>You said you are not a Protestant and identify as an independant Baptist so I decided to get a fuller understanding of what that meant.
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>Are we talking about this :
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>http://www.swordofthelord.com/beliefs.php
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>or are you independant from that? I was picturing Hutterite or Mennonite but in the world but I am rather fascinated by Separation etc. Living in Ohio we have many such follks of one variety or another. I am always fascinated by people who *really* believe and actually live it in a personal rather than evangelising fashion.
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>(by the way I am sure various threads of dissent are responsible for my even being here. I am a direct descendant of a woman named Deliverance King who was born in Salem MA in 1641 ( I hope she will forgive my reference to the "Cavaliers" ) and a whole lot of Pennsylvania Germans who came in the late 17th and early 18th centuries)

Independent Baptists traditionally are independent from anything else, not a specific group. The word "Independent" refers actually to be independent from each other. So there is no governing body, or any superior management exercising power over any local church, neither do independent churches rely financially on payments from a central group of people. So it's not so much that they worry to be independent from any other church or belief system, but rather to be independent from each other. There is no official "Baptist" stamp on the church door, and no one can tell you what you can do or not do.

The reasoning behind this is, that money and power corrupts. Government and Organized Religion always corrupt in time. In an independent Baptist church like ours here, the pastor is paid with the offerings of the church members. The pastor can preach whatever he likes, there is no censorship of accepted material, neither is there an official approval stamp on books he is allowed to read or not. Of course when he talks nonsense, the people will go to another church and with the vanishing offerings the pastor needs to close his church.

Also the Baptists teach the difference between God and Church. The church does not save you, it is your personal relationship with God that counts in your life, if you go to church or not, or you believe in another religion does not make a difference. The "church" is actually a term that refers only to the group of people, not the house or organization. Traditionally the Baptists called the church building "Meeting House" and not church, because it is not a church, neither are you closer to God in the church than outside. You are just closer to your fellow brother or sister. Being a Baptist does not make you more right or wrong than anybody else, and there are good people in all religions. The question for each individual is "Do you put your trust in your own self-righteousness, or do you put your trust in Christ?" So there are probably many Catholics, Protestants or whatever that while they trust in Jesus they are on their right path. If they have never heard the gospel they are bound by their own laws, but when they hear the gospel and trust in Christ, they are free from the law. The only thing that gives an advantage to go to a Baptist church is, that the church will give a more clean view of the gospel, and a more Bible centered teaching about Christianity, and independence from other belief systems. It is less damaged by traditions and wrong doctrines, because of the independence factor, it's like an open source project.

It is true that here and there a local church gets into trouble, sometimes a rich family that supports the biggest part of the offerings and thereby gets into a ruling capacity. But that on long term will destroy that church, and since the other churches are independent from that church the cancer does not spread too far.
The two biggest enemies of Jesus during his earthly ministry was the government of Rome, and the organized religion of the Jews (The Pharisees and Sadducees). Both groups controlled most of the money at that time, and the outsiders and poor people were the ones that followed Jesus.

I also believe the Baptists did not get originated with John the Baptist for many reasons. First of all, Christians were the gentiles that were reached by the gospel after Paul received the commandment to preach not only to the Jews but also to the gentiles. That was long after John the Baptist was dead, and he died before the crucifixion, at a time when there was no Christian around.
Secondly, the Baptism of John had nothing to do with the baptism of the Christian. The Baptism of John was for the Jews to repent and to belief on him who will come, by which he meant Jesus. The baptism of the Christians is merely a symbol of obedience and a testimony to their faith. Baptist never gave themselves the name, they were called so by the other people, the Catholics and unbelievers, because of their practice to baptize grown up people in water, which was a unique practice.

The independence of the Baptists has a few downsides, like they don't have organized schools. Most of the religious schools are founded by Evangelicals or Protestants, so the Pastors often come home to church with some doctrines from those other groups. Because of their lack of finances they sometimes are forced to make the church members happy and cannot easily throw out a member who gives a lot of money to the church. But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.