Anabaptism and Other Denominations
On this 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement, Rosedale Bible College’s Beacon articles will look at a wide variety of denominations within the household of faith, highlighting a different denomination each month. We hope to foster a humble, rooted appreciation for how the gospel has come to us and to consider how Jesus might be calling us forward.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with a reported membership of just under 13 million. The SBC operates several of the largest seminaries in the country, runs an influential publishing arm—LifeWay—and counts among its members not only many large congregations, but also some widely-recognized individuals.
As a branch of the larger family of Baptist groups in the US, the SBC was formed in 1845 by Baptists in the South who opposed the abolition of slavery, arguing that slavery was ordained by God. In 1995 the SBC formally apologized for positions it formerly held regarding race (but that’s another article!).
In contrast, Anabaptists in the United States number between 400,000 and 600,000, depending on which groups are included in the count. And yet, considered through the lens of an extended theological family, Anabaptists and Southern Baptists are close relatives.
Both of these streams—or rooms along the hallway of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, to revisit the metaphor Jeremy Miller used in the January Beacon article introducing this series—emphasize the importance of adult baptism as the marker of new birth and entrance into the family of God. Both traditions reject the proposal that baptism is the New Testament counterpart to circumcision, a sign of inclusion in the covenant community of God’s people, and hence appropriately administered to babies. Both traditions believe that Scripture must shape and, when needed, even correct established practices of the church.
Both traditions emphasize that governments have no right to coerce citizens in matters of faith and that the church should not use political power to advance the church’s mission.
But just as relatives in an extended family can be quite different from each other, so too the Anabaptist story and the Southern Baptist story have their differences.
Perhaps the sharpest place of divergence is related to peace and nonresistance. Early in the 5th century, Augustine offered a theological rationale for Christians joining the military, and his proposal was developed further over the following centuries in what we know today as “just war theory.” According to this theory, Christians are called to submit to God-ordained governments, even when those governments call on them to kill people that the state has decided are its enemies. In their annual meeting in June 2024, the SBC passed an official resolution reaffirming their view that “the historic Christian stance on war and peace has traditionally been defined by the just war tradition” (to their credit, they also reaffirmed that “those who for reasons of religious conviction are opposed to military service should be exempted from forced military conscription”).
Anabaptists, in contrast, from the earliest days of the movement in the 16th century, have stood out from the rest of Protestant reform groups by insisting that followers of Jesus could not participate in the state’s wielding of the sword. They would not serve as soldiers. They would not serve as magistrates. Though there were exceptions even in the 16th century, the history of Anabaptists throughout the past five hundred years has been profoundly shaped by that conviction. From persecution and martyrdom to exile and migration, the Anabaptist story has often followed the search for a place where those convictions could be lived freely.
From an Anabaptist perspective, the SBC’s suggestion that just war theory is the historic position of the church is both surprising and disappointing. It is indeed the case that Augustine proposed it in the early 400s. It’s also true that medieval Catholics embraced it, as did Luther and Calvin in the 16th century. But what of the first three hundred years of Christian history? If Augustine’s proposal regarding war qualifies as “the historic Christian stance,” why not also his teaching on infant baptism, or on the government’s right to coerce citizens in matters of faith?
Anabaptists and the SBC reject infant baptism because they look past Augustine and back to the New Testament. Anabaptists and the SBC reject the idea that governments should force citizens to be Christians because they look past Augustine and back to the New Testament. Anabaptists reject the use of lethal force for Christians because they look past Augustine and back to Christ. The SBC proposes that Augustine’s view is the “historic Christian stance.”
During peacetime, the differences between “nonresistant” Christians and “just war” Christians can nearly go unnoticed, but anytime the country engages in a military conflict, those differences lead to profoundly different behaviors.
Anabaptists and Southern Baptists are close relatives. They have much in common. But families are complicated, and these relatives, for all that they share, have taken some significantly different paths in discerning how to live as followers of Jesus.
There’s no doubt that they share a common commitment to Lewis’ Mere Christianity, but they occupy different rooms of the house.
