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You mean you are an Anabaptist, as opposed to a Baptist? Didn't think there were many of them around!

Well, I do attend an independant Baptist church. I have always understood that Anabaptists and Baptists were basically the same animal.

-Kevin

It has been my experience visiting Independent Baptist churches here in Tulsa that they are just a bit more conservative than Southern Baptists (which is what I am.) Then you've got your Cooperative Baptists, that are the more liberal, compared to Southern Baptists. I think they are all similar in that they believe in the "once saved always saved" doctrine. Then you have your Free-Will Baptists and they believe that if you have (I think) any unconfessed sin when you die, you loose your salvation.

I have always understood that Anabaptists and Baptists were basically the same animal.

My understanding, which may well be colored by propaganda, was that the Anabaptists in this Swiss 16th century city went the Calvinists one better. Accepting that the human race was divided between the elect and the damned, and that nothing could be done by man to affect their election, they dropped the idea that your behavior would demonstrate whether you were elect. They advocated practicing all sorts of degrading and sinful behavior, since it would have no effect on their eventual position in paradise. The Lutheran and Calvinist princes and communes, and the Catholic Emperor sent a joint army, and burnt their city down, killing all inhabitants. Thus THESE Anabaptists had no descendants.

If I had difficulty dealing with Baptists, Florida would certainly be the wrong state for me. As far as I am concerned, the theological and liturgical differences, which are substantial, between Catholics and Baptists, should be put aside because of the religious, moral and ethical beliefs which we share. We are in a crisis of our civilization, and must put first things first. I have the same attitude towards the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Orthodox, Methodists, and other high and low church Christians, and the Jews, who share these beliefs to a greater or lesser degree. Shared ethical and political principals should make it possible for us to make common cause with some non-Islamist Moslems, as well as members of other faiths and those with no faith. When the ship is sinking, everyone who is willing to help bail us out should be enlisted in the effort.