When I was trying to decide what denomination of the Christian religion I wanted to write my blog on I immediately thought of the conversation that I had with Josh.  Him being a Baptist and I being a Methodist, we were discussing the differences in our churches. I had no idea that there were so many dissimilarities in the basic practices of the two denominations.

What started our conversation on these differences was the subject of being baptized. We were both shocked to find out how much the ways that we were baptized varied. I knew that a person could be either submerged in water or sprinkled with the water. I also thought that the only reason that someone would not have been baptized as a baby was if their parents did not love them or care for them enough to take them to church. Josh even thinks that I still need to be baptized because I was only “sprinkled” when I was a baby in a Presbyterian. I have since found out that this is far from the truth and hopefully so as he. The Baptists simply do not practice infant baptism but they are baptized after they have been saved and have reached the age of accountability. An article I found on spurgeon.org described that this practice first began with a man named John Smyth. Him and his followers rejected the practice of an infant baptism and began the practice of the believer’s baptism. Christianity.about.com described how many denominations practice infant baptism because of the fact that each child is born with sin and that sin must be washed away before the child will be able to go to Heaven. The age of accountability is not found in the Bible but is something that Baptists have used as an answer to whether or not babies who die are allowed to enter into Heaven.

Another odd difference I found out during our conversation is that Baptists do not allow women to become pastors. They get this belief from the bible verse in 1Timothy 2:12 which states: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man." An article on baptist2baptist.net mentions the three other reasons that Baptists do not allow women as their pastors. The first being that none of the women mentioned in the New Testament were definitely known as pastors, second being that there are no instructions for women pastors, and third being that there is some text that forbid women to occupy that specific church role. This does not mean that a woman can hold no other important roles in the church but these feeling are only against women serving as pastors.

An interesting aspect of the Baptist church I found outside of our conversation was the idea of “once saved, always saved.” As the article on astudyofdenominations.com describes, this idea come from Romans 8:35-39. “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died- more than that, who was raised- who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is hard not to get too theological in talking about this aspect of the Baptist church, but this saying simply means that once you have accepted Jesus as your savior, no matter what sin you might commit, you will always be saved.

This turned out to be such an interesting topic for me. It is still hard for me to believe there are so many differences between the Baptist church and the denominations that I have experienced.

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/trail.htm#endnotes
http://christianity.about.com/od/baptism/a/JZ-Age-Of-Accountability.htm
http://www.baptist2baptist.net/printfriendly.asp?ID=58
http://www.astudyofdenominations.com/denominations/baptist/

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    March 2013

    Categories

    All