Believer's Baptism and the Free Church
As taught in the Anabaptist / Mennonite tradition
Why the Anabaptists baptize confessing believers and gather a free, voluntary church
The Anabaptist tradition takes its very name from the practice this lesson examines. To opponents in the sixteenth century, the radical reformers who insisted on baptizing confessing adults were "re-baptizers" (the Greek ana-baptistai), since these believers had already received infant baptism in the established churches. The Anabaptists themselves rejected the label, for in their understanding they were not baptizing anyone a second time at all: an infant sprinkling without faith was, to their minds, no baptism in the New Testament sense, but an empty ceremony. The first true baptism a person received was the one that followed a confession of faith. Out of this conviction grew a whole vision of the church as a voluntary, gathered fellowship of disciples rather than a parish coextensive with society.
By the end of this lesson
- Explain why the Anabaptist tradition insists that repentance and faith must precede baptism, and why it therefore rejects infant baptism as a proper baptism.
- Summarize the teaching of Schleitheim Article I (1527) and Dordrecht Article VII (1632) on the subjects and meaning of baptism, citing each by name.
- Trace the Anabaptist reading of Acts 2:38-41, Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 6:3-4, and Acts 8:36-38 as a single pattern of hearing, believing, and being baptized.
- Distinguish the Anabaptist view of baptism as a sign and pledge of prior regeneration from sacramental views that locate saving grace in the rite itself.
- Describe how believer's baptism functions as the doorway into a free, gathered, disciplined church separated from state coercion.
- Identify how the Anabaptist position differs from Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican paedobaptism, and articulate the differences without flattening them.
Scripture
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