Concerning baptism, I want to be especially careful. The mode of baptism is not what we call a first-order doctrine — something on which salvation depends (at least, not in the Protestant tradition). However, it is vital to the Anabaptists and (or) later English Baptists from whom most Baptist churches in the United States draw their spiritual history.
The Anabaptist fathers believed that salvation came only through faith in Jesus Christ. Moreover, baptism is, as my Baptist church says, an outward expression of an inward faith.4
The influence on me, then, does not concern baptism itself. Instead, it is about how we go about life. It is a reminder that I chose to follow Jesus Christ. I have been washed of my sins by placing my faith in Jesus and his work on the cross. Then, I gave testimony to that through baptism.
It is a testimony that I must live out daily, even when tired after a long day teaching, frustrated by traffic on the freeway, feeling cheated by someone at the drive-through, or annoyed when the drive-through is spelled drive-thru!
Ultimately, we are all human, and these fathers of the Radical Reformation were not always perfect. Blaurock struggled with pride, even confronting a preacher in a Reformed church, stating, “You were not sent to preach, it was I,” and then taking the pulpit. Manz struggled to defend himself in the presence of Ulrich Zwingli (a reformer yet enemy of the Anabaptists). Still others twisted Anabaptist theology until it violated the basic concepts noted above and started the Münster Rebellion (and later engaged in polygamy, among other issues).
But the core teachings of these men have challenged me from the first day I learned of them. And they still do so today.
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1 Kreider, G. R. (2017). Anabaptists: Forgotten voices of the Reformation. Voice. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
2 Estep, W. R. (1996). The Anabaptist story: an introduction to sixteenth-century Anabaptism (3rd ed., revised and enlarged). Wm. B. Eerdmans.
3 Hale, R. (2017). Our radical, often-martyred ancestors. IBSA NewsJournal. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
4 Finger, T. (1994). An Anabaptist theology of baptism. In Webber, R. (Ed.). The sacred actions of Christian worship. Library of Christian Worship 6. Star Song.
Approved with by faculty for the College of Theology on July 21, 2023.