There are several sects known as Missionary Baptists. Historically, a Baptist is one who baptizes or one who believes in immersion. A "Missionary" Baptist is a Baptist who believes in the need for "missionary" work or preaching, evangelizing. Missionary Baptists reject the Calvinistic view of unconditional election, limited atonement, and, to a degree, irresistible grace. Thus, they see the need for preaching and are labeled, "missionary."
Some of the more prominent doctrines of Missionary Baptist Churches are documented below:
I. Successionism:
A. "Baptist churches are the only true churches on the earth that have an unbroken lineage of faith, doctrine, practice and history, through the Dark Ages, beyond the origin of Roman Catholicism to the first week of our Lord's personal ministry. As local congregations . . . our Lord has preserved His church" (Dr. Albert Garner, Defense of the Faith, p. 122).
B. "Careful study . . . has served to form within me a conviction almost as strong as life itself. That conviction is that the first church that was ever organized was what we would today call a Baptist church, and that churches of the same form, characterized by the same doctrines and practices, have existed from the day that the first one was established to the present moment, and will continue to exist until the Lord comes again . . .
"What, then, is meant by perpetuity as used by Baptists?
. . . Baptists claim that the first New Testament church organized by Jesus was in doctrine and practice essentially the same as Baptist churches of today. They claim that there has never been a day since Jesus started the first one when such churches have not existed to bear true witness to Him. They claim that there is sufficient historical proof to demonstrate that Baptist churches of today have direct historical connection with the churches of apostolic times" (Roy Mason, Th. D., The Church That Jesus Built, pp. 6, 10, 11).
C. "Thus, when the Lord organized His church .... He set it in the world and it has never gone out of existence, not even during the dark ages. There has never been one split second when there has not been a church in the world just like the first one Jesus organized, and there shall never be until the Lord comes to receive the church unto Himself" (L.D. Foreman, editor of The Baptist World, in Biblical Proofs For Identifying The True Church, p. 28).
D. "When we speak of the perpetuity of Christ's church we mean it has had perpetual existence since the day the Lord Jesus first began assembling it . . . it has existed in every century, every year, every month, every day since it has its beginning." (Calvary Baptist Church, Ashland, Ky., The Origin And Perpetuity Of The Baptists, p. 9).
E. "The author believes that in every age since Jesus and the apostles, there have been companies of believers, churches, who have substantially held to the principles of the New Testament as now proclaimed by the Baptists . . . There is no intimation that there was not a continuity of churches, for doubtless there was . . ." (John T. Christian, A History Of The Baptists, p. 21).
F. "`We believe that the great commission teaches that there has been a succession of missionary Baptist churches from the days of Christ down to this day"'
