside or outside the movement that would consider “liberal Catholic” to be an accurate moniker.

      1. Yeah. I never saw Lutherans referred to by Luther’s name in Europe. “Evangelischkirk” was the norm.

    3. Yeah, the “liberal Catholic” was hard to believe for Lutherans.

      Not sure about Episcopalians; don’t know much about them; I think they are the American version of the Church of England, which was started because Henry VIII disagreed with the pope about the validity of his marriage.

      1. Yes, the Episcopal Church is part of the world-wide Anglican Communion. Henry VIII did NOT start a new church. He took over the administration of the established church in England and told the Pope to mind his own business on the other side of the channel, but the churches remained.

        I’ve been in churches in England that have been there a thousand years, long before Henry VIII. Services have continued there without a break.

        1. A thousand years without a break! What do you take us for? IFB’s? Seriously, if my sermons go over twenty minutes folk get fidgety.
          A young lad was in church and asked his dad what the names on the war memeorial were all about. His dad replied that they were the names of all those who had died in the services. The lad asked if that was in the morning or the evening services.

  11. I really pisses me off when they claim to be the only ones who read/follow the Bible. Claim they are Biblical Christians, as long as you subscribe to their twisted view.

    1. The only reason they have a Bible is because the bishops of my Church (RCC & EO – they were one at the time) forcibly prevented the Shirley MacLaines of their day from rewriting it in their own image back when years AD were in the low three digits.

  12. A friend of mine, a Baptist lady, once endorsed Arianism because of the whole ‘Trail of Blood’ nonsense. My jaw still hurts from hitting the floor.

  13. How well do I remember when my mother first read the Trail of Blood. She fell for it and she fell hard! I remember how excited she was to finally find God’s True Church. It was kind of pathetic, actually. (Bear in mind that my parents had raised me in a series of churches: Lutheran (ELCA), Presbyterian (PCA), Bible, Southern Baptist, then Independent Baptist, so I knew better.) I remember her breathlessly explaining to all us kids during a day of homeschooling that no doubt got recorded as “world history,” all about these wonderful “true Baptist groups” that God had preserved throughout history. Her logic was: (1) we know almost everyone was Catholic or, after the reformation, Catholic and/or Catholic-tainted but (2) God had promised to preserve his church so (3) that meant that there MUST have been “true” churches throughout history struggling along trying to avoid being burnt at the stake by the Catholics. She was SO EXCITED to realize that these imaginary “true churches” were the direct forerunners of the modern American IFB church!!!

    It wasn’t until many years later when I studied theology in the (Roman Catholic) university where I completed my undergraduate studies, that I finally had access to the information I needed to thoroughly debunk this “Trail of Blood” nonsense. By that point, it was too late for my family. They were hooked.

    [Hey – I miss the smileys/emoticons already!!!]

      1. Dear DS,
        You know I hold you in highest esteem. I will buy 100 autographed copies of your book (which I hope is forthcoming soon). But today, for the first time, I earned the butt cushion. And I will not be denied.
        Kindest regards,
        ~Bjg

    3. Well, strictly speaking the Catholic Church as we know it today only originated in the 11th century (with the East-West schism). Prior to that point the Byzantine churches (which are now Eastern Orthodoxy) were in communion with the Western ones (which became the RCC).

      Go back even further and you have Oriental Orthodox such as the Copts, Ethiopians and Armenians (not Arminians!) who are the product of a 5th century split.

      The “Nestorian” church in Central Asia is another example (the term is something of a misnomer as Babai the Great, rather than Nestorius, was the primary influence on their theology). The first missionary to China, a man named Alopen, was a “Nestorian”.

      So if you want to “have nothing to do with Rome”, there are plenty of ancient churches to choose from. But here’s the rub; none of these churches is Baptist or anything close to it.

  14. *Waldensians*?!? WALDENSIANS!!?!?!

    Just let me be for a moment. I’m sure the twitching will settle down shortly…

    The Anabaptists rejected _infant_ baptism. Baptists are in fact Protestants. Lutherans are not RC-Lite. And Waldensians were heretics, pure and simple.

    Nurse, where’s my pills?

      1. Mmm… no, I think the level of crazy is pretty even. I grew up pentecostal, and they are so close in crazy, I sometimes forget that there are doctrinal differences.

    2. Dear Liutgard,
      We’ve missed you. We need your wit & wisdom. Please quit twitching over the Walsensians though. It will make your head hurt. This preacher is, well, not quite right.
      BJg

      1. Thank you, BJG! I was in Corvallis for a few days, for a couples’ conference and some alone time with my beloved. The conference was really good, and we talked the rest of the weekend. And we found a really good Italian place next to our hotel- nothing quite like walking back with the rest of the bottle of pinot noir (Oregon, ’09)m to sit on the end of the bed drinking wine out of plastic hotel cups and watching the Olympics! USA! USA!

        The medical stuff still has me dry-mouthed with fear, but I can get through almost anything, so long as I have him beside me.

    3. Although they are a bit different now, I’m mostly positive that Peter Waldo was no heretic…and the Waldensians played a roll in the reformation. Of course, they weren’t baptists either, but their beliefs fell within orthodox theology.

      Not sure I understand the poverty vow thing though…

      1. The Waldensians of course had factions, and some of them were veering towards if not openly Arian. I can get at that bookshelf right at the moment (had to add another bookshelf in the office and you remember those little pocket games with the little tiles you slide back and forth, to rearrange them? That’s sort of the deal, which means I can’t find anything and it looks like I have less shelf space) but I’m pretty sure that Wakefield and Evans have an extensive entry on them. Lambert might have something too.

      1. No, I have most assuredly NOT confused the Waldensians with the Cathari. They are VERY different.

        I don’t have time to write a paper on it at the moment. If you are interested, I would suggest reading the sections regarding the Waldensians in Wakefield and Evans’ _Heresies of the High Middle Ages_ (Columbia, 1991), where there’s more than 35 pages of contemporary material (i.e. medieval writers, not us) specifically on the Waldensians. Peter of Vaux-de-Chernay was particularly vehement on the matter.

        It’s my field. I care.

  15. I never can understand why people say “we came from the Anabaptists and later the ana was just dropped.” Actually, the Amish and Mennonites came from the Anabaptists, and some groups still call themselves Anabaptists today.

    1. The actual origins of the modern Baptists (mainstream and fringe) are murky. The best scholarly guess (as far as I am aware) is that Baptists originated from a fringe separatist group in England in the 1600s. There may or may not have been some Anabaptist influence along the way, but historically the two groups pretty much hated each other. Anyone who knows more about this than I do, please share. I myself have always been somewhat baffled about the origins of the Baptist church and how such a huge denomination came into being in the USA.

      1. I think it was a polity issue more than a theological one. The Great American Spirit needed a church that allowed individuals to determine pretty much everything. The traditional church governance structure just didn’t fit that ideal. Now I think there are absolutely some theological connections here with the sacraments, but for the most part I think function followed form, theologically speaking; the people who provided the kind of independent structure Americans wanted had a set of theological beliefs, and as the form was accepted, so was the substance. Or something like that.

    1. Our pastor used to tell young men in our church who joined the military (it was only ever young MEN of course, until the pastor’s granddaughter up and joined the army and that was a Big Shocking Scandal) that when they were asked “Catholic” or “Protestant” for their dog tags, they were to say, “No Sir! I am a Baptist!” (As if dog tags only have those two choices.)

        1. In the Air Force that is called a sir sandwich and is discouraged. My dog tags say independent Baptist, because I am haven’t gotten around to changing them.

        2. ….and there is a mind boggling number of religions to pick from; they are very accomodating. My fundy principle discouraged me from joining. It was during the Clinton years and he said that things were so bad in the military that people had to train with brooms, because there was no money for guns.

      2. Orthodox Christians used to be issued “Protestant” dog tags back in the old days, back in the days when most Americans were unaware of Orthodoxy’s existence. Many people just assumed that anyone who wasn’t Catholic is a Protestant, including Greeks and Russians.

  18. Fundy Baptist History Lesson, abridged version:

    In oldie-times, anyone who separated from the Catholic Church for any reason at all was us. Amen?

    In modern times, we have to draw the line of separation quite a bit narrower. In fact, our vigorous separatism means that there are times we are not sure that even we are us. Amen?

    Amen?

    1. David O. Beale would probably have something to say about all this Baptist revisionism goin’ on ’round cheer.

    2. You are wrong. Fundy history teaches that today’s IFB derived from churches that did NOT EVER separate from the Catholic church, but instead were ALWAYS separate and thus pure and untainted by the satanic paganism that is Catholicism. John the Baptist started the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem and all TRUE churches were derived in fundy apostolic succession therefrom (i.e., MOGs begetting MOGS and so on). Never mind that the various groups listed in the Trail of Blood actually WERE mostly Catholic breakaway groups. Why let the facts get in the way of GOD’S TRUTH!!

      1. Excellent point. Mere facts have never interrupted the IFB version of reality.

        To be fair, this same mentality has a sadly humorous Orthodox manifestation. There are actually Orthodox churches that style themselves “True Orthodox Church of North America,” or True Orthodox Greek Church,” or “Russian True Orthodox Church Under Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk” and on and on. They are the only ones standing for true belief. Everyone else is a modernist, liberal, ecumenist, piece of shit. Sounds familiar, Amen? Fundamentalism is highly adaptable to any ideology.

        1. I have dear Russian friends who tell the joke of the Russian Robinson Crusoe – like the English one, as a castaway he built himself an elaborate home. When found, the rescuers were surprised to find that he had built two churches. When they asked why, his reply was, “this one is the church I worship in every day, and THAT is the church into which I never set foot!”

  19. So the heresies of the Motanists are not bad enough to be excluded from the “True Church” history for him but the Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians are?

    And I love how he portrays the Anabaptists in the 16th century to use phrases of the modern American Church–are you saved? have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

    And do they realize the Anabaptists are mainly pacifists? Since many of our IFB-ers are actually big second amendment, carry at all cost type of people–how do they reconcile that?

  20. Can someone explain the issues with Trail of Blood? I’ve heard of the book but never heard there were issues with it.

      1. I was going through a box of old stuff from my dad’s garage – lo and behold there was a little pocket edition of “Trail of Blood”. I have no idea if it landed in the box (full of school papers etc.) because it was something my mother wanted to keep, or if it bothered her to throw out something from church. Gave me the willies.

  21. Wow, so I don’t need to bother initiating the conversion process from Lutheranism to Episcopalianism or Catholicism, huh? Since we’re all the same. I bet some of my priest friends would be surprised to hear that.

    On another note, the practice of rebaptism is such a terrible blasphemy. What, God’s not big enough, wise enough, or powerful enough to do His holy work of baptism, even if the baptiser isn’t up to snuff? Basically, rebaptising is calling God a liar and a fool, and trying to do for Him what He was “incapable” of doing the first time around. I hate it. Makes me so angry to see Him so disrespected. And for this guy to rejoice and gleefully talk about slapping God in the face is sick.

    But what do I know, hay-men? I’m not only nothing but a Lutheran Catholic (which I consider a compliment), but I’m a woman. And all evil comes from women, no doubt. Hay-men?

    1. I completely agree with you. Rebaptism is to reduce baptism to be a human ritual done by humans to humans. But that is what the Baptists do to the Sacraments. If I recall correctly, many don’t even call them sacraments but ordinances. So the Lord’s Table and baptism become solely symbolic. And when it is merely a symbol done by humans for humans, the person coming to the table or to the baptismal has to be in the right place spiritually and believe the right thing or else it has to be redone. They have taken the Grace out of the Sacrament.

    2. As a Lutheran, I understand your comment, but bear in mind that for most Baptists (not all; there are Reformed baptists), baptism is nothing more than a physical demonstration that the baptized has granted intellectual assent to a series of propositions. From that perspective, multiple baptisms make a kind of sense.

      1. My church teaches the mainline Cristian tradition, which is that Baptism is a once-for-always experience that cannot be repeated, and therefore we never re-baptise a person who has ever been baptised, in or out of any other church, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

      2. Dear Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:

        Being Reformed [but with serious Lutheran sympathies] I prefer to say NOT that there are Reformed Baptists, but that there are Baptists who cling to a variant of Calvinist soteriology.

        The famed ‘five points’ [canons of Dort] do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, the canons address questions addressed earlier but incompletely in documents such as the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism. Where those issues are addressed — implicitly or explicitly — those soteriological points stand in very substantial agreement with the broader system of thought including but not limited to — one, covenant people of God from Abraham into the eschaton, the ‘a-millennial’ future, infant baptism and the Lord’s Supper sacraments of the covenant and as means of grace, justification by faith alone, and more.

        We may not want to speak of a necessary correlation of these doctrines to baptistic distinctives; but the confession of these Reformed doctrines becomes more difficult with each ‘Baptistic’ distinctive that is held. They mix like oil and water. Example: how can grace and election be irresistible and unconditional while we still define the church as a voluntarily gathered body on the basis of a confession of an experience of grace and election.

        Even the ‘five points’ are held differently and handled differently in context of baptistic theology.

        Blessings!

        Christian Socialist

    3. I really appreciate your comment. I, unfortunately, have been baptized three times. Once (the one that counts, I suppose) in the Lutheran church as an infant. Once to join a Bible church which only allowed “believer’s immersion baptism” and felt that my Lutheran baptism was inadequate. And once to join an IFB church which only allowed “Baptist believer’s immersion baptism” and felt that my Bible church baptism was inadequate. (Of course, my Lutheran baptism was viewed by my IFB pastor as if my parents had sacrificed me to Moloch.)

      This Sunday, the pastor at the Methodist church we attend was talking about how there was a question in the early church about whether a priest who recanted under the threat of persecution thereby invalidated all sacraments that he had previously performed (e.g., baptism, the Eucharist, etc.). The conclusion was that he had not precisely because these were GOD’S works and NOT man’s works.

      1. “Baptist believer’s immersion baptism”

        Now that’s a mouth full. Never heard it put that way. I guess that means your first two baptisms were “Pagan Unbelievers non-immersion/immersion baptism?”

        I believe, dear believer, that you need to get re-re-re baptized to counter the IFB baptism which probably wasn’t done graciously and by a fake doctor using tap water in a heated baptistry, which certainly must be of non-waldensian and hyper-Montanist in origin.

        2. My Baptist baptism was actually performed in a swimming pool at the local YMCA by a pastor who had not quite merited an honorary doctorate yet, given that the church he was planting at the time was not yet large and well-established enough to funnel large numbers of students (a/k/a $$$) into Heartland Baptist Bible College (which, incidentally, doesn’t grant “honorary degrees” with anywhere near the frequency of some of its fellow Bible Colleges). Thus, I suppose you could make the argument that my Baptist baptism, being contrary to the traditions of the fathers, was itself illegitimate and thus can be set aside.

    4. Hi Hannah,

      If we were talking about a church demanding a new marriage ceremony for couples who were married in a different faith, I would pretty much be in agreement with you. The Bible does say, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Mark 10:9. The joining of the husband and wife is a work of God and is not a product of a mere human ritual.

      On this matter of rebaptism, however; I really don’t believe the same principle is involved. For instance, we find that with both the Ethiopian Eunuch and the Philippian jailer, baptism was preceded by faith– by trusting and relying on the Lord Jesus Christ. The faith brought them in contact with God’s grace and not the physical act of being baptized. If you want additional evidence for this, consider that the repentant thief was not baptized, and also consider the story of the Roman Centurion Cornelius found in Acts 10:43, 44. When it comes to the method of baptism, the word “baptize” is actually a transliteration of the Greek word “Baptizo,” a word which refers to immersion. While I would not want to minimize the importance of baptism, and while it’s pretty certain that neither of us would be interested in attending this gentleman’s church, I really don’t believe he is biblically in error when he re-baptizes those whose previous baptisms either took place before they came to knew the Lord, were not by immersion, or were performed as a means of obtaining salvation.

      As a former Catholic, I was baptized as an infant. While I’m not 100% certain of this, I suspect that if you wanted to convert to Catholicism, they would require that you be re-baptized into that faith. You may also want to bear in mind that it’s pretty certain the Catholic Church would not accept the ordinations of former Lutheran or Methodist ministers who wanted to take holy orders. Fact is, they wouldn’t allow a formerly Protestant woman who had previously been ordained to serve as a priest under any conditions.

      Your zeal for God is admirable, but in this case, I would kindly suggest that your anger is misplaced.

      2. Just to note- when I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church a couple of years ago, I did not have to be baptized- the baptism I underwent in a Conservative Baptist church in 1973 was sufficient. In fact, our priest told me that they very much did not approve of re-baptism.

        I guess God knows I’ve been wet enough. 🙂

        3. Liutgard,

          It was good to see you back! I had wondered how you were doing. Don’t know exactly what to say except God bless you and may you hear some good medical news in the near future. Oh yeah, and Oregon’s really beautiful along the coast, isn’t it?

          I was born into Catholicism and not converted to that faith, and so I am not positive, but I expect Catholics might have a different policy than Episcopalians when it comes baptism.

          For starters, Catholics believe in apostolic succession. At least in part, this would mean they believe there exists an unbroken lineage beginning with Peter and the other apostles and continuing through to the present day priests, bishops, etc. Among other things, they also believe that priests have inherited apostolic authority to act as Christ’s representatives during the sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation and that this authority empowers them to forgive the sins of penitent Catholics. Add to this the fact that Catholics believe that the sacrament of Baptism washes away the taint of original sin, and it seems to me they might not regard baptisms performed by Protestant ministers to be legitimate. I do not say this glibly or facetiously, but in essence, I think the Catholic church would not consider Protestant clergymen to be authorized agents when it comes to administering what they regard as sacraments.

          Maybe there are some Catholic converts or simply some knowledgeable people out there who could speak with more authority on this matter.

        4. Sorry Liutgard,

          The last reply was poorly worded and not very clear.

          Catholics regard the sacrament of baptism as being vitally important. Without a doubt that’s the reason why they baptize infants– to help ensure that individuals don’t die before being baptized.

          I don’t think Catholics would believe that transubstantiation would take place if the individual trying to say Mass were a minister from outside the Catholic church. I’m also sure that they would not believe that someone outside of the Catholic priesthood would have any right to grant absolution. With those things in mind, I suspect they might also question the validity of a baptism performed outside of the Catholic faith.

          Then again, I’m not, and never have been, an authority on theological matters, Catholic or otherwise.

      3. Just to set the record straight: If you have been previously baptized in a Christian church (yes, including Protestant and even IFB churches), and you convert to Catholicism: As long as you were baptized with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then you are not re-baptized. Catholics believe baptism is a once-for-always thing.

        Here is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on the matter (emphasis added):

        Coming into full communion with the Catholic Church describes the process for entrance into the Catholic Church for men and women who are baptized Christians but not Roman Catholics. These individuals make a profession of faith but are not baptized again. To prepare for this reception, the people, who are called “candidates,” usually participate in a formation program to help them understand and experience the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church. Some preparation may be with catechumens preparing for baptism, but the preparation for candidates is different since they have already been baptized and committed to Jesus Christ, and many have also been active members of other Christian communities.

      4. The Baptist argument for faith being a NECESSARY precursor to baptism based on the story of the Ethiopian eunuch is a post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy.

        Also, faith != intellectual belief. Even the unborn are capable of having faith (John the Baptist, anyone?) Luther himself wrote that the grace conferred by baptism requires faith in order to work, BUT faith is something even infants are capable of having.

        In fact, the idea that we are saved by intellectual belief is a form of Gnosticism.

  22. I’ve never understood how IFBs claim they were never in the Roman Catholic Church. The entire hierarchal structure, clergy/laity (false) dichotomy, local priest, elected “offices”, focus on material things and $$$$ etc. all look like the RCC. The buildings and edifices are alike in many ways, both interior layout and exterior structure. Instead of the priest there is the pastor (who many IFBs go to for everything, effectively making him their high priest). Instead of focusing on the eucharist, there is the “sacred desk” (i.e., pulpit) where the pastor alone “breaks the Bread of Life” (no irreverance to my Lord meant) and distributes to the laity. Instead of pontifex maximus, there are a few well-known little IF Baptist gods who travel around the country visiting alike churches, giving out blessings of their campuses near major arteries and their huge fleet of buses, and then write flattering stories about them in national publications. I think the proverb “As is the mother, so is her daughter” (Ezekiel 16:44) applies.

    1. Darrell already explained (in today’s heading) how they can claim they were never part of the Roman church: They make it all up.

    2. I think you are being terribly uncharitable to your Catholic brothers and sisters to compare them to the IFB in this way. I don’t meant this in any sort of sarcastic or humorous way. I’m serious.

    3. I don’t want to be overly sensitive, but ISTM you harbor a few possibly bigoted misconceptions about the Catholic Church. 😉

    4. While the IFB complaint against the Catholic Church is actually exactly the practice of the IFB, that does not make their complaint to be accurate of the Catholic Church. They complain the Catholic Church gives all authority to the priest and to the Pope, yet the IFB pastor has way more authority than even the pope. They complain the Catholic Church worships the eucharist and the saints which is a misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine. But the IFB worships the KJV Bible. They have replaced the Sacraments with the Bible.
      And while the priest is the only one who can preside over the Eucharist–this is not only in the Catholic church–Episcopals, Methodists, Lutherans, etc.–all require a pastoral presence at the Table not because the laity is not good enough to preside over the sacraments but the picture of the Shepherd serving the Sheep as well as the high esteem for the Sacrament. The Divine Presence is at the Table and in the Water. We don’t come flippantly to the Sacrament.
      All this to say, the IFB complaints are, as usual, a misunderstanding of that which they do not seek to understand. And they ironically are guilty of committing those complaints.

      1. Hello. As a former IFB who is now a member of thr Catholic Church, I would like to point out that, while it is true that we do not worship the saints, we do indeed worship the Eucharist. We believe the Eucharistic elements become Christ’s body and blood, and so in the Eucharist, Christ is personally and physically present.

    5. I want to be kind to Catholics, particularly since I used to be one.

      Without getting into a debate about certain Catholic doctrines that cannot be defended from a purely scriptural standpoint, a lot of Fundamental Baptists will gleefully preach against what they see as the errors of Rome while doing things that are pretty similar. This is just a personal opinion, but when it comes to the artificial clergy/laity distinction you mentioned (for one example) many IFB churches unofficially practice something that is not entirely dissimilar– different box, new label, same product.

      As a complete non sequitur, if I could get around some of the major doctrines with which I disagree, and if I thought it would do any good, I would make it a point to be in Mass this Sunday.

  26. The Baptists aren’t the only ones, nor the IFBs. I spent 20+ years in conservative Church of Christ derivative and lo and behold they had their own ‘Trail of Blood’ lore about how this small group or that preserved ‘true Christianity’ keeping it untainted by the stream history or culture. After all if you have fully ‘restored’ true New Testament Christianity, then you can’t have any of them bad influences.
    I guess when you are an apologist for the One True Church, you will go to just about any lengths to back up your version of history.

    train111

    1. The practice of trying to connect current doctrines and behaviors to the early church is very common. (And very like the attempts to justify things by claiming that one understands the ‘Original Intent’ of the Framers of the US Constitution.) There are some examples of this is a piece I wrote on Lenten dietary practices in the Middle Ages- http://slugcrossings.blogspot.com/2012/02/basics-of-medieval-lenten-dietary.html The degree to which people want to claim unchanged lineage to the Early Church is pretty amazing.

  27. I would pay money to learn who sent this in. This was my church for ten years (before they changed the name to the all so original Victory Baptist) it makes me physically ill to hear this kind of thing preached from that pulpit. Funny thing is I can’t think of a single person in this now very poorly attended church that would send in a clip like this. Unless someone found it online but my curiosity remains…..it saddens me to see what was my wonderful home church turned into something worthy of a SFL post. 🙁

        1. Shouldn’t you have more of an icon of like a closed flight deck door with a tie on the handle or something?

  29. My Baptist cousin got baptized three times, because she really wasn’t saved the first 2 times. It was rather embarrassing to her parents.

  31. I’m not Catholic, although I grew up in a neighborhood where most of my friends were, and I complained about not having a first communion (I was interested in the party). All kidding aside, those who totally discredit the Catholic Church forget about where our Bible came from. If it hadn’t been for all the monks copying carefully away, we might not have the Word we have today. I know there are many others responsible for keeping the Bible “alive”, but the Catholic Church had a big part. Many were not sincere believers, but so are many Baptists (gasp!). Being a pagan Californian, I love looking at the statistics on divorce and crime that come out of the Bible Belt (they actually just about make this Lover of the Lord cry).

      1. Thank you! 😉

        But now I have to remember all the typed symbols for whatever I need to use. ;-(

      2. Dear Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:

        Colons on each end, you say! How curious that YOU [of all people] mention this in context of Stan’s video … I’ll file this under ‘things that make you go hmmmmm.’

        Christian Socialist

  33. Let me guess…
    “Trail of Blood” Landmark Baptist mythological history?
    The Real True Christian remnant (US, of course) suffering under the Mystery Babylon of Romish Popery?

  34. “But the IFB worships the KJV Bible.”

    Most if not all of the extreme IFB churches are KJVO, but there is a large segment of Fundamentalism that is not. For example there are many congregants in churches pastored by BJU grads who do not adhere to some of the more extreme teachings regarding that translation.

    John 5:39 , 40 says, “Search the scriptures: for in them ye think that ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” Based on those verses , I think it’s clear that it is possible to hold the scriptures in high regard while disobeying their teachings and being ignorant of their Author. To that extent, I think there may be some truth to your statement. I think there are also some extreme teachings about the KJV that are heretical. At the same time, I have a good friend who is KJVO who is not only one of the most sincere Christians I know, but who is not a Fundamentalist.

    To wrap things up, there is some nutty teaching about the KJV coming from within the IFB movement. There are also preachers within the IFB movement who ignore the “weightier matters of the law” and yet pay lip service to the KJV. And you are right to point these things out. Still I think your statement goes too far in that it seems to imply that the IFB movement is synonymous with with KJVO, and that all KJVO folks are idolators.

    Respectfully,

    BP

    1. I agree that not all IFB churches are KJV only. But I do think overall in the US, especially among the IFB, there is a worshipping of the Bible. The Bible is given the attributes of God practically. And the Bible is credited with saving people and making people holy–the things God should be credited with.

  35. It’s almost adorable the way they point out actual heretics throughout history as being the predecessors of modern IFB heretics.

  36. All my years in fundystan and I was somehow spared the knowledge of The Trail of Blood. I will credit that to my constant zoning out during preaching and enjoy this prize of naïveté. 🙂

    1. Ditto TCB! Although my brother has a copy and no clue how to think critically about anything these days. 🙁

  37. Dear SFL Reader:

    After the opening statement that the histories of the Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran Churches are interchangeable, I kept waiting for someone to jump up and shout, ‘hey, Mr. Shit-4-Brains – when did Rome rescind brother Martin’s excommunication and accept the doctrine of justification by faith alone!’ Justification by faith alone can’t be a significant development in Mr. S-4-B’s theological system.

    Christian Socialist

    1. The doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone along with along with the doctrine of Sola Scriptura are probably the two of the most important reasons why I can’t return to the Catholic Church.

  40. Does anyone know whether or not the Catholic Church would permit a lay person to take a confession in the event that the person who would be doing the confessing were in danger of imminent death and no priest were available?

    1. Lay people cannot give absolution. In such a case, the Church says to make as sincere an act of contrtion as you can, and trust in the God of mercy. The Church tells people to do this under normal circumstances, too, because God forgives sins as soon as we confess them in true repentance. Among the reasons we go to Confession is that it helps us to directly hear the words of forgiveness from the priest’s mouth. Also, in the Confessional, the priest represents the Church in addition to representing Christ, and, since our sin hurts the Body, the priest is there to let us know we are reconciled to God and the Church.

  41. Ooh, that’s a good question! I have no answer for that, but I do know that in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Midwives were allowed to do a perfunctory baptism on a newborn that looked like it was about to die.But I don’t know if any other sacraments were done in similar manner.

  42. He says he has family members who he is ashamed to claim as family. I am guessing they feel the same about him.

Comments are closed.