Baptistry 3

I was brought up in the Southern Baptist Church.

I am still very much a Baptist, though I happen to attend a Methodist church now.

Baptist beliefs are, I fear, much misunderstood, primarily due to the antics of those who call themselves “Baptists.” Heck, any group of nutcakes who wants to start up some kind of wierd little sect seems to want to call themselves “The So-and-So Baptist Church of the Such-and-Such.”

There are six basic tenets of being a Baptist. Four of them are pretty much standard Christian stuff: the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and so on.

Two of them are unique:

• Baptism of the Believer: One cannot be baptised unless he or she is able to profess faith. In other words, infant baptism is out (sorry, Methodists).
• Priesthood of the Believer: Though this is fundamental to Protestantism, Baptists take if much farther than anyone else. In the Baptist persuasion, the believer is in charge; the congregation is next, and so on. (I’m a very strong proponent of “priesthood of the believer,” but that’s another story.)

Furthermore, Baptists do not believe in creeds. No true Baptist Church ever repeats a creed.

For, you see, if you are repeating a creed, you are repeating beliefs imposed on you by someone else, thereby violating the principal of “priesthood of the believer.”

The little Baptist Church that I was raised in is a member of the Accomack Baptist Association, which, in turn, is a member of the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV), which, in turn, is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. (The land on which it stands was donated by one of my ancestors shortly after the unpleasantness of 1781.)

The missionary who founded the church (I believe his name was Elijah Lewis, but I am far from my sources), spent large amounts of time in jail for the crime of . . .

. . . being a Baptist.

A further fundamental principal of Baptists in America is separation of church and state. This dates back to Roger Williams’s founding of Rhode Island, which he founded because he was hounded out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of his religion.

Now, of course, the Southern Baptist Convention has fallen into the hands of the pharisees.

The little church in which I grew up has trouble finding pastors because it has (gasp!) women deacons (in the Baptist Church, the Board of Deacons is sort of like the Parish Council, the Board of Trustees, and the Administrative Council all rolled into one–they are the governing body of the church)

So, where am I headed with this?

To here. Give it a a read.

And think seriously about why the Founders decreed that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.