Baptists are known for being theologically diverse. And that diversity extends to Baptists' relationships with their theological cousins, the Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren—the historical peace churches.
“Although a few Baptists have opted for pacifism on occasion, most fit better into the category known as pacificism, by which is meant they regard war as a horrible option for resolving disputes between nations, but still concede its inevitability on occasion. Sometimes, human beings must pay the supreme price to preserve freedom, eliminate oppression and injustice or end other evils,” wrote Glenn Hinson in a 2004 Baptist History and Heritage article, “Baptist attitudes toward war and peace since 1914.”
While historians disagree on the role of Anabaptists in influencing Baptist origins, Hinson, senior professor of church history and spirituality at the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, says there is clear evidence of a connection between the Waterlander Mennonites and the General Baptists, the earliest group of Baptists in England.
“A group of English refugees who became Baptists lived in a bakery owned by a Mennonite,” he said in an interview.
“There is some evidence, too, of Anabaptist influence on the other group of Baptists, called Particular Baptists. In addition, I think we can safely say that Baptists and Quakers in England came out of the same womb, Puritan Separatism, even though they didn't get along very well.”
Bill Leonard, dean of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University, points out that as early at the 17th century, Baptists had several points where they distinguished themselves from Anabaptist groups.
“Baptists would take an oath,” he said, pointing out one distinction. Anabaptist groups, on the other hand, do not. Baptists also have a loyalty to the state, Leonard said. In times of hostility, that loyalty has led Baptists to move to a just-war theory.
World War II in particular led many Baptists to step away from pacifism.
“World War II became a kind of watershed for Baptists—a recognition that there are certain times when evil is so awesome that there is no other response to be made,” Leonard said.
Baptists didn't want to let other conflicts rise to the level of Nazi Germany, Leonard said. “They didn't want to let … [the Holocaust] happen again.”
Hinson said Baptists have typically started peace movements just before wars, but joined the fight once hostilities began.
“I think Baptists read Scriptures, especially the Gospels, enough to recognize that war is contrary to God's purpose,” he said. “If it can be avoided, we should do so. Consequently, as questioning goes on about entering a war, Baptists have often joined those who oppose it.”
He also pointed out that Baptists participated with other Puritans in the English Civil War from 1642 to 1646 and have fought in most wars since.
Both Hinson and Leonard acknowledged there have been noted Baptists who are pacifists, including Walter Raushenbusch and Harry Emerson Fosdick.
In Leonard's book Baptist Ways: A History, he points out that conservative preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon spoke out against war.
“Although apparently not a member of the Peace Society, Charles Haddon Spurgeon condemned militarism in general and the Crimean War in particular. In a well-known sermon, ‘War and the Spread of the Gospel,' he declared, ‘And I do firmly hold that the slaughter of men, that bayonets, and swords and guns, have never yet been, and never can be promoters of the gospel.'”
The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America has provided opportunities for pacifist Baptists to work together since the early 1980s. Hinson says the Baptist Peace Fellowship has been slowly growing in recent years.
The Southern Baptist Convention makes what appears to be a strong peace statement in its Baptist Faith & Message 2000. Still, the SBC is the only religious body that backed the invasion of Iraq, Hinson said.
“Part of the reason for that is that the South has always been more militant that the rest of the country, and most of the military installations in the U.S. are located in the South,” he explained.
“Apart from Southern Baptists, however, you can see a strong peace emphasis in the American Baptist Churches, among Conservative Baptists and in some of the smaller Baptists bodies. That echoes what is happening in other denominations.”