WHO ARE YOU CALLING A PROTESTANT?

I have in my possession a chart taken from the U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT entitled "The Lord's House". It purports to show the history of the Holy Catholic Church from the New Testament days to the present. It shows the split between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. It shows Baptists coming out of the latter during the Reformation. It is wrong. 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. ---"Why I am a Baptist"
by the late Dr. Noel Smith

Someone might say, "Surely you are not saying the Apostles were Baptists?" Actually, in a sense, I am. "But they weren't called Baptists!" No-one was called a "Christian" until 15 years after the Resurrection of Jesus (Acts 11:26) does that mean that no one was a Christian until then? The early New Testament Christians weren't called "Baptists" but they were baptistic in their doctrine and polity.

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 protestors. They were positive.[II Co. 1:18-22]

Freedom of conscience is not a Reformation doctrine; it is a Baptist doctrine.[Rm. 14:1-12]

Religious liberty is not a Reformation doctrine; it is a Baptist doctrine. Martin Luther, though a great man, persecuted the Baptists even as he had been persecuted by the Roman Catholics.

Believer's baptism is not a Reformation doctrine; it is a Baptist doctrine.[Acts 8:35-38]

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. [Rm. 6:3-5]

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. [Col. 1:1-2, 12-14, 18-23, 3:15-17, Acts 17:11]Which is why Protestants "sprinkle" and call it baptism when the N.T. clearly teaches immersion. It's also why they have a certain way to run their churches and sprinkle infants. They didn't protest enough!

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.[Mt. 28:18-20] William Carey, the father of modern missions, was a Baptist.

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. [Jude 3]

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.

Don't misunderstand. I am not saying if you are not a Baptist then you are not a Christian. I do not believe in the Baptist Bride. I am just saying Baptists are, as a rule, closer to New Testament Christianity than most, if not all, of your other options. Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice were Protestants on their way as missionaries to Burma. As they travelled on separate ships they both were studying their Bibles and both became convinced, independently of one another and any other teaching save that of the Word of God that the Baptists were indeed the closest to New Testament teachings. Somewhat sheepishly they shared their findings with one another after they got to India, their stop off point for Burma. They looked up William Carey and had him baptize them both by immersion. It's not outside influence that makes good Baptists, its the Word of the Living God. I speak from experience as a former Protestant. Someone asked me after I became a Baptist what I would be if I wasn't Baptist. I remembered what someone else had said to the same question and answered accordingly, "I'd be ashamed. That's what I would be."