John Smyth and Baptist Covenantal Theology
by Billy Champion Why do Baptists (credobaptists) disagree with Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, and others (paedobaptists) about baptism? As much as we may want to conclude it is simply because we interpret passages about baptism differently, the answer is not quite so straightforward. Those passages, of course, are not insignificant, but the issue runs deeper. For credobaptists and paedobaptists alike, our interpretation of...
Is Religious Toleration Accidental to Early Baptist Theology?
There has been much discussion recently on Baptist views regarding religious toleration. The discussion has covered issues such as: whether religious toleration was widely held among early Baptists, whether religious toleration is essential to Baptist identity, whether arguments for religious toleration were merely a response to the persecution that early Baptists faced rather than something more essential to Baptist theology, and...
A Historical Sketch of Thomas Helwys
Upon reading the mission statement of the Helwys Society Forum, some readers have inquired about the origin of its name. Who was Helwys? Why is he important? Readers may begin with the page entitled Why Helwys? This post will expand upon the information on that page. Although I could say much more about this man and his legacy, my comments will introduce him and some of his teachings. Thomas Helwys (c. 1575–c. 1616) was an English...
The Beginnings of Baptist Ecclesiology: A Review
When people think of Thomas Helwys, they often think of religious liberty, and rightfully so. Yet Helwys’s writings address far more than religious liberty. Marvin Jones seeks to demonstrate this in his recent monograph The Beginnings of Baptist Ecclesiology: The Foundational Contributions of Thomas Helwys.[1] Jones contends that while many scholars have considered Helwys’s Mystery of Iniquity to be a work focused primarily on...
Thomas Helwys and Sola Scriptura
The foundational theme of the Reformers’ work was sola scriptura, Scripture alone. Each Reformer exhibited a strong commitment to look to the Scriptures for the truth about all of life. They rightly believed that the Roman Catholic Church’s problems stemmed from its departure from the Word of God as its rule in faith and practice. However, every Reformer struggled between their commitment to sola scriptura and their cultural context....
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