July 8, 2019 Show with Dr. Michael Haykin on “Baptists & Persecution: A Historical, Ecclesiological & Theological Study”

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Chris Arnzen Good afternoon

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Earth We're listening via live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio .com. This is

Chris Arnzen your host of iron sharpens iron radio Wishing you all a happy Monday on this 8th day of July 2019 and I'm thrilled to have back on the program one of my favorite guests to interview.

Dr. Michael a G Haken professor of church history and biblical spirituality and director of the

Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky today we are going to be addressing the theme

Baptists and persecution a Historical ecclesiological and theological study and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to iron sharpens iron radio.

Dr. Michael a G Haken Thank you. And For anybody who would like to join us on the air with a question

Our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

and although you've already done this during your past interviews there may be First time guests who believe it or not.

They might not be familiar with you. Dr. Haken So we have not only new

Christians who listen to this show in addition to our seasoned Bible -believing Christians, but we also even have those outside of the

Christian faith on occasion who let us know they're listening such as atheists agnostics

We have Muslims on occasion who chime in we have those outside of Protestantism known as Roman Catholics that occasionally listen all kinds of folks so if you could tell us about Your post they're

Teaching church history and biblical spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky Yes, I've been teaching since 2007 full -time at Southern was part -time or adjunct before that and It's a been a tremendous privilege to work with about 70 other

Men and a few women there on faculty The area

I teach in is church history. There are three other brothers alongside me and most of my

Focus is early church and 18th century what we call

British descent which would be those churches outside of the State Church Church of England in the 18th century in England, which would include the area that I really kind of focus on which is the

Baptist, um I've been Privileged also to be the director of the

Andrew Fuller Center there and Apollo was a very important theologian who? the kind of instrument theological instrument behind William Carey and We host a conference every year

Upcoming next year We actually won't have one this year, but next year will be 2020 will be doing one on angels theology of angels

Wow. Yeah, and That's interesting. I'm going to be I don't know the date yet.

I'm gonna be interviewing Dustin binge on his doctoral dissertation Jonathan Edwards Theology of angels or angel of the angel all the angel ology of Jonathan Edwards.

Yeah Yeah, he did his thesis under my supervision. He'll be one of the speakers on that occasion.

Oh, wow I didn't even know that. Okay, so we've got some we've got a great lineup people speaking on Augustine Calvin Luther Spurgeon It's an area that we really kind of have neglected but earlier generations were more

Tuned into the biblical data. So it's been a great privilege to be there Love the students we get

It's been a tremendous privilege to Train men going into pastoral ministry

We graduate pretty well every year somewhere around a thousand students Which is huge So if any of my listeners are

Thinking about the school do pray for us. We have a weighty weighty charge to be faithful to the gospel

It's been handed on to us Praise God. I'm gonna try to make it out there to that conference.

By the way, that's in Louisville, Kentucky That'll be in September mid -september 2020 great.

Well, I will that's a subject that definitely fascinates me. In fact, I wrote the forward to a book that was published in the 1990s called angels and demons by Victor Knowles someone who is outside of my reformed beliefs, but he

I thought the book was excellent and he wrote he asked me to He asked for permission to use a letter

I wrote him congratulating him on the excellence of the book to use it as a forward and it was used as the forward and Unfortunately, I think it's out of print, but you could still get used copies on Amazon well

This is a fascinating subject to me Baptist and persecution I don't think

I've ever spent a full two -hour broadcast specifically on this subject and if you could tell us something about the differences between Anabaptists and Baptists to start with because I know that a lot of Baptists especially many of our fundamentalist

Baptist friends like to adopt the Anabaptists as being Exactly as they are

And I know that the the Anabaptists varied widely actually and some of them did not even immerse

Believers they used pouring or effusion and there were theological differences that differed widely but if you could tell us a bit about that because I think that is important to bring up when we speak about Baptists and Persecution because obviously

Anabaptists were very severely persecuted people Yes The Anabaptists emerged really in the 16th century.

They're part of the larger picture that we call the Reformation they Heeded Martin Luther's call to go back to Scripture and as they

Read the Scriptures the New Testament. They realized a number of things were awry not only with the

Roman Catholic Church, but also awry with the refer the Reformers the the Magisterial Reformers that we call them who worked with the state to bring about Reformation of the church and The critical thing they realized is that in the

New Testament what you have is a Really a separation of church and state that the church is not using the state to Pursue its

Heaven -given mandate to evangelize the nation's The state is not kind of an arm of the church this gives me to enforce orthodoxy and In fact that the church is to be made up of believers.

It's a believer's church and Once they realized this it created all kinds of problems for them because they refused to Include in their congregations men and women who could not confess faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior who had no no experience of conversion and And because of the the state churches

Be they Catholic or Protestant regarded the church and state as kind of a as a married union

The Anabaptists were seen as revolutionaries because they were by refusing to enroll Men and women they did not regard as believers in their churches.

They were basically undermining not only the the Concept of Christendom which had diverged in the medieval period but also they were undermining the state because to become a

Christian in the medieval period and also for Protestants like Luther to become a

Christian to be Baptized as a child was to enter the church and to become a citizen of the state

So the Anabaptists then emerged in the 16th century heeding the call for believers churches

Heavily persecuted we're looking at probably tens of thousands martyred Most of a lot of them by Roman Catholics, but sadly some also by Protestants and There were very few of them in England for whatever reasons and So the argument that there is an organic link between the

Baptists who emerge who very clearly emerged in the English -speaking context In the 17th century and the

Anabaptist is a tenuous one most scholars recognize that the Emergence of the pure of the

Baptists in England they came out of puritanism Which was a renewal movement within the

Church of England? within the state church seeking to make The Reformation a thoroughgoing

Reformation and some of these Puritans began began to read the scriptures and came to the conviction that the idea of a state church is unbiblical and Began to separate themselves into independent congregations and some of those independent congregations rediscovered believers baptism

So there are similarities similarities be in the emphasis on believers churches, but the ethos and origins are very different and Continental Anabaptist generally speaking

We're not committed to the Lord's Day as the Sabbath That is part of the

Puritan world and it was transmitted to their Baptist heirs The Continental Anabaptists were completely committed to pacifism and Believed that taking any oath of allegiance to the state and in fact serving as an officer of the state in any capacity

Was was all biblical and sinful the Baptist never adopt those positions

And so it's very difficult in my mind to argue that the the Baptists emerged out of the

Anabaptist movement However, there are similarities and both of them suffered significant persecution in their different realms now you say that the

Anabaptists emerged from the 16th century, what would you make then of the the

The Anabaptists that even if they did not have that nickname or Or Insult as some may have received it

Anabaptists were there not those that believed in the Independence and autonomy of the church and believed in believers only baptism that existed prior to the 16th century prior to Menno Simons and so on To be honest, it's very

You'd have to go back to the very early church. You'd have to go back to the third century fourth century

I mean you have various groups in the medieval period who are opposed to the Roman Catholic State Church the world engines, for example

So following Pierre Valdez in the 1200s the Lollards following John Wycliffe There is no indication on either of those groups that they were committed to believers baptism.

Oh That's interesting None Of the many we we rightly prized

John Wycliffe as the Morning Star of the Reformation Because of his emphasis on sola scriptura But there's no indication the

Lollards only practiced In the believers baptism now you and I being

Baptists ourselves And we believe that that is the biblical

Ecclesiology and the biblical understanding of the ordinances that the church is comprised of autonomous

Independent congregations that have no hierarchy outside themselves outside of the elders other than the

Lord Jesus and his word and also a view of believer only baptism as I mentioned

Wouldn't there have been? Those that were baptistic Even For a while after the the apostolic error

I mean were they completely wiped out or you know, what was the situation like that? Like for instance,

I understand From church history and you could correct me if I'm wrong since you're the historian I recall reading that the first time we ever seen recorded history

Infant baptism being mentioned Tertullian mentions it but he mentions it With criticism against it.

He was opposed to it. And of course the earliest extra biblical

Document that we have for Christian teaching and practice. The DDK doesn't mention infant baptism at all

In fact, it is clear that it is teaching immersion In fact try unimmersion, but if you could where did the

Baptists go? Were they just being persecuted into hiding did they disappear for a while? Um, yeah, you find a basically up until the fourth century

Even after Constantine for about a hundred years. The the dominant mode of baptism is believers baptism by immersion and You see that for instance in the fourth century

Basil of Caesarea grew up in a third -generation Christian home. He's not baptized as a believer

Gregory and Asiandis is the same Augustine is the same

But emerging at the end of the second century there is infant baptism Tertullian writes against it

Cyprian in the mid third century defends it and by the early fifth century

Augustine is arguing that Infant baptism solves a very tricky pastoral problem, which is what happens to infants who died before The any sort of age of accountability

Which is a major problem in the ancient world with the high incidence of infant death and what you tell parents about whether Christian parents where their child is and infant baptism for Augustine becomes a vehicle for removal of original sin and So that becomes the dominant thinking through the

Middle Ages especially in the West but up until the fourth century you still have

Baptism by immersion what is lost by the probably the early third century is congregationalism and The whole idea of the congregation being an independent body

That elects its own officers, etc. That is that is under attack and the emergence of an

Episcopal model Is is happening in the third in the early third late second century but baptism of baptismal immersion of believers is still them is still the dominant mode and Subject the subject believers well into the well into the fourth century

Interesting I in fact, I think this is the very first time I heard that Augustine at one time was a credo

Baptist I did not know that He would have he would have been Well, he was baptized as a believer

His mother wanted to baptize him now the question is whether The as a child whether or not her husband prevented her who was not a believer

So I'm not young I would affirm that somebody like our Basil of Caesarea Definitely is a credo

Baptist. He he was baptized as a believer And it's interesting that his parents who are very strong believers

Their parents in turn were persecuted They didn't baptize him as an infant and just for the sake of our listeners who are unfamiliar with the term credo

Baptist, that's a Person who believes only in baptism for those who can confess

Their repentance and faith their their creed if you will am I right on that? Yes Yeah, so a lot of people may be unfamiliar with that term.

And of course when we refer to Ancient Christians as being credo Baptist.

We're not saying that they were identical necessarily to the first Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky or any any

Baptist Church that we have in America and in Europe and in other parts of the world today

Although obviously there would have to be some similarities if we believe that's that our faith is a biblical one

But I know that the immediately people may start to be mocking and ridiculing me as if I am teaching that there has been an unbroken chain of Baptists that are identical today to the

Baptist today, but as far as Before I even go into a broader picture of the persecution of Baptists Can you tell us something about a book that I am dying to get my hands on is it's a new book to me

I'm not even sure when you co -authored this but waiting on the spirit of promise the life and theology of Suffering of Abraham cheer if you could let us know about that because I know that cheer had some similarities with bunion

John bunion in that the Romans 828 Promise that the

Lord has given us was true for bunion and for cheer in that while they were persecuted and imprisoned

The Lord used that to the great praise and honor and glory of his name because both those men produced

Voluminous writings in prison Yeah, I'm sure was a pastor either.

He's a contemporary of a bunion. He's probably born in the 1620s Went through the

Civil War with bunion Bunion served very briefly in one of Cromwell's new model

One of the regiments of Cromwell's all of a Cromwell's new model army Cheer might have had some role to play in the siege of Plymouth by troops loyal to the king

But he really didn't play a prominent role in the army at some point converted in the early late 1640s

Roughly, you know pretty well the same time as bunion Becomes a pastor in Plymouth one charge

And then is arrested around the same time as bunion in the 1660 and Will spend three different arrests three different imprisonments unlike bunion.

He'll die in prison Wow He's a very significant figure because he provides a written record of his experience of imprisonment a

Number of the Baptist ministers who were imprisoned. We we really just know that they were imprisoned like Andrew Gifford Senior, but we don't have a written record of what that meant for them

But we do for cheer and cheer as you mentioned produced a large number of writings while he was in prison for his congregation and for others and because bunion is is just a just a remarkable author

He's the one figure we remember but there were others like cheer who deserve to be remembered

So a number of years ago I had discovered cheer one of my students who was going on for PhD studies in England wanted to do a thesis in his

Would have been a THM I think or maybe an MDiv thesis and I thought why don't we work on Abraham chair?

So the result of that work together over a year was the book That was published by Wipf and stock that you mentioned.

I thought I assume you're speaking of Brian L. Hanson. I Am and Brian's now teaching at Bethlehem Baptist Seminary where John Piper school

Wow Well, perhaps we could get Brian on the show sometime. Yep. Yeah, he'd be great so going back to the theme for today

Baptists and persecution a historical ecclesiological and theological study

Tell us why initially and when? Baptists were being persecuted

Was it more because of their rejection of infant baptism or because of their view of an

Independent autonomous church and who was persecuting them initially. How did this begin in your understanding of church history?

Yeah, Baptist emerges. I mentioned earlier in the 17th century the first Baptists are

Come out of a movement called the separatists the separatists were Puritans Who left the

Church of England they came to the realization the Church of England was Not a true biblical church in the way that the

New Testament churches were set up. That is independent of the state independent congregation and they were heavily persecuted in the late 1500s by Elizabeth the first and Then by James the first who are the

King Queen and King of England respectively and a group of these

Baptists group of these separatists rather went to Holland and it was there in Holland that the leader John Smith Came to the discovery of believers baptism he

Stayed in Holland, but a group of them went back to England under the leadership of a man named Thomas Helwes Helwes And Thomas Helwes was a man of substance.

He was landed gentry so he wasn't aristocracy, but he was well -off and He had connections with the

Royal Court of James the first and so he when he got back to England. He wrote a book pleading for religious liberty and Argued that the state had no right to persecute any man for his religious convictions

If that man was seeking as well to be a good citizen of the state not trying to overthrow the state he should be allowed to worship

God as he saw fit and He actually sent the book to James the first in the press in the front page of the book he wrote a personal letter to the king and That book still exists, it's in the

British Library It's a tremendous letter. It's one of the earliest documents we have in the modern period for all pleading for religious liberty

Which is a which is actually foundational to all the freedoms. We enjoy today, and that's why this issue is very significant

That that book was probably alerted authorities to the presence of this

Baptist corrugation in London Helwes was subsequently arrested and probably died in prison 1615 1616 in the

Tower of London Wow one of the reasons another one of the reasons that this

Theme is fascinating to me. Is that I discovered in my 30s

I believe Through my uncle my Anglican uncle that my family the

Arnzins Immigrated from Norway in the 19th century.

This is maybe my father's father's side of the family my paternal grandfather's side of the family and they left

Scandinavia in the 19th century because at the time the Lutheran Church state or state church.

I should say the Lutheran state church Was persecuting Baptists and and others all others outside of Lutheranism for conducting

Baptisms in the Lord's Supper particularly without a Lutheran ministers license and although they were not being physically

Tormented tortured and murdered they were being fined and imprisoned and there was I'm assuming you're aware of the massive exodus from Scandinavia in the 19th century and my ancestors were

Baptists On my father's side all the way up to my father's father and I was raised

Roman Catholic Had no idea about this because my father my father was

Episcopalian and he married my mother who was Roman Catholic and my father later converted to Catholicism when

I was about 17 He thought it would bring the family closer together and he also erroneously thought in his mind that the

Catholic Church was first So therefore go in his mind.

He was returning to the root of Christianity, which obviously is a falsehood, but He I did not even know his father was a

Baptist and I did not know all of the Arnzen's prior to him that we have in recorded history were

Baptists at least in the past and The BAP the Arnzen's who settled in Virginia are still predominantly

Baptist So this was all a new thing to me. And obviously the subject is more precious to me

Wow yeah, I mean the those church those

Believers were what we call free churches and in the kind of salvage congregations in Scandinavia particularly

Sweden and Norway independent of the state and Suffered significant Discrimination by state authorities because of their convictions.

Wow, that's a great heritage Yeah, amen, and I can remember my father not being so pleased when I said hey dad

I think we should all return to our roots Because I was a Baptist already at the time.

So the story was even more significant for me being a Baptist but We are going to our first break right now

If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for dr Michael AG Hagen on Baptists and persecution our email address is

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Of course, you can ask any question relative to the martyrs and Christian theology we do have a

Scholar and theologian and historian on our show today. So we will accept a bit broader of a theme but the main

Questions we're hoping to get are involving Baptists our history in our persecution and The email address is

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris a RN z en a gmail .com and as always, please give us at least your first name

Your city and state of residence in your country of residence If you live outside the USA only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away

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We are now back with our two -hour interview, with about 90 minutes or less to go, with Dr. Michael A .G.

Haken, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality and Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. We are discussing Baptists and Persecution, a

Historical, Ecclesiological, and Theological Study. Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

We have Mary in Cork, Ireland, who has a question for you, Dr. Haken. I have read your book on the

Baptist story when I attended the Munster Bible College in Cork, Ireland. I did not have the privilege of meeting you, but nonetheless,

I read this book. Thank you very much for enlightening me about all that went on in the past regarding Christianity and their persecution.

May I ask you a question, please? What are your thoughts on Munster in Germany in 1534?

A fanatical group of Anabaptists seized the town of Munster in Germany by force believing they were setting up the

Kingdom of God. I did not pronounce that correctly. In Germany, by force, believing they were setting up the

Kingdom of God. A theocracy was formed. They introduced laws such as execution of adulterers, legalization of polygamy, and the abolition of private property.

The town was overtaken by the Catholic Army in 1535. They severely damaged the reputation of the

Anabaptists. If you could please address that for Mary in Cork, Ireland, Dr. Haken. Yeah, this sort of thing often happens in periods of church renewal where there are extremists who emerge.

And we would, you know, the word fanatic is probably an appropriate word in this case, where you have a group of people who claim to be

Anabaptists, they only baptized adults, but used a variety of methods which are at odds with the scriptures in the

New Testament in furthering the kingdom. The use of violence, execution, setting up a theocracy, all of those things really undermine any

New Testament understanding of the nature of the church, the relationship of church and state.

But as I said, that sort of thing often happens in periods of revival and renewal.

The Reformation is a revival period. The Anabaptists, I think, did rediscover believers' churches.

But this particular group gave the term Anabaptist, made it a term of reproach.

And it became to be associated with revolution, a rebellion, a riot.

Even somebody like John Wesley, 200 years after this, uses the term Anabaptist to describe

Baptists he met in England, knowing full well what the implications of that term were, and how that term was distasteful to Baptists, and how it had been used to basically simply write off Baptists without engaging their arguments.

Often it's very easy to take something like this, an extremist view, and simply write off what is,

I think, a biblical understanding of the relationship of church and state. We have it today with, you know, you get certain health and wealth groups who are a complete aberration of biblical

Christianity, and the media use these to typify all evangelicals.

And it's simply wrong. But it's frequently done, and often in terms of times of renewal, you have these extremists.

And unfortunately, the beliefs and actions of these Munsterites, as I believe they were nicknamed, really brought upon the persecution of a lot of other

Anabaptists who had nothing to do with these extreme and bizarre ideas and behaviors, am I right? Yes, exactly.

And I think Luther, although he did not personally persecute any Anabaptists, he forbid them free passage,

I believe, or safe passage. What is the story about that? Because a lot of people,

I'm not trying to candy coat the life and thinking of Martin Luther, but I think sometimes his involvement in persecution is exaggerated, if not outright false.

But if you could tell us what you know about... Luther himself did not engage in actual persecution of Anabaptists.

He encountered some Anabaptists in Saxony. Again, these were on the, if you could use left wing, right wing, these were on the far left wing of Anabaptism.

They're known as the Zwickau Prophets. They claimed they didn't need scripture anymore, they had the

Holy Spirit. There's no indication Luther had these people arrested, but he did certainly try to prevent them from preaching their theological aberrations.

So, now Luther would have been in favor of the execution of some of these people, because they were, in his mind, they were undermining the state.

But there is no indication that Luther himself was involved in the persecution of Anabaptists, per se.

Well, do you know anything about that incident, or incidents plural, where he forbid

Anabaptists safe passage through the areas he had influenced, which resulted in their persecution?

No, I don't. That sounds like something that would take place in the late 1520s, early 1530s, when

Anabaptists were beginning to be persecuted in places like Holland and southern

Germany, and were beginning to migrate. A lot of them ended up migrating over towards Poland and the

Ukraine and Russia. And so it could be the case that what you're referring to is incidents that relate to that.

But I'm not personally aware of those. That simply indicates a lack of my acquaintance with the later

Luther. Most of my Luther studies have been the early Luther up until around 1525, his marriage.

Now, as far as the fanatics amongst the Anabaptists in Munster, did their more extreme ideas of polygamy and executing even disobedient children and things like that, did that die off with them, or were there some remnants?

No, not completely. It was an isolated incident, but it became such a celebrated incident that the memory of it persisted for decades, even for, you know, centuries.

And as I said, when John Wesley uses the term as a term of reproach, he knows exactly the connotations and associations the term has of it.

Even the use of the term the color red in the 1950s is kind of illustrative.

To be called a red was to be immediately labeled as a communist. And that's the sort of thing that's going on there.

But the actual errors that were propagated at Munster die out with them.

Okay, yeah, that's what I was mainly asking about. We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, one of our regular listeners and also a very generous supporter of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

And Grady says, Hi, Brother Chris, another great show. Growing up Southern Baptist and now as a

Reformed Baptist, I often heard about Baptist persecution. Much to my regret, I've never investigated the history.

I'm really shocked hearing that the Lutheran and Church of England, which I assume was Anglican, was one of the persecutors.

I had assumed the persecution came from the Roman Catholic Church. What other groups persecuted the

Baptists and when did persecution in Europe end so that we, through the providence of God, had great

Baptist preachers like Spurgeon? And that's Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. Yeah, persecution essentially in Great Britain ended with what's called the

Glorious Revolution, which is the establishment of William of Orange as the King of England in 1688.

That's essentially when it legally ended. But there's ongoing attacks, physical attacks, on Baptist ministers all through the 18th century.

And in America you have places like Virginia, where the

Church of England was established, seeking to prevent both Presbyterians and Baptists during the

Great Awakening. The imprisonment of Baptists in the early 1700s. In New England, you have physical incarceration and, in a few cases, actual brutal whipping.

Obadiah Holmes is whipped in Boston, on Boston Common, in 1656, 1657.

And so that persecution, though, by the time you enter into the mid -18th century, by the time you get to the late 18th century, technically it has ended.

But there's still ongoing cases of violence against Baptists well into the 18th century.

And, as I said earlier, the establishment of religious freedom is very, very important.

And it's not something to be taken, I think, lightly or for granted.

And the sorts of things, the reason why I think this topic is of significance for us is that the current intellectual political climate is increasingly one of intolerance towards Evangelical Christianity.

And we need to have some idea as to how our forebears handled that, both spiritually and politically and legally.

Amen. We are going to our midway break right now. This is a longer than normal break because our friends at Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, who broadcast this program twice daily in a pre -recorded format, they require this midway break to localize

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Gotta tell you, for my money, Chris Arnzen's radio program is just the best.

Iron. Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV, with Phil Johnson of Grace To You, inviting everybody to come to the

G3 conference, which has almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the country. And it is.

It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnzen was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place, which is a highlight for me.

So tons of stuff going on. Tons of great speakers. And no matter where you are in the building, you will hear Chris Arnzen's laugh.

And that's worth the price of admission alone. If you would like to join Phil, me, Chris, and a cavalcade of great preachers, so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers, and me, g3conference .com.

G3conference .com. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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Church, and to Christ. That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com.

That's CVBBS .com. Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And they still have two excellent offers, two giveaways that they are offering to you if you purchase books from CVBBS .com

or anything else that they offer, CDs and DVDs, etc. First, if you purchase any amount of merchandise, it doesn't matter how inexpensive it is, you will receive, if you request it, the free book,

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And you'll get that for free with any purchase as long as you put in the comments section of CVBBS .com

that you want the book. The other book that is absolutely free requires a purchase of a minimum of $50 or more.

It's a much larger book, and it happens to be my favorite of all biographies.

It is called A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn by my friend

John Thornberry, a well -known Baptist historian. This book should be turned into a major motion picture, as I keep telling you.

The life of Spencer Cohn is utterly fascinating, and it's such a tragedy that he is hardly known by anyone today.

Spencer Cohn was not only a school teacher, but he was also an attorney and a theater actor, a stage actor in the 19th century, who left that profession because he believed it was sinful.

And I'm sure that there was quite a good reason for that. And he was a war hero in the

War of 1812, and then he was a Baptist pastor in Manhattan at the

First Baptist Church of New York City, where a mutual friend of my guest, Dr. Hagen, and mine, Dr.

Tony Costa, spoke at an Iron Trip and Zion Radio event back in 2018 at the

First Baptist Church of New York City, a historic church that still stands there. The response that Pastor Cohn had after the death of his wife, the grief that he went through, is truly a moving part of the book, something that resonates with me, having lost my own wife and being a widower myself.

I just highly recommend this book. It's yours for free if you purchase $50 or more, if you go to cvbbs .com,

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If you're ordering online, you have to add the book into your cart. And then, after adding $50 worth of additional merchandise, enter the coupon code

IRONSHARPENSIREN, all capital letters, all one word, and the price of A Pastor in New York, Life and Times, and Spencer Cohn by John Thornberry will be deducted from the total.

It might be a lot easier, in fact, it would be a lot easier, if you just verbally told them this by calling 800 -656 -0231.

800 -656 -0231. And get either the book, True Love, with a purchase of any amount, the book by James M.

Renahan, or get both of them by purchasing more than $50 worth of merchandise and also mention

A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn by John Thornberry, another beautiful hardback by EP Books, which is

Evangelical Press. And now we have to let you know about some excellent events that are coming up that I hope that you join me in attending.

I will be packing up my bags in December and heading back to my old stomping grounds in Manhattan. And what better time to do this than the

Christmas season? On Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th, I will be attending, God willing, the

Foundations Conference, a conference sponsored and hosted by Sermon Audio in the heart of New York City.

And this is going to be an extraordinary conference, as it always is. The lineup is spectacular.

The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer, Rev. Jeff Thomas, my friend

Armin Tamasian, who is going to be, I believe, a household name amongst Reformed Christians over the next decade because he is such an extraordinary preacher with gifts and abilities and power far beyond his youth.

And Rev. Richard Colwell Jr. and Andrew Quigley are both also in the lineup.

I have not yet heard them preach, but if Sermon Audio selected them for this conference, I'm sure they are superb.

If you want to join me in New York City at the Foundations Conference, Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th, go to thefoundationsconference .com.

Thefoundationsconference .com. A friend of mine was making fun of me by the way I emphasize the word the in that website, and I do so because a lot of people, including me, accidentally leave the word the off of URLs.

So I was doing that actually myself until I realized I was leaving the the off, but it's thefoundationsconference .com.

Thefoundationsconference .com. I hope to see you in December in New York City at the Foundations Conference.

Then in January from the 16th to the 18th, that's Thursday through Saturday, January 16th through the 18th,

I'm packing up my bags again and heading down to Atlanta, Georgia, as you've been hearing Todd Friel and Phil Johnson raving about the

G3 Conference. I will be there with Todd and Phil at one of the most phenomenal conferences anywhere in the world.

This is the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace and Glory, and it's held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, a suburb of Atlanta.

This January, the theme is Worship Matters. I just heard,

I believe it was yesterday, that the roster of speakers has expanded and now includes

Dr. John MacArthur of Grace to You Ministries and Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California, one of my favorite or one of my most beloved heroes, modern -day heroes of the

Christian faith, Dr. John MacArthur will be speaking. And in addition to Dr.

MacArthur, Todd Friel will be speaking of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Phil Johnson, who is also with Grace to You Ministries, the executive director, my friend

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who I have called my friend since 1995. We have

Kosti Hinn, the Reformed Baptist and cessationist nephew of the notorious charlatan

Benny Hinn. And Kosti is not upset by me publicly saying that because he spends a lot of his time exposing his own uncle and the cohorts involved in the

Word of Faith heresy, exposing them for teaching the damning and deadly doctrines that they do teach.

So Kosti Hinn will be a part of this lineup. David Miller, who is a really extraordinary preacher, old -school fire and brimstone teacher, really loved this brother's teaching.

Darrell Bernard Harrison is on the lineup. Derek Thomas, a name very well known to most

Reformed Christians. My friend Dr. Joel Beakey, who I've known since the 1990s and called my friend.

I was one of the first people to get Dr. Beakey on the radio, actually. He is president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Once again, we have Paul Washer and Dr. Stephen J. Lawson on the lineup at this conference.

Reverend Stephen Nichols, Dr. Stephen Nichols, who is the president of the

Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. Dr.

Tom Askell, executive director of Founders Ministries, the Calvinistic ministry within the

Southern Baptist Convention. Virgil Walker, another fine preacher of the gospel.

Vody Baucom, another powerful, powerful speaker, a much needed voice in the 21st century for sure, and many more.

If you want to join me at the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

It's Thursday, January 16th, through Saturday, January 18th. I also strongly urge you, if you have a business or parachurch organization, to register for an exhibitor's booth while there is still room, because there is going to be over 5 ,000 people there.

With the addition of Dr. John MacArthur at this conference, I have a feeling they're going to have well over 6 ,000 people there.

So I would register before you run out of room, not only to sit there, but also to register before they run out of room for an exhibitor's booth, if it applies for you.

I will be manning my own exhibitor's booth there. So go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

and join me Thursday, January 16th, through Saturday, January 18th at the Georgia International Convention Center, College Park, Georgia.

Last but not least, if you love Iron Trip and Zion Radio, you don't want us to disappear from the airwaves.

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Click to Donate Now. And if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, and you are not prayerfully looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God.

So, if you need help finding a local Bible -believing church, wherever in the world you live, I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the globe, and I can help you find a church, and if I can't personally help you, perhaps a church on these lists, a pastor on these lists, can help you find a church near you, or where you are vacationing.

So, please send me an email if you are in need of a church. Put, I need a church, or something like that in the subject line, and send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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And also, that is the email address where you can send in a question for Dr. Michael A .G. Haken on Baptists and Persecution.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And, Dr.

Haken, who primarily, we touched on this earlier, who are the worst culprits, the worst guilty parties in the persecution of Baptists throughout history?

Well, it's probably the Anglicans. The Anglicans? Yeah, probably.

Because Baptists emerged in the 17th century in England. They have congregations by the 1660s in Ireland and Wales, one in Scotland, and, but it's between 1660 and 1688, it was illegal in England and Wales to be, to worship in any other context than Anglican context.

And so Baptist ministers, pretty well every Baptist minister in this period, and we're looking at probably about 150 congregations in England and Wales, pretty well every

Baptist minister and elder was imprisoned. The only one that we know that escaped was

William Kiffin, because he was enormously wealthy and was useful for the crown.

But pretty well every other Baptist minister went through persecution. And then with 1688, with the

Glorious Revolution, and King William III becoming the king of England, he passed an act of toleration which legally granted

Baptists who registered their churches with the state freedom of religion.

However, they could no longer, they couldn't preach outdoors. They couldn't graduate from Oxford or Cambridge.

They couldn't hold political office. They couldn't become a commissioned officer in the army or navy.

And all of those laws persisted until the mid -19th century. And so to be a

Baptist for the entire 18th century was to be a second -class citizen in England.

In America, you have persecution in New England, and there it's the standing order of the

Congregationalist churches who are at fault. And then also in some of the southern states like Virginia.

The persecution doesn't go on as long, but there is nonetheless discrimination. So for instance, when

Adam Nyrum and Anne Judson become convinced Baptists by reading the scriptures on the voyage over to India in 1812, and they are baptized as believers by William Ward, who is

William Carey's co -worker, they write back to friends in America saying that they are confident that this act has cut them off from all of their friends and relatives.

Which it did. For many of them, it did. But if you were to put everything together in terms of the 19th and 18th century, it would be

Anglicans. Now once you move into the 20th century, you've got a very different picture. Baptist churches were heavily persecuted in the

Soviet Union. Baptists, I remember very clearly, the people like Georgi Vins and the very courageous stand that many of these men and women took.

China, obviously, under the Maoist regime. Nazi Germany. But up until the 20th century, it definitely would have been the

Anglican church. Yes, the rivers, or the streets,

I should say, ran red with rivers of blood due to the Anglican church.

And of course, they were constantly, throughout their history, swinging back and forth on a pendulum between Romanism and Protestantism.

And it is a tragedy that they have the blood on their hands. Of course, not all of them.

There are many fine Anglican heroes of the faith. One of my most highly cherished heroes of the faith is

Thomas Cramner, himself a martyr at the hands of Rome, or the

Roman Catholic Church of England, when it swung back to that direction. And so it is quite a tragedy that even

Protestants were guilty of this. But let me ask you a question. From what

I understand of church history, even though, especially amongst Anglicans, Protestants have been guilty of murdering and persecuting fellow

Protestants, and at times Roman Catholics. But I have heard from Roman Catholic apologists that the murdering and violent persecution amongst others who call themselves

Christians was basically a neck -and -neck race with the Church of Rome. But is that really true?

Are Protestants as guilty historically for this severest of persecutions?

No. No, I don't think so. I think that, again, it is difficult. How do you add up statistics?

How do you get accurate statistics? But I think up until the 20th century, the

Roman Church tended to be hand -in -glove with various states that it was linked with,

Spain, France, and the persecution was brutal. I mean, there's nothing in Protestant history to match the

St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when somewhere between 25 and maybe as much as 50 ,000

Protestants were killed within the space of two or three weeks. Wow. In France.

Wow. And then the century of persecution that takes place with the

Huguenots that led to really hundreds of martyrs and tens of thousands.

We're looking at somewhere close to half a million French Protestants fleeing the country between 1630 and 1685.

Now, the Huguenots, weren't they Calvinistic in their theology? Oh, yeah. Very much so. And were they

Baptistic or Paedo -Baptist? They would have been Paedo -Baptist. There were really no

French Baptists until what we call the second, the revival that takes place in 1815 -1816 with men like Henri Piet, who was converted in Geneva around 1816 -1817.

By the way, before I forget, during one of my conversations before the show with Mostyn Roberts, he wanted me to extend my greetings to you.

Good. And his gratitude to you for being one of the endorsers of the subversive

Puritan Roger Williams and freedom of conscience. I think that's a very appropriate book to bring up in light of our conversation today since Roger Williams dedicated a lot of his life to preserving freedom of religion.

As I said, I think this is a very important topic. I think the sort of world that we face increasingly is one of intolerance for evangelical

Christianity, but not only intolerance in that area, but it affects every area of life.

And I think we're moving into a world of increasing, unless the Lord brings revival, of increasing state control of church life.

And I think the 17th and 18th century English Baptist experience and New England Baptist experience

I think is very helpful. I don't think that we're going to go back to the sort of thing that we see in Rome with massive amounts of martyrs or the sort of thing that we see, what

I just mentioned, the 17th century in Huguenot, France, or what we see today necessarily in China, say during the

Maoist regime. But I do think it's not impossible that pastors will be imprisoned for the sake of the gospel, not for believing in the deity of our

Lord Jesus Christ, but for issues like gender issues, sexuality, etc.,

etc. That strikes me as plausible in a way that would not have struck me as plausible 30 years ago.

In fact, there's a listener who has a question connected to that very thing.

We have John in Bangor, Maine, who asks, I know your guest is a native

Canadian, and I was wondering what his thoughts were on the persecution of Christians in Canada, of course not violent persecution, but persecution via fines and possible imprisonment.

Yeah, I think some of that is exaggerated. I'm not saying it hasn't happened. We have had a number of court cases.

There was a person who ran a photocopy shop who was taken to court for refusal to print a homosexual manual of some nature.

He had previously served these individuals, had no problems in serving them, but when they brought in something that was pornographic literature, he refused.

And he was taken to court. He lost that case and was fined. And I think there have been one or two other examples out in Western Canada.

Probably one of the most difficult cases is the refusal of the government of British Columbia to allow

Trinity Western University, a Christian university, to have a law program because they said the university which mandates that students not engage in sexual intimacy outside of marriage or homosexual activity, that that prevents them from producing fine lawyers.

And that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court supported the

British Columbia government, and that's disturbing. Yeah. That's very disturbing.

That parallels the sort of thing that happened in England during the 18th century when basically the state church prevented anybody who was an

Anglican from having access to any sort of political, educational, military power.

And that sort of move is very, very disturbing in my mind.

Yeah. Would you say that Canada has it worse off in regard to freedom of religion and speech than we do?

Or are we neck and neck? When I say we, I mean the United States. No, I don't think so. I think that probably we're running parallel.

But I do think that Canada, because basically Canada is a large version of New England in terms of percentage of evangelicals.

So percentage of evangelicals in Canada would be less than 10%. In Quebec, for example, it's probably 0 .5%.

And some of the moves recently in Quebec, they passed a law just very recently that you cannot, if you're an official of the state, be it a judge or a police officer, you cannot wear any religious symbol.

Wow. Amazing. Now, they're aiming that at Muslims, but it's broad.

And it gives you some idea. I mean, the most secularized area of Canada is definitely Quebec, and heavily secularized.

It used to be very solidly Catholic. And they had what was called the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, where the power of the

Roman Church was smashed. So I think what's going on in Canada is coming down the road for certain areas of the

United States, the West Coast, New England, those sorts of things.

There are parallels there. But all it would take,

I mean, technically we have a constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, but all it will take will be for, say, a gay person to listen to a pastor and claim that he is engaging in hate speech when he might read, say, 1

Corinthians 6, 9 -11 and take it to court. And then we'll see how much freedom of religion we actually do have.

Now, I have heard, maybe I heard wrongly, that pastors or churches have been fined merely for putting scripture quotes that condemn homosexuality on billboards and things like that.

No, I've not heard of it. I'm not completely up on everything that's obviously going on in Canada.

I've not heard anything like that. I think, given the fact that I work in Louisville, sometimes the news reporting on exactly what the situation is in Canada is probably a little exaggerated.

I get the impression that some people in the States think things are worse here than they actually are. You mean worse in Canada than they actually are.

Yeah, exactly. And I've not seen anything like that. But I think the sort of thing we do face is the sort of thing that's going on in England, where, for example, two young children, 10 and 11 years old, were expelled from a school in Scotland for refusing to participate in a gay pride event that the class was told that they all had to participate in.

Wow. They tried to tell the teacher, this is this 10 or 11 year old, that these things are not right, they're wrong.

And the two students were expelled from the school. Wow. I think we're going to face more of that sort of thing down the road.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. We have CJ in Lyndonhurst, Long Island, New York, who asked,

I should say, was a part of the reason that the Pato Baptist Magisterial Reformers persecuted

Anabaptists, that they were robbing the Magisterial Reformers as owning, if you will, those that were baptized into the church as infants and were therefore citizens and subjects of the state church from the moment of their births throughout their lives, whereas if you took the baptism out of the equation, you would have people who were not subjects to the church state.

Yeah, I'm not sure I fully understand the question.

If it's a question of economic issues, that these people are no longer then paying tithes to the state, that did continue.

The people who committed themselves to Anabaptist Congregations, as in England committed themselves to Baptist Congregations, still had to pay tithes to the state.

So, for instance, if you were a Baptist in England in the 17th century and 18th century, you had to financially support your own minister, and you also in your taxes were taxed to support the

Anglican minister. So this will be true in Germany with the state taxes, Lutherans, and so on.

Driving the Magisterial Reformers essentially is a theological idea.

They are fundamentally convinced that the state and the church are to work hand in hand, and their model is obviously a theocratic model drawn from the

Old Testament. And I don't think it's a matter of economics or even a matter of power.

I think it's a matter of genuinely believing that if the state did not enforce one religious viewpoint, then

God would judge the state. And I think it's a failure to understand the implications of the

New Testament, the discontinuities between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant.

Definitely the Old Covenant is a theocratic state, but the New Covenant is not. Because in God's covenant is with the people who are enrolled among the bride of his dear son, and they're not restricted by ethnicity or nationality.

And it's incomprehensible. You read, even with Calvin, it's very, they just can't comprehend the idea of religious diversity within a given geographical area.

We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who said, what was really at the root of the burning hatred that the

Magisterial Protestant Reformers had against Anabaptists? Well, as I said,

I think it's driven by theological ideas. I think that you've got a thousand years of a theocratic state church model, and they basically saw the

Anabaptists as heretics who, if they were allowed to stay within the body politic, would bring disease.

And you've got this model not only of a state church, but you've also got the model, which is used frequently in ancient writers, that the state is like a body, a human body.

And if disease enters the body and it's not controlled, if it's dangerous enough, it'll kill the body.

Likewise, heresy is a disease. It will destroy the body.

And so they feel that God has called them to be good shepherds.

You see this in the writings of Queen Elizabeth I. She was quite conscious that one day she would have to give an account to God not only for her own personal life, but because she was the head of the church in England, she would have to give an account how she had led the church.

And you can understand, I mean, the way that that would drive these individuals in terms of their desire to rid the state of what they regarded heretical elements.

I'm going to read you a question and then have you answer it when we return, because we have to go to our final break right now.

B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania asks, Were Baptists as a people ever guilty of persecuting their brothers and sisters in Christ over theological issues?

And we will have you answer that when we return from our break. And this will be your final opportunity to ask a question of Dr.

Hagen, if you have one. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Michael A .G. Hagen after these messages with more of our discussion on Baptists and persecution.

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Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. Welcome back.

And Dr. Haken, BB asked, did Baptists as a people ever persecute their brothers and sisters in Christ from other denominations and theological understandings?

Yeah, that's not an easy question to answer in some ways. Now, of course, we're not talking about like nut jobs and reprobates in the

Ku Klux Klan who persecuted others, but they weren't representing the Baptist faith.

If you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I think essentially the answer is no.

That doesn't mean that there haven't been situations where people who are committed Baptists went against really their basic principles.

And I'm not trying to paint Baptists as infallible.

I'm not sure how I want to describe that. I am a Baptist, obviously, and I'm not saying that we haven't had problems.

We have significant problems. But persecution of others has not been one of them.

I could be wrong, and I'd be happy to be corrected. Generally speaking, apart from Southern Baptists, Baptists have never been thick enough on the ground in any given situation to have had significant access to political power.

The only example that comes to mind is between 1850 and 1910 in England when

Baptists along with Methodists and Congregationalists realized that they were the overwhelming majority of churchgoers, and they basically had a significant political force, contrary to where they had been in the previous 200 years.

But there is no persecution per se that is going on of non -Baptists.

They were very much committed to genuine religious liberty. That's a mainstay of their lives.

I mean, there may be local situations in Southern context where Southern Baptist leadership in a town might have had significant influence and been discriminatory against others.

I don't deny that. But in terms of a large scale, the sort of things

I've been talking about, no. Right, and even in those rare circumstances where you believe

Southern Baptists or Baptists in the Southern United States may have been involved in less than Christian practice with their neighbors, it really wasn't a representation.

They weren't representing Baptist ecclesiology and theology when doing it. They were probably just Baptists, weren't they?

I mean, it was just accidental that they were Baptists.

It wasn't really the driving force. Exactly. I mean, at the heart of the Baptist vision is this emphasis on the freedom of people to embrace the gospel and the necessity of congregations to be independent of state control.

I mean, it's a tremendous vision. And the whole concept of we owe our

Baptist forebears an enormous amount for the suffering that they went through to achieve religious liberty, which now is universally enjoyed.

And even in the late 20th century, you know, the Roman Catholic Church will champion religious liberty.

But if you want to look at where it started, it started with, I mean, you obviously have roots back in the patristic period.

I'm thinking here of people like Tertullian, Lactantius, and their apologies against the Roman emperors.

But in the modern world, Baptists have played a very, very important role in that, and they've suffered for it.

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, Isn't it ironic that most of the

King James -only movement that exists in modern -day Christendom are

Baptists, and yet there was not one Baptist on the translation committee of the

King James Version in the 17th century, and the Church of England was persecuting Baptists during that century as well.

Isn't this a contradiction to believe that the King James Version is the only truly inspired version?

Yeah, that is deeply ironic. And you actually see it in a number of the words that are used to translate.

So, you know, the word episkopos being basically transliterated as bishop.

All of the men who were involved in the translation of the KJV were episcopal. They were episcopalian in their theological orientation.

Some of them, I think just two or three, were Puritans, but nonetheless they were

Puritans with an episcopalian ecclesiology. But there's nobody on that committee who's a Congregationalist, and definitely no

Baptist. So it is curious that the KJV has become, that a

KJV -onlyism has founded a lodging place with certain independent

Baptists. That's very ironic. Yeah, and another irony that I can't help but chuckle over is there is an organization,

I don't know if it still exists, but there was at least an organization called the Dean -Burgeon Society, which is a

King James -only group, and one of the requirements to belong to the Dean -Burgeon

Society was to be a Baptist, and yet Dean -Burgeon was not a Baptist. He could not belong to his own society, if he was alive.

He was an episcopalian or Anglican. Yeah, he was, yeah, that's a choice. Well, we are out of time, and I want to make sure that our listeners have the website for the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is sbts .edu,

S -B for Southern Baptist, T -S for Theological Society, .edu. Do you have any other contact information that you care to give?

Yes, if people want to contact me personally, the sbts .edu is the email address, but it's mhaykin, m -h -a -y -k -i -n, at sbts .edu.

And I've done a number of articles on this whole area, and I'd be happy to share some of those, and also give book recommendations.

Praise God. Well, I look forward to you returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio very frequently, brother. It's always a joy to have you on.

I want to thank everybody who listened today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater