Shortly after Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the Wittenberg
church door there arose a rift between two factions among the newly hatched “Protestants”: Some followed the more staid, traditional Calvinist reformers and others followed the more radical Ana-Baptist posture which eventually gave rise to the Baptist, Mennonite, and Quaker branches of the Protestant Reformation. The Christian Church grew from two or three forms into well over 200 branches.
Slowly these differences found their way into an increasingly diverse range of Protestant church groups, all the way from the Church of England, which spawned the Methodists, to the Baptists, who stressed the absolute importance of baptism by immersion, and the Quakers who minimized everything except the call of the Inner Spirit. Around the turn of the 20th Century the Pentecostal emphasis joined the ranks with their emphasis on the healing and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Within the Protestant groups there initially arose a difference of opinion over whether God is in complete control of both world events and individual beliefs and actions or whether individual persons play an active and decisive part in determining both their own destiny and that of the world. The more extreme of the former groups, those who followed John Calvin, especially those who became Presbyterians, and those who followed the thinking of Jacob Arminius, namely those who had become Baptists and Anabaptists, along with some Methodists.
By and large Baptists believe that a person must be baptized in order to be a part of God’s community. Anabaptists were those who believe that only adults should be baptized, thus children who had already been baptized must be “re” baptized (‘ana’ from the Greek term for “again”). The Amish and Mennonites fall into this group. By and large members of these “left-wing” Christian groups eventually separated from the more traditional groups and developed their own beliefs following such leaders as Menno Simons and Jacob Arminius.
The Calvinists, mostly Presbyterians, the Church of England, and some Baptists stressed God’s will as being the determinate factor in the events of human life, both socially and individually. Calvin and his followers maintained that God is totally sovereign in the universe, and even more deterministically, that God decides which individuals will be saved and which will not. In fairness, Most Presbyterians today do not share such a hardline, literalist perspective.
Over against this hardline Calvinist perspective stood that of the Arminian approach, which stresses the absolute power and responsibility of each person to choose their own fate, whether to follow God’s way or not. Jacob Arminius used the Gospel stories of those whom Jesus sought to help. It is the logic of both human and divine interaction that both parties must be free to play a crucial role in the outcome. It makes little sense for God’s will to overpower that of each individual person. Then God would be simply playing a game with his created toys.
In the end, each person must have the power to reject God’s love or not. Otherwise, the person is simply a puppet in the hands of God’s absolute power. These tow points of view, then, dominated the theology of the Christians of the Reformation period. By and large each of these schools of thought, and the denominations which follow them, are much less well-defined in modern times than they were at their inception. Most people who join any of the respective churches mentioned herein know very little about these sorts of controversies.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that it is important for individuals, Christian or not, to think through and discuss these issues today. The thought process is itself well worth the effort. Moreover, the quality of one’s life may well depend on how we approach the above issues. A person’s beliefs, or lack thereof, should make a difference in how she or he lives. Generally speaking, our actions are based on our beliefs. Otherwise we run the risk of being shallow or even empty.