(Reposted from 3/17/2009)
Was St. Patrick a Baptist preacher? W.A. Criswell thought so. See here for full page transcript of the sermon. The first link has the audio.
Former Roman Catholic priest Richard Bennett thinks similarly as well. Last year Bennett was interviewed on this subject by Chris Arnzen on his program Iron Sharpens Iron. (The preceding link is directly to the mp3 file.)
Richard Bennett also has similar material on his own site, Berean Beacon. Here is a video that Berean Beacon produced on “The Real St. Patrick.”
“We have strong reasons for regarding St. Patrick as a Baptist missionary, and beyond contradiction his baptism was immersion.”
– The Baptist Encyclopedia: Edited by William Cathcart. (1883) pp. 886-7
I can grant that he was probably baptized by immersion, but that doesn’t prove baptist preacher (since many Orthodox baptize by threefold immersion).
he also held to monastic orders, apostolic succession, and, if the testimonies of Bede and Columba are similar, veneration of relics as well
My point being–I didn’t make it clear enough–that most baptists don’t hold to apostolic succession, monasticism, and relics.
For those who think the idea of a “Baptist Patrick” has merit, I suggest actually reading his Confession and his Epistle. The ones I linked to are heavily footnoted, so it is more readily apparent to the novice what Patrick is saying.
Legion is right. Patrick confirmed/chrismated those he baptized. He promoted vows of chastity. He repeated prayers 100+ times, morning and evening. He held to baptismal regeneration. He speaks of deadly sins, confession, absolution, and penance. Baptists don’t do those things.
I haven’t had time to review the Richard Bennett video and other related material this year.
Do note however that the title of this post has a question mark and not an exclamation point.
I apologize if I sounded harsh. The question is certainly not out of bounds to ask, and I encourage you to seriously examine the evidence. For starters, check out Bennett’s claim that Patrick was “not a Bishop of any church.”
The difficulty comes when determining what is the most essential core to be Baptist. He did hold a primary belief that is somewhat unique to Baptist.
Good post.
Which primary belief are you talking about? “Believer’s baptism” by immersion is, so far as I can tell, the only uniquely “Baptist” belief that is common to all baptists. Evidence that Patrick held to such a belief is non-existent: we cannot know one way or the other. If you have a better distinctive to offer, please let me know.
Did you read the primary sources I cited in comment #3? There are a lot of footnoted details that are decidedly non-baptistic. For instance, regenerative baptism, use of the apocrypha, episcopal office, and vows of chastity. Are there baptists that anoint the newly-baptized with chrism? I strongly suggest reading the primary sources for yourself: it is very illuminating.
[…] discovered this video at Chris Poe’s blog and thought I would share it with this blog’s readers as well. It contains over an hour […]