The Non Protestant Baptists Wm. F. Bekgaard (original) (raw)

2008, The Non Protestant Baptists Wm. F. Bekgaard

Some time ago I was teaching Baptist history in our church. While I always had a love and deep appreciation of the history and heritage of the Baptist, I hadn’t made a critical study on the subject. I had read Th e Trail of Blood by Carroll and the works of men such as Armitage, D. B. Ray, John Christian, Orchard, and S. F. Ford. In the course of our lessons I wanted to bring out more on the Anabaptist than I had at hand. I searched the internet and constantly found sites which placed the origin of the Anabaptists in 1525 with the Swiss Brethren. In my library I have a book entitled Th e Anabaptist Story, by William Estep, with a decal stating Commemorating the 450th Anniversary of Anabaptism. It is from this book that much of the material on internet about the Anabaptists is drawn. I knew this was wrong and was saddened that such an error was being accepted without challenge. I thought, “Someone should have a rebuttal web site to give the alternative view of the Anabaptists.” Whenever I have these thoughts I often have a small voice (fi guratively) saying, “Why don’t you do it?” No, God doesn’t orally speak to me. So I began to read, and read, and read. I talked with others who also had a compassion for our history. They recommended material, gave, and loaned me their books. I noted the references and footnotes to the works of other authors and decided to research as many of them for myself as I could. I went on a buying binge. I found many rare books, some of which were unknown by my fellow companions of history. For some of the works I could only fi nd portions of the manuscripts. The History of the English Baptist by Ivimey is one example. My research took over three years. At the outset it was never my intention to repeat the eff orts of the historians, but rather to glean from them. It was always in my mind that the subject was the issue of Church Succession. I had to omit much valuable material on points such as the martyrs, secular governments and politics, and the development of aberrations of doctrines and practices. I found stories of horror and beauty. I discovered in many cases not only what people did but why they did it. Many questions were being answered and more were arising. I found some things were not as I had believed. I had to change opinions and beliefs about certain churches. If any study is to be of merit it must be based on the truth of the evidence, and I have tried to remain faithful to the facts. An example of this is the Paulicians in their Th e Key of Truth. In much of the history written by Baptists the Paulicians are highly regarded and given great esteem in the lineage of the Church. But I found their origin in all probability was not apostolic, but much later. Moreover, they denied the deity of Christ and believed that He, as a man, was of lower stature than John the Baptist. I found no evidence contrary to this position. Truth is not always pleasant, but it needs to be respected and given its rightful place. To address church succession we must begin with the foundation of the nature of the church. If the church is misunderstood, then succession is like a wild weed and can go in any number of directions. For this reason the larger part of this work is on the nature of the church. I have investigated, as far as I could, to know and understand all the positions of the church. Using scripture and reason I evaluated each position and the claims made of the church. I took many positions to their logical conclusions and tested them against biblical truths. It is not my intention to belittle or misrepresent those whose positions are different from mine.