Ask FGBC #65: Are Reformed Baptists Really Just Anabaptists?

Jim Butler

The claim that Reformed Baptists (specifically, Particular Baptists) descended from the Anabaptists is examined historically and found to be without evidential basis. Drawing on primary-source scholarship by historians such as Matthew Bingham and James Renihan, the discussion establishes that the Particular Baptists emerged from English Reformation Congregationalism — not from the continental Anabaptist movement — and that no documentary connection exists between the two bodies in the extant 17th-century literature. The conversation also notes that the Anabaptists themselves were not a monolithic group, making the category 'Anabaptist' less precise than popular usage suggests.