John Smyth

John Smyth , also: John Smith, (* around 1566 in Surtun , Nottinghamshire ; † August 28 (?) 1612 in Amsterdam , Netherlands ) was originally an Anglican priest and is - along with Thomas Helwys - one of the founding fathers of the Baptists .

Beginnings

Little is known about the origin of John Smyth. He completed his theological training at Christ's College , Cambridge . 1594 he was appointed as an Anglican clergyman ordained and worked until 1598 as a teacher . His encounter with the Calvinist Puritan movement and his friendship with his former tutor Francis Johnson , through whom Smyth got to know the English separatists, were formative for the rest of his life .

City preacher in Lincoln

By 1600, John Smyth became the town preacher at Lincoln in the county of Lincolnshire appointed. As early as 1602 he came into conflict with the church authorities because of his puritanical doctrine, which ultimately led to his dismissal. He had made himself unpopular primarily through a public statement on the immorality of influential Lincoln citizens. John Smyth was not a separatist or Baptist at the time of his discharge from the Anglican church service; on the contrary: His sermons from this epoch, which have survived to this day, show him as a Puritan who takes a clear stand against any separation and against the baptism of believers he later represented .

Separation from the Anglican Church

John Smyth only became a separatist after King James I of England passed his anti-Puritan laws and published them in 1606 at the so-called Hampton Court Conference . Smyth joined the separatist movement in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, and soon after became its most influential leader.

In 1608 the political pressure on the young movement became so strong that Smyth was forced to flee to Amsterdam with his supporters. Among the refugees was Thomas Helwys, who later founded the first British Baptist church.

In Amsterdam

He immediately distanced himself from the other British religious refugees who lived in Amsterdam and had sought asylum here a year and a half before Smyth. As a strict congregationalist , which he had meanwhile become, he could not accept the organizational rules and regulations that the existing refugee community, the so-called ancient church , had given itself. As a spiritualist , to whom he had also developed in the meantime, he rejected a fixed order of worship with readings and common singing on the grounds that it blocked the work of the Holy Spirit . In 1609 - and here there was a final break with the ancient church - Smyth introduced the baptism of believers .

Smyth had initially baptized himself, which is why he was given the nickname Self-Baptist . Later he got into trouble about it and turned to the Waterland Mennonites with the request to baptize him . This was also granted to him. Under the influence of Mennonite beliefs, Smyth found the theology of the Anabaptist movement during the Reformation . Like the Anabaptists of the 16th century, Thomas Helwys and Roger Williams , Smyth vehemently advocated freedom of belief and conscience ( freedom of religion ). As a result, these theologians influenced the somewhat younger John Locke and his position on religious tolerance.

The literary work of John Smyth is extensive and shows the permanent changes in Smyth's theology. The Anglican clergyman first became an Orthodox Puritan, then a strict Congregationalist and spiritualist. His scripture study led him to what is now called Baptist beliefs and his contacts with the Amsterdam Mennonites made him a late descendant of the Anabaptists.

aftermath

Part of the refugee community remained in Amsterdam even after the death of John Smyth and was completely absorbed by the Mennonite movement. Another group returned to England and joined the Baptist church that Thomas Helwys had founded there.

literature

• Daniel Heinz:  John Smyth. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 10, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-062-X , Sp. 708-711.
• John David Hughey: The Baptists - Doctrine, Practice, History. Kassel 1959