The history of the true church, the one started by Jesus Christ in the Gospels and in the first century, J. M. Carroll called in 1931, the title of his little booklet, The Trail of Blood, because the true church, always separate from a state church, was almost exclusively also a persecuted church from the beginning. Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His church; therefore, the teaching of no total apostasy of true churches. True churches would always exist in this age, the church age, preserved by Christ.
Churches that were true churches were known by different names (such as Waldenses, Paulicians, Novatians, and Donatists) and in the heritage of those churches, during the Reformation they were called “Anabaptists.” This name came from both Roman Catholic and Protestant state church enemies. Anabaptist means “rebaptizers,” and these true churches rebaptized those who had been sprinkled as infants, since scripture teaches believer’s immersion only. This name was shortened to Baptist, and so these Baptist churches have always existed since Christ, a perpetuity of true, New Testament churches with the Bible as their sole authority for faith and practice. They have also been separatist churches.
Our church calls itself Baptist as a label or title for historical reasons. Genuine churches do not trace themselves through Roman Catholicism and then the Protestant Reformation, but separate from the state church through independent churches, which are Baptist churches. Those churches possessed, and still do, certain biblical distinctives that distinguish themselves as Christ’s churches.
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