Baptists re-writing history?

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I have an ex-Catholic acquaintance who is now an Independant Fundamentalist Baptist. She sent me this link and I know it’s not true but she apparently really believes it. It’s about how Baptists are not Protestants but have actually been around since beginning. Can someone help me refute this? Like I said, I know it’s not true but I’m not good at articulating why. I tried to copy and paste the article but it’s too long so here is the link.

Thank you to anyone who has time to read and respond. 🙂

picknowl.com.au/homepages/rlister/bibfund/baptists.htm
WHY BAPTISTS ARE NOT PROTESTANTS
 
In their article on Baptists, the* 2002 World Book Encyclopedia* says:
The Baptist movement developed as one wing of English Congregationalism during the early 1600’s. These Baptists, like some earlier Christian groups, opposed the baptism of infants. They insisted that baptism should be restricted to believers who are old enough to make their own declaration of faith. Later in the 1600’s, these Baptists said that baptism should be by immersion (dipping under water), rather than by pouring or sprinkling the water.

The earliest Baptist leader was John Smyth, a clergyman in the Church of England. About 1607, Smyth went to the Netherlands with those English exiles who later became the Pilgrims of New England. While in the Netherlands, Smyth and 36 of the exiles formed a Baptist church. Differences of opinion developed within the church, and 11 members of the new congregation broke away. These members returned to England to form a church there in 1611. However, major Baptist growth did not occur in England until the Puritan revolution.
 
I wish to purposely introduce nonBaptist testimony to the great antiquity of Baptist people. Cardinal Hosius (1504-1579) was a Roman Catholic prelate who had as his life work the investigation and suppression of non-Catholic groups. By Pope Paul IV he was designated one of the three papal presidents of the famous Council of Trent. Hosius carried on vigorously the work of the counter-reformation. If anyone in post-reformation times knew the doctrines and history of nonCatholic groups, it was Hosius. Cardinal Hosius says, “Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1,200 years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers” (Letters Apud Opera, pp.112, 113). Note carefully that this knowledgeable Catholic scholar has spoken of the vicious persecution Baptists have endured, that he clearly distinguishes them from the Reformers, and that he dates them 1,200 years before the Protestant Reformation.
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The above is completely false. Check the link.

Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius:
Introduction
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When Baptists attempt to maintain their descent from the time of the Apostles, they often will bring up a purported statement of Cardinal Hosius from the sixteenth century, which „proves“ so they think, that the Baptists have been around from the beginning, so they are the true Christian church. That this statement was supposedly made by Hosius, who was a papal legate at the Council of Trent, is sure to cause doubts as to its authenticity, except among those who would like to believe it`s genuineness. It is the purpose of this essay to show the evidence for the inauthenticity of this statement, and to show also what Cardinal Hosius really did have to say about anabaptists in his writings.
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ha HA! this article made me laugh. not because it’s wrong, but because it shoots itself in the foot.

i have a degree in baptist theology, and am a convert to catholicism from having been a licensed baptist minister.

the article says:'There were the Montanists (150 A.D.), the Novatians (240 A.D.), Donatists (305 A.D.), Albigenses (1022 A.D.), Waldensians (1170 A.D.), and the name Anabaptists ’

i’m not entirely sure that the author of the article realizes that the groups he mentions were all heretics. so, if he, and your friend, don’t like the term ‘protestant’, perhaps they’d be more comfortable with ‘heretic’?

(it’s also strange and puzzling that he doesn’t give a date for the anabaptists, and just sort of tacks them on the end with the phrase ‘and the name’. what does this mean?)

the argument here is one entirely of semantics. if you consider ‘protestants’ to be anyone whose origin comes from the reformation, then i suppose this author could be considered to be correct in calling the baptists non protestants. but their doctrine, today and in whatever century they began IS protesting against the teaching of the catholic church. so in its strict etymological sense, they are protestants.

but i’ll let him have it his way. they’re not protestants. they’re just heretics. 🙂
 
The baptist church as it is known today was completely unknown before the reformation. Sure there were small heretical groups like the Donatists and the Paulicans and the Albengenians. But these were not Baptist in their beliefs at all and none of them can be traced back to St Peter and the apostles.

Stephen Ray a Catholic speaker and very prolific writer has an article dealing with this very subject at his website under “articles”. In the article section look for Steve’s reply on the booklet “Trail of Blood”. Steve addresses this so called statement by Baptists who claim they can trace their church beliefs back to the apostles. Steve clearly and soundly refutes this fantasy of the Baptists. His web site can be found at Catholic converts-defenders of the faith. Just look under Steve’s articles.
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                                      Ron from Ohio
 
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rarndt01:
The baptist church as it is known today was completely unknown before the reformation. Sure there were small heretical groups like the Donatists and the Paulicans and the Albengenians. But these were not Baptist in their beliefs at all and none of them can be traced back to St Peter and the apostles.

Stephen Ray a Catholic speaker and very prolific writer has an article dealing with this very subject at his website under “articles”. In the article section look for Steve’s reply on the booklet “Trail of Blood”. Steve addresses this so called statement by Baptists who claim they can trace their church beliefs back to the apostles. Steve clearly and soundly refutes this fantasy of the Baptists. His web site can be found at Catholic converts-defenders of the faith. Just look under Steve’s articles.
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                                      Ron from Ohio
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cough, cough I already linked to it above. 😉

Scott
 
The evidence these guys have for this is about as weak as the Jehovah’s witnesses tracing their lineage to the OT.
Of course the Mormons pre-date the catholic church accoding to them.
The proof in the pudding are secular historians with no agenda. They all say the Catholic Church was the original church. End of story.
All the sects they mention as Baptist were heretics who didn’t even believe in the trintiy. So if they want to be known as denying Christ as God so be it.
 
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jeffreedy789:
ha HA! this article made me laugh. not because it’s wrong, but because it shoots itself in the foot.

i have a degree in baptist theology, and am a convert to catholicism from having been a licensed baptist minister.

the article says:'There were the Montanists (150 A.D.), the Novatians (240 A.D.), Donatists (305 A.D.), Albigenses (1022 A.D.), Waldensians (1170 A.D.), and the name Anabaptists ’

i’m not entirely sure that the author of the article realizes that the groups he mentions were all heretics. so, if he, and your friend, don’t like the term ‘protestant’, perhaps they’d be more comfortable with ‘heretic’?

(it’s also strange and puzzling that he doesn’t give a date for the anabaptists, and just sort of tacks them on the end with the phrase ‘and the name’. what does this mean?)

the argument here is one entirely of semantics. if you consider ‘protestants’ to be anyone whose origin comes from the reformation, then i suppose this author could be considered to be correct in calling the baptists non protestants. but their doctrine, today and in whatever century they began IS protesting against the teaching of the catholic church. so in its strict etymological sense, they are protestants.

but i’ll let him have it his way. they’re not protestants. they’re just heretics. 🙂
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I enjoyed your very well written comments.
Newman60
 
Baptist successionists should likewise prove that the groups they mentioned as their forebears, like the Novatians, Albigensians and the Waldenses preached the same doctrines as present day Baptists. A questionable teaching on their part since those groups are either more Catholic in their teaching as compared with the Baptists themselves, or are so grossly heretical that even modern Protestants wold find their teachings abominable. Novatians for instance are doctrinally very much orthodox Catholic. Where they differed with Catholicism is their insistence that persons who abandoned the Church as a result of persecution cannot be absolved. The Albigensians, on the other extreme, are religious dualists who denied that Christ had a real material body, and denied His suffering as real, a belief totally repugnant to any Christian for that matter, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant.

Baptist successionism is fatally flawed. A poor substitute for the principle of Apostolic succession.

Gerry 🙂
 
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