[wmfights]

...then perhaps your group doesn't have Christian beliefs at all, just like the Unitarians

I think that was pretty much the argument your church used to try and kill any Christians that refused to submit to it.

[Quix]

I think that was pretty much the argument your church used to try and kill any Christians that refused to submit to it.

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YUP.

[Cronos]

You mean “Christians” like the Cathar who were Gnostics or Paulicians?

[Cronos]

you can refer Baptist Successionism by James McGoldrick who concluded that modern Baptists have more in common with the Roman Catholic Church than they have with the radically heretical cults acclaimed to be their predecessors by Baptist successionists. He wrote, “Baptists arose in the seventeenth century in Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of the Reformers… A careful examination of Baptist history shows…that Baptists are Protestants.”

According to McGoldrick, the Baptists were an offshoot of the Puritans, who were Calvinists:

“The Baptist movement grew out of English Puritanism/Separatism… These ‘Separatists’ shared the Anabaptist conviction that the true church would restore the doctrine and government of the New Testament, which, it appeared, the Anglicans had no intention of doing. Separatists sought to establish free churches with a congregational form of government, but, unlike the Anabaptists, most of them retained the Protestant/Calvinist view of salvation, and all of them practiced infant baptism…” (Baptist Successionism, pp. 124-5)

Norman Cohn’s book, The Pursuit of the Millennium, subtitled “Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages,” describes what happened when the town of Munster, Germany, fell to Anabaptist "prophets" from the Netherlands:

“During February 1534, the power of the Anabaptists in Munster increased rapidly… “From Antwerp a scholar could write to Erasmus of Rotterdam: ‘We in these parts are living in wretched anxiety because of the way the revolt of the Anabaptists has flared up. For it really did spring up like fire. There is, I think, scarcely a village or town where the torch is not glowing in secret. They preach community of goods, with the result that all those who have nothing come flocking.’ How seriously the authorities took the threat is shown by the repressive measures which they adopted. Anabaptism was made a capital offense not only throughout the diocese of Munster but in the neighboring principalities… During the months of the siege countless men and women in the towns were beheaded, drowned, burnt or broken on the wheel. “By then end of March Matthys had established an absolute dictatorship; but a few days later he was dead… This event gave an opening to Matthys’s young disciple, Jan Bockelson, who so far had played no great part but who was in every was fitted to seize such a chance and use it to the full… “Bockelson’s first important act was – characteristically – at once a religious and a political one. Early in May he ran naked through the town in a frenzy and then fell into a silent ecstasy which lasted three days. When speech returned to him he called the population together and announced that God had revealed to him that the old constitution of the town, being the work of men, must be replaced by a new one which would be the work of God. The burgomasters and Council were deprived of their functions. In their place Bockelson set himself and – on the model of Ancient Israel – twelve Elders… This new government was given authority in all matters, public and private, spiritual and material, and power of life and death over all inhabitants of the town. A new legal code was drawn up, aimed partly at carrying still further the process of socialization and partly at imposing a severely puritanical morality. A strict direction of labour was introduced… At the same time the new code made capital offenses not only of murder and theft but also of lying, slander, avarice and quarreling. But above all it was an absolutely authoritarian code; death was to be the punishment of every kind of insubordination – of the young against their parents, of a wife against her husband, of anyone against God and God’s representative, the government of Munster…” (The Pursuit of the Millennium, Chap. 13)

McGoldrick states, “a large majority of Anabaptists…were quite unorthodox in their perceptions of the Incarnation,” citing as examples Thomas Muntzer, Melchior Hoffman and a leader of the Munster Anabaptists who also denied that Christ received His human flesh from Mary. This false teaching was a revival of the ancient Monophysite heresy that Christ had only one nature:

Bernard Rothman (c. 1495-1535), an Anabaptist prominent in the ill-fated attempt to build New Jerusalem at Munster in Westphalia, wrote: ‘If it had been Mary’s flesh [that is, Christ born of Mary] that died for us, my God, what comfort and courage could we derive from that? That would be like paying for one sin with another and to wash and cleanse one uncleanness with another.” (Baptist Successionism, p. 102)

Another Anabaptist leader who taught Monophysitism was Menno Simons, a disciple of Melchior Hoffman and the founder of the Mennonites. Menno Simons’ view of the Incarnation is described in Harold O.J. Brown’s book,Heresies

In August, 1532, radical Protestants under the leadership of the former Lutheran priest Bernt Rothmann and the cloth merchant and magistrate Hermann Knipperdoling took control of all of Münster's churches, with the exception of the Bishop's cathedral. By late 1533, these radicals had effective control of the entire town. By this time, they had also been converted to the Anabaptist ideas of Melchior Hoffman. In 1534 the Anabaptists (specifically the Melchiorites), led by Jan Matthys (or Matthijs) and Jan Beukels (often referred to as John of Leiden), took power openly in the Münster Rebellion and founded a "New Jerusalem." They claimed all property, burned all books except the Bible, and expelled or executed dissenters. John of Leiden believed he would lead the elect from Münster to capture the entire world and purify it of evil with the sword in preparation of Jesus's Second Coming and the beginnings of a New Age

‘For Christ Jesus, as to his origin, is no earthly man, that is, fruit of the flesh and blood of Adam. He is a heavenly fruit or man. For his beginning or origin is of the Father [John 16:28], like unto the first Adam, sin excepted.’ [ff. Menno Simons, Complete Writings, ed. Harold S. Bender,…1956) p. 863]…

Article IV of the 1632 Dutch Mennonite Confession to which David Cloud refers incorporates the Monophysite heresy, that Jesus was conceived “in” Mary, rather than “of” Mary:

“ “We believe and confess further, that when the time of the promise, for which all the pious forefathers had so much longed and waited, had come and was fulfilled, this previously promised Messiah, Redeemer, and Savior, proceeded from God, was sent, and, according to the prediction of the prophets, and the testimony of the evangelists, came into the world, yea, into the flesh, was made manifest, and the Word, Himself became flesh and man; that He was conceived in the virgin Mary…” (Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia)

In contrast, Luke 1:31 states specifically that Mary herself conceived Jesus, and was not merely a vessel “through” which Jesus’ “heavenly flesh” was conceived by some other agency:

“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.” (Luke 1:30-31 KJV)

The heresy which Menno Simons taught the Anabaptist and Mennonite congregations was explicitly and frequently stated in his works:

“…I have shown and confessed to you the firm foundation of. the incarnation of the Lord, that he did not become flesh of Mary, but that he became flesh in Mary… Thus Christ Jesus remains the precious, blessed fruit of the womb of Mary, according to the words of Elizabeth, which was conceived not of her womb but in her womb wrought by the Holy Spirit through faith, of God the omnipotent Father, from high heaven, as we have frequently shown… “They say and teach, without any Scripture, ‘That the Word has put on a whole man of Mary’s flesh and seed;’ and we say and teach, according to the plain testimony of John, That the Word was made flesh, not of Mary, but in Mary. They teach, ‘That there are two different persons and sons, one divine, the other human, in the one Christ,’ without Scripture; and we say that there is but one undivided person and Son, according to the Scriptures.” (The Complete Writings of Menno Simons: Book 2, pp. 332-3, 397) (See also: The Confutation: Part Third)

The “heavenly flesh” doctrine was not a “new revelation” to the Anabaptists and Mennonites, but a major heresy that had been refuted in every particular over a millennium earlier, at the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD).

“We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and flesh consisting; begotten before the ages of the Father according to his Divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, of the same substance with his Father according to his Divinity, and of the same substance with us according to his humanity; for there became a union of two natures. Wherefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of this unmixed union, we confess the holy Virgin to be Mother of God; because God the Word was incarnate and became Man, and from this conception he united the temple taken from her with himself.”(Council of Chalcedon Confession)

[Cronos]

The author of A Trail of Blood Carroll identifies many divergent groups throughout history, claiming them as baptistic. These groups are a montage of unrelated sects and heretics, including the Albigenses, Cathari, Paulicians, Arnoldists, Henricians and more. The Cathari and Albigenses taught that Christ was an angel with a phantom body whose death and resurrection were only allegorical and the Incarnation impossible since the body was evil, created by evil. They also rejected the resurrection of the body and the existence of hell

The Paulicians, similarly believed that there were two fundamental principles: a good God and an evil God; the first is the ruler of the world to come and the second the master of the present world. By their reasoning, then, Christ could not have been the Son of God because the good God could not take human form. They were basically dualists and Gnostics.

Edward T. Hiscox, author of the classic Baptist handbook, Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1980) claims the Waldenses and the above mentioned groups held to the principle points “which Baptists have always emphasized”. Hiscox, however, doesn’t inform his readers that the Waldenses for the most part believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, the effectiveness of the sacraments, infant baptism, that “the Sacrifice [of the Mass], that is of the bread and wine, after the consecration are the body and blood of Jesus Christ”, that good deeds of the faithful may benefit the dead, to name just a few. That Baptist successionists can claim the Waldenses as their ancestors-sharing a common belief and practice-is quite untenable, if not disingenuous.

[Cronos]

McGoldrick explains, “Extensive graduate study and independent investigation of church history has, however, convinced [me] that the view [I] once held so dear has not been, and cannot be, verified. On the contrary, surviving primary documents render the successionist view untenable. . . . Although free church groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern Baptists, when judged by standards now acknowledged as baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a Baptist church. Baptists arose in the seventeenth century in Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of the Reformers” (Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History [Metuchen, NJ: American Theological Library Assoc. and Scarecrow Press, 1994], 1−2).

[Cronos]

Baptist Successionists frequently claim that they are not Protestants. To this, Leon McBeth, professor of Church History at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary writes, “Are Baptists Protestants? One sometimes hears the question whether Baptists are to be identified as Protestants. Whether one takes the shortcut answer, or goes into lengthy explanation, the answer is the same: Yes. Such important Reformation doctrines as justification by faith, the authority of Scripture, and the priesthood of believers show up prominently in Baptist theology. Further, the evidence shows that Baptists originated out of English Separatism, certainly a part of the Protestant Reformation. Even if one assumes Anabaptist influence, the Anabaptists themselves were a Reformation people. The tendency to deny that Baptists are Protestants grows out of a faulty view of history, namely that Baptist churches have existed in every century and thus antedate the Reformation” (The Baptist Heritage [Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1987], pg. 62). (See a longer excerpt below.)

[Cronos]

Perhaps the silliest are some groups among the bAptists who seem to think that John the BAptist formed a Christian denomination. They seem to be completely unaware of the history and presence of Mandaeism

Mandaeism or Mandaeanism is a monotheistic religion with a strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans (also sometimes referred to as Sabians in Arabic), revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist.

Mandaeism has historically been practised primarily around the lower Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. There are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide, and until the 2003 Iraq war, almost all of them lived in Iraq

Mandaeans recognize several prophets.

Yahya ibn Zakariyya, known by Christians as John the Baptist, is accorded a special status, higher than his role in Christianity and Islam. Mandaeans do not consider John to be the founder of their religion but revere him as one of their greatest teachers, tracing their beliefs back to Adam.

Mandaeans maintain that Jesus was a mšiha kdaba "false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John. The Mandaic word k(a)daba, however, might be interpreted as being derived from either of two roots: the first root, meaning "to lie," is the one traditionally ascribed to Jesus; the second, meaning "to write," might provide a second meaning, that of "book"; hence some Mandaeans, motivated perhaps by an ecumenical spirit, maintain that Jesus was not a "lying Messiah" but a "book Messiah", the "book" in question presumably being the Christian Gospels. This seems to be a folk etymology without support in the Mandaean texts.

Likewise, the Mandaeans believe that Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad were false prophets , but recognize other prophetic figures from the Abrahamic traditions, such as Adam, his sons Hibil (Abel) and Šitil (Seth), and his grandson Anuš (Enosh), as well as Nuh (Noah), his son Sam (Shem) and his son Ram (Aram). The latter three they consider to be their direct ancestors