I was curious about all of your thoughts on the idea of "Believer's Baptism" found in the Early Church. For those who don't know, "Believer's Baptism" is the view that people who have put their faith in Christ are allowed to be baptized I was curious if anyone on this platform can show me Early Church evidence to support this claim. I am aware of Tertullian had his own take on this belief, but not at the exact match as the main purpose of this idea. So, I was wondering if anyone can show Early Church proof of "Beliver's Baptism."

I'm starting a more thorough journey into understanding Anabaptism and neo-Anabaptism (largely through Hauerwas), but I've not used any "generalist" resources yet and so it's not entirely clear where writers are drawing their ideas from at times. So, my two questions: i) Do Anabaptist thinkers draw heavily upon the church fathers? ii) If so, who is the most notable thinker from the tradition(s)? iii) Is there a resource which attempts to show connections and/or tensions between Anabaptists and the church fathers? Thanks!

Since the original Great Schism, the Orthodox church has seemed pretty unified (at least compared to the Catholic Church). During the radical reformation, Anabaptists were persecuted throughout Germany and Switzerland. This led to some settling in present day Russia and Ukraine. Was there any point where a similar movement occurred in the Eastern Orthodox church?

I see the term "Anabaptist" and "Baptist" being used quite a bit. Both believe in not baptizing your babies. But what is the difference between them? There seems to be some distinction.

Toward the end of his life, Martin Luther was extremely critical of the Anabaptists and considered them to be heretics. This inspired terrible treatment of the Anabaptists at the hands of the German princes and rulers of other European countries, both Lutheran and non-Lutheran. I don't claim to be an expert on the Anabaptists, but I do know a bit about Lutheranism and Martin Luther since I was raised as a traditional Lutheran and my grandfather was a Lutheran minister. While there were some suggestions that the Anabaptists were simply too radical for their day, my understanding is that the central disagreement Luther had with the Anabaptists was with regard to baptism as a means of entering into the Christian faith. In fact, Martin Luther and others who would later become devout Anabaptists worked together for a time. The Anabaptists believed that faith demands that a person must make a willful confession of faith to be baptized, and that baptism of infants was not only a bad idea, it was not a sign that a person had chosen to become a follower of Christ. Lutherans, on the other hand (and I don't know how much of this was from Luther himself), believed that a person was Lutheran if they were born to Lutheran parents, so it was okay to baptize infants since it was just confirming what was already in place. I hate to say it, but if this is the true essence of the argument, I must side with the Anabaptists on this one. It seems to me, and again, I am not a Lutheran or Anabaptist scholar, that it is contrary to the notion that one must ask Jesus to enter into their life that an infant could choose to allow Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. Free will demands a choice, and choosing nothing is still a choice. Baptizing babies also seems like a convenient way to make sure that a religion has new followers appearing on a regular basis as a matter of lineage, rather than as a matter of choice. The Anabaptist perspective seems to suggest that they would rather have fewer devout believers than a multitude of "believers" who are only there because their parents brought them to church. As a person who was raised in the Lutheran church and baptized at 6 weeks old (I'm 50 now), I completely get the Anabaptist perspective. I wasn't a good Christian. Even though I was confirmed and attended church every week, I did not have any real faith and I never felt connected to God. It all seemed like something I was supposed to do rather than something I couldn't live without. When I was in my 20s, that all changed. I realized then that I had been ignoring what God was trying to tell me, and I humbly asked Jesus to save me - and he did. I think that is what the Anabaptists were after by objecting to the idea that faith can be inherited. If there are any Lutheran, Amish, and/or Anabaptist scholars out there, can you make the debate between Anabaptists and Lutherans more clear? Because of my youth and how I came to God, it seems like such an obvious thing to me that baptism should be a conscious choice. At the very least, Luther should have been understanding of the reasons why one group might reject the tradition of baptizing infants, and it should have never been allowed to escalate to a matter of such vitriolic contention. On the other hand, requiring people to choose is not a guarantee that their motives are pure. It would encourage people to lie about their faith for status or any number of other reasons that have nothing to do with true devotion to God. And because there are many things that can kill young people, perhaps it is better to be baptize infants. Any thoughts?

Much of modern protestantism believes that only believers should be baptized, as believing adults (or at least consenting young people). The primary example being obviously Baptists. This is a marked shift from the early reformers, the two which I am most familiar with being Luther and Calvin. Both of whom did infant / pedo baptisms. ( As well as many modern protestant movements stemming from these reformers) When historically did this idea begin to gain traction among protestant believers? Who were the originators and where/how did it spread? **What I would like in an answer:** A brief (or not so brief) Historical overview of how/when/where this idea originated, gained traction, and eventually spread. **What I hope to avoid.** "The practice of believers baptism is biblical!". Yeah I agree but that really is a different question. "The church has been baptizing infants since the "x"th century!". Sure I acknowledge that but I'm not asking about that. Certainly some explanation of why the originators came to the conclusions they did might be necessary in an answer, but I'm not looking for impassioned arguments for or against types of baptism. I'm pretty well versed in those arguments and have my own opinions.

While reading Louis Berkhof's *Systematic Theology*, I noticed an interesting tidbit about the beliefs of "extreme Anabaptists" on regeneration. He argues: > [Regeneration is not] a complete or perfect change of the whole nature of man, or of any part of it, so that it is no more capable of sin, as was taught by the extreme Anabaptists and by some other fanatical sects. ([4.6.C](https://www.ccel.org/ccel/berkhof/systematictheology.vi.vi.html)) From this I gather that these "extreme Anabaptists" believed that at least some part of the "nature of man" was completely, perfectly transformed in regeneration, making the regenerate unable to sin. This does seem outside the norm for Anabaptists, and it makes me wonder: - Who taught this, and when? - Did they consider regeneration to be something instantaneous (as in Reformed theology), or a process (like sanctification)? - Did they believe that the whole nature of man, or only a part of it (soul? spirit?) was transformed?

Anabaptism, according to the *OED* , means "a second baptism, re-baptism", but the answer to this question says that Anabaptists only baptize once. Why were Anabaptists called Anabaptists, then?

Are Anabaptists ' re-baptisms really conditional baptisms? By "conditional baptism" I mean one whose formula is something like: "If you are not baptized, I baptize thee… etc." In other words: Do Anabaptists really accept two valid baptisms per person, or are their re-baptisms conditional on whether the first one validly occurred or not? If so, does this tradition continue among any of the traditions descended from Anabaptist roots?

I know that Switzerland and southern Germany was the birthplace of anabaptism, did it come from Ulrich Zwingli? Or was there another more influential person out of the reformation that encouraged anabaptism? Modern anabaptist churches (to my knowledge) are all descendents of German Brethren churches. Where would that put Switzerland?

[John Smyth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smyth_(Baptist_minister)) , according to Bruce Shelley ([*CHPL*, 308](https://books.google.com/books?id=RbfVAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA308)) and Wikipedia, was the first of the English Baptists. An Anglican priest, he came to the conclusion that infant baptism was invalid and started a small Baptist congregation in 1609. However, this group was not the first to come to this conclusion; the [Anabaptists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptists) had been "rebaptizing" adults since at least the 1520s. And it appears that John Smyth was a "general," not "particular," Baptist, meaning his theology did not closely align with that of Reformed theology – another similarity with Anabaptism. So, my question is: **was John Smyth's view of baptism influenced by the Anabaptist movement?** That is: - Do we have any evidence from the writings of Smyth or his close associates that indicate that he had read and agreed with any Anabaptist writings prior to 1609? - What is the scholarly consensus on the source of Smyth's views? Was Anabaptism a factor? Or was his shift in views on paedobaptism truly a result of independent Bible study?