Why I am a Baptist
By the late Dr. Noel Smith
Baptists are a people. They have a historical identity. They
have a historical image. Their continuity is the longest of any
Christian group on earth. Their doctrines, principles, and
practices are rooted in the apostolic age. I am not a Pharasaical
sectarian but I don't confuse Baptists with the Reformers. The
Reformers wanted to reform the Roman Catholic Church; the Baptists were
against the church, because it was not a New Testament
church.
Protestantism originated in the Reformation. Protestantism is
"protestism." That's a Negative. Negativism has within it
the seed of its own disintegration. The Baptists were not
reformers. They were not protesters. They were positive.
Freedom of conscience is not a Reformation doctrine; it is a Baptist
doctrine. Religious liberty is not a Reformation doctrine; it is a
Baptist doctrine. Believer's baptism is not a Reformation doctrine;
it is a Baptist doctrine. Baptism of the believer by immersion in
water, symbolizing the believer's death, burial and resurrection with
Christ is not a Reformation doctrine; it is a Baptist doctrine.
The local, visible, autonomous assembly, with Christ as its only head
and the Bible as its sole rule of faith and practice, is not a
Reformation doctrine; it is a Baptist doctrine. Worldwide
missions are not a Reformation doctrine; it is a Baptist doctrine.
The Reformers had no missionary vision and no missionary spirit.
For almost two hundred years after the Reformers, the Reformation
churches felt no burden to implement the Great Commission.
What kind of world would the Western world have been had Protestantism
became its master? Who but the Baptist kept Protestantism from
becoming master? The general attitude today is that the truth is
determined by the passing of time; that there aren't eternal, abiding
truths. "You can't turn the clock back. Time invalidates
all truth. Time invalidates one set of truth and fastens another
set upon us." Baptist history repudiates this philosophy of
fatalism. Baptists today are believing, teaching, preaching and
practicing the truths that they believed, taught, preached and practiced
two thousand years ago. It gives me a feeling of stability to
reflect that I, as a Baptist, am in the stream of this long continuity of
faith and practice. The Baptist people are a great continuity ... a
great essence ... a great dignity. The world never needed them more
than it needs them today.