Reformation and Baptist "Retrofomation"

The Reformation along with Our Baptist “Retroformation”

By Larry Baker, www.OurBibleMinistries.com


     Beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, five momentous things laid the foundation for the European Reformation. In 1453 was The Fall of Constantinople during which many Christian scholars brought the original Greek understanding of the New Testament, that challenged Europe’s Latin understanding within the Roman Catholic Church. In 1455 Johan Gutenberg’s printing press began to expand the value of literacy. In 1492 Columbus’ voyages began to expand the Church’s missionary opportunities and ecclesiastical experiments in the western continents. In 1516 Erasmus published the Greek New Testament in Europe. In 1517, on October 31, Martin Luther sent to the Archbishop of Mainz a momentous letter expressing his concern about the horrid selling of indulgences by the Pope. This was the beginning of the Reformation of the European Roman Catholic Church. According to one popular account, on this date Martin Luther also nailed his “95 Theses” on the door of the All Saints Church at Wittenberg. With the publishing of the Greek New Testament to form the “fuel” for the “flame” of this European Reformation, the problems of church corruption and political instability formed an opportune time for Luther and other Reformational Protestants.

     These Protestants theologically protested and left the Roman Catholic Church, however they continued to hold to a state-church polity. Among these Protestants were the Anabaptists who taught an immersive form of baptism for believers who then made up a church and rejected the concept of state-churches.

   English Protestants compromised with a moderately Reformed view of salvation and a moderately Roman Catholic view of worship and the church in forming The Church of England. However, the Puritans within this church wanted to transform the Church of England into a Calvinistic-Presbyterian state-church. Although among these Puritans were the Separatists who formed independent congregations similar to the Anabaptists on the European continent, although they still held to infant baptism. From among these Anabaptist-influenced Separatists came the English Baptists who embraced believer’s baptism by immersion forming a regenerate-church membership with a congregational polity of local church autonomy and religious liberty. 

     By the mid-seventeenth century these Baptists thus took a turn away from the Protestant Reformation back full circle to “a first-century New Testament church” in what could be termed a “Retroformation.” This was a yet different direction than that of the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anabaptists of Continental Europe who simply took “a right turn” from the prevalence of Roman Catholicism. The prefix, “retro-” in place of “re-“ could be pictured, as a “u-turn” back to a first-century form of Christian (historic) theology and church-life, since Baptists were the Christian denomination that had rediscovered a focus that every person was competent to decide in spiritual matters, thus believing that eternal salvation came by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone in an understanding from the Bible alone. This was popularized with the expression, “soul-competency.” (This emphasis of soul competency has been a unique contribution by Baptists in the history of Christianity.)            This comes in a unique belief in our broader Judeo-Christian heritage of the immense and eternal value of every human soul specially created in the image of God, as was Adam in Genesis 1:26. 

   Individuals have a God-given competency to know God and his will and are free to make choices and not puppets. They possess some degree of quality of life (observed or unobserved) that is to be respected and protected until natural death. With this competency and freedom come responsibility and accountability, where choices have consequences. The individual is responsible for choices.  The response of faith and faithfulness must be by the individual and not by a group of which the individual is part.  Governments and religious organizations should not force persons to belong to any particular church or domination or confess any specific creed or conform to any form of worship. 

   Thus, there is an emphasis on personal evangelism with believer’s baptism by immersion followed by the teaching of the priesthood of believers who have a commitment to the supreme authority of the Bible studied in discipleship within autonomous and free churches within a free state.  Historically, this is what gave rise to the modern political notion of freedom of religion, conscience, speech, press and assembly in the past couple of centuries.

     There is also an emphasis on moral decision-making within a biblical Judeo-Christian moral code that can be understood and obeyed. In political matters the concept of “subjects” is replaced by “citizens” in a free state of a constitutional, representatively-elected republic. Where it is believed that “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with…” 

 So, we Baptist stand with Luther and Calvin on justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and with the Anabaptists on believer’s baptism by immersion and discipleship with its priesthood of the believers, as we all seek to take the Bible seriously to guide Christ-followers.

    Thus, we Baptists in our Retroformation theology would also echo with an Amen to the emphasis on The Historic “Five (Latin) Solos” –

Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.

Sola Fide (“Faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Sola Gratia (“Grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone.

Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.

Soli Deo Gloria (“to the Glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone.

This is the heritage that Reformational Theology and Retroformational Theology share.

 In the Scriptures Paul taught in Romans 5:1-2 that, since by faith we are declared righteous by God, in which everything is made right between us and God by what Jesus Christ alone did for us on the cross.  It is through Jesus Christ that we believers are able to enter into the grace of God. We stand and revel in this very confident expectation of praising God’s glory. He further explained in Ephesians 2:8-10, “For by grace you are saved through faith; and this is not out of yourselves; it is God’s gift, not of works, that no one might boast. For we are his handiwork [literally, poem], created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, in order that we might walk in them.” Christians stand, as saved from sin and hell by God giving them grace (what they do not deserve) through the means of faith (their trusting of God and entrusting to God of themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ). This salvation comes not from anything about them and their efforts but is a permanent gift from God. Such salvation is not the results of a person’s efforts in any way seeking to earn eternal life, with the consequence that no one can ever boast of himself, as earning it.  Thus, believers are not saved “of works” but “for works.” In fact, the New Testament word for “faith” is pistis and the New Testament word for “faithfulness” is pistis. In other words, faith and faithfulness are the same thing. You see, we are each a special poetic work of God, which He has put together totally in Christ Jesus. He has done all this for us to live doing good things which He has planned out daily and purposed that we might live doing them and that to His glory.

     Thus, the Reformation teaching of how every believer is to lead a moral life in biblical holiness is of equal importance in Retroformation teaching, as well as the importance of the sovereignty of God, the inspiration and authority and sufficiency of the Bible, as Scripture; along with the teaching of the Trinity with the true deity and humanity of Jesus Christ; and the church, as a divinely ordained institution; total depravity (the fallenness of man affects everything); unconditional election, as salvation predestined without conditions of human works or decision, and the perseverance of the Saint, as actual believers, as saints, can never lose their salvation.

   This puts us Baptists in an excitingly unique place within European and American Christendom and now globally though our historical missionary endeavors and, as a part of The Church Universal, the oldest and greatest institutional body in human history.

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