Comments on: Baptist ID: Dr. Paige Patterson on “What Contemporary Baptists Can Learn from Anabaptists”

By: Press Release: Climate Change Divides Convention, Kills Evangelism « Provocations & Pantings

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:15:06 +0000

[...] Patterson: “The Anabaptists can teach us a great deal about climate change, of that I am [...]

By: Timmy Brister

Timmy Brister — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:21:32 +0000

Dr. Patterson,

Thanks for your contribution to the subject matter. Unfortunately for me, my knowledge of the Anabaptist tradition is quite inadequate, only having studied it in a survey of latter church history.

There recent push for the Anabaptist tradition in SBC life is interesting to me. I think the evidence is pretty clear that our baptist origins came from the English Separatist movement, but there is a strand of SBC thinkers who believe that the Anabaptist tradition has particular relevance today. Given the number of alarming things you shared in your comment, this gives me good reason to check it out. Thanks for sharing and stopping by. It was great meeting you last week!

By: James Patterson

James Patterson — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:08:02 +0000

The main problem in Dr. Patterson’s presentation was his failure to mention a significant weakness in the Anabaptist tradition–soteriology. 16th century Anabaptist soteriology was closer to Roman Catholicism than it was to Luther and Calvin. Many of their prominent theologians (Hubmaier, Hofmann) did not espouse justification by faith alone. In fact, they held to a synergistic view of salvation that emphasized God’s grace cooperating with human effort. Hubmaier was Erasmian on the human will, and believed that the human spirit was unaffected by the Fall, maintaining an “inherited righteousness.” Soteriological issues can be added to other eccentric views coming out of Anabaptism (“celestial flesh” Christology; soul sleep; even some unitarianism). The Anabaptists certainly had some strengths worth emulating, but their virtues were mingled with manifest weaknesses.