The following was written by Pastor Fred Fowler Sr.

I know a local pastor who prides himself in his strict closed communion and rebaptizing practices. He also married a divorced woman, and uses the Living Bible on occasion. However, the purpose of this page of the website is not to expose his obvious unbiblical stances on communion, baptism, adultery, and Bible versions. This page is meant to address the very prideful stance that he and other Baptist Briders hold regarding the church.

This local pastor believes, along with many pastors like him, that his local and visible church is the true church and that it is what the Bible calls the body of Christ.

Below you will see how this belief is contrary to scripture, and that this doctrine can actually convolute the gospel and damn souls to hell. 

Ephesians 2:19-22 "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit."

From this passage in Ephesians, it is clear that all Christians, whether presently living or saints of old,  belong to a group--a building--a body of people.

"In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord" Does this sound like the body of Christ as a group of actual believers? Or, does it sound like the average Baptist church with all of its unsaved professing members in it?

Note Eph. 2:22 again, "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." According to Baptist Briders, individuals are builded together for an habitation of God not when a person trusts Christ as their savior, but when they submit to the visible/physical church and get baptized into the "only church" (the visible/physical one) by water. This sounds Catholic to me, but this is what the Baptist Briders believe.
 
I Corinthians 12:13 "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."

According to the verse above, people are baptized spiritually into one body at the moment of salvation, not when someone joins the man-controlled, man-guided, man-made doctrine of a Baptist Bride church.

To be sure, the local church is the "ground and pillar of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15), and apostates "despise dominion" (Jude 1:8). I cannot stand professed Christians who do not join a church or do not tithe. I believe such professors are not saved or they are severely backslidden. God's work is done through the local visible church (for the most part Baptist churches).

BUT, the truth is that the Bible speaks of both a universal body of Christ and the local visible church. Baptist Briders get this wrong and believe that the local visible church is the body of Christ.

Acts 20:28 "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."

If Christ purchased the church with his own blood then all members of the church must be saved or, in other words, bought by the blood of Christ. Baptist Bride churches have to believe that every member of their church is saved, and that they have never had an unsaved member in the past--quite impossible. Also, what happens if a member of a Baptist Bride church decides to leave the church? Is this member now out of the body of Christ? This is not Biblical.

Bible-believing Baptists, on the other hand, simply understand that everyone who gets saved becomes a permanent member of the universal church of God/Body of Christ.

Hebrews 12:22 "But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,"

Those who are saved are of the "church of the firstborn" and have their names "written in heaven." This passage could not be talking about the local visible church, but must be talking about a universal church. People do not have their names written in heaven by joining a local church and getting baptized by water. People have their names written in heaven and become part of the church of the firstborn at the moment of salvation.

Some Baptist Briders hold their beliefs about the church in humbleness and are not on the attack. This crowd, although they are wrong, are not the crowd we our marking as enemies of the cross of Christ.

It is the vocal, obnoxious, "rebaptize everyone", shove-it-down-your-throat-Baptist-Briders that have made this belief Satanic and divisive.
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The passage below from Ephesians shows that all members of the body of Christ must be saved. It is more than ridiculous to suggest that every person who has been granted membership to Baptist Bride churches, in the history of the world, has been a true born again believer. However, this unlikelihood is exactly what Baptist Briders must believe if they wish to hold to their "local church only" doctrine. For people like us, however, who believe in a local church and universal church the solution is easy. You join the body of Christ and the universal church at the moment of salvation.

Ephesians 5:25-27 "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."