Our Baptist Heritage

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvellous deeds among all peoples. Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns.’”

Psalm 96

Throughout history there have been men and women who held fast to the Word of God — people who believed the Holy Bible and took it literally. In England, Baptist churches date from 1608, just three years prior to the first King James Bible in 1611. The members held that the Gospel was available to any who would receive it by faith, and that baptism by immersion was only for those who had made a personal response of faith in Jesus Christ.

Despite this rich heritage, Baptists were one of the last of the main denominations to organise in Australia. It took forty years from the first settlement of Sydney in 1788 for the first Baptist church service to be held — and it wasn’t until 1962 that Fundamental Independent Baptist churches were started, and that only through the work of American missionaries.

The early years (1831–1900)

The first recorded Baptist church service took place in Sydney on 24 April 1831, at the Rose and Crown Inn on the corner of King and Castlereagh Streets. Reverend John McKaeg performed the first baptisms by immersion at Woolloomooloo Bay in 1833; however, McKaeg was unstable and the work faltered.

A new and lasting start was made with the arrival on 1 December 1834 of the 28-year-old Reverend John Saunders, who came following an urgent request to the Baptist Missionary Society in London. An extremely capable pastor, he firmly established the church during his thirteen-year term, taking an active role in public affairs and making a lasting contribution to the welfare of the colony.

Organised Baptist work began in Hobart at the same time, when the Reverend Henry Dowling arrived in December 1834. Thomas Spurgeon, son of the great English preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, visited Tasmania six times and had a great influence on Baptist work there. Laymen conducted services in Melbourne from 1838 until the arrival of the first pastor, the Reverend John Ham, in 1842. Baptist services began in Brisbane (Moreton Bay) in August 1855, in Western Australia in October 1894, with the ACT and Darwin waiting until well into the twentieth century.

Problems and divisions

The early Baptist churches faced many problems, not the least of which was distance. A lack of finances, a shortage of capable people, and the difficulties of pioneering conditions meant slow progress. There was little help from Britain, because the Baptist Missionary Society felt the colonies did not warrant support. Strong beliefs about the separation of church and state generally led Baptists to decline government financial aid and land grants, while the autonomy of each church made centralised denominational growth difficult.

It wasn’t until the Baptist Union of Australia was formed in 1926 that a spirit of national unity was established. But for those who held firmly to the fundamentals of the faith, the Union’s subsequent affiliation with the World Council of Churches was seen as a backward step. Another strain of Baptists would be required for the faithful — a group who would take the Bible literally and hold firm to the heritage of their forefathers.

The Independent Baptist movement

Pastor Randy Pike was the first Independent Baptist missionary to our land in 1962, closely followed by others of his fellow countrymen. In the following five decades, over 100 churches and several Bible colleges were established in Australia, many of them by American missionaries. While serving here, Pike started Maranatha Bible College, training and preparing among others Gilbert Anger, a missionary to the 10/40 window.

One of the notable fundamentalists of the 1960s and seventies was Pastor Marvin R. Matthews, founder of Sydney Bible Baptist College and pastor of the Metropolitan Baptist Church. Pastor Matthews arrived in Australia in 1964 and established Metropolitan Baptist Church in the Sydney CBD; the work later transferred to Chatswood before being established at Lane Cove West. At the same time as Metropolitan Baptist Church was starting in 1974, Pastor Matthews launched SBBC, which received a God-ordained boost in 1976 with the appointment of Pastor H. Richard Hester as Principal.

Since 1974, SBBC has produced a fine array of Australian pastors and missionaries. God has blessed the growth of Fundamental Independent Baptist churches throughout Australia to such an extent that the major churches can now support and send out missionaries to the regions beyond our shores — to Thailand, Cambodia, China, Japan, East Timor, Indonesia, the Philippines and Mauritius. Wasn’t that God’s original plan when He established Australia in the first place — to be a central point for missionaries to reach this part of the world for His glory? That plan is being fulfilled in our time.