Reformed Presbyterians closer to Reformed Lutherans than Baptists?

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ChristopherPaul

Puritan Board Senior
I heard Kim Riddlebarger make the claim that Confessional Presbyterians are more in agreement with Reformed Lutherans (LCMS) than our Calvinist Baptist friends.

What are your thoughts on such a statement?
 
I think that many would disagree with him. Also, there's the issue of the RPW, which many Reformed Baptists would hold to, and I imagine no Lutheran would hold to. Makes me wonder whether he's seen some of the recent shrill denunciations of Calvinism by some LCMS men.

[Edited on 7-26-2006 by Pilgrim]
 
I've never heard the LCMS described as "Reformed Lutheran;" they certainly don't teach limited atonement. They obviously think the gulf is wide enough to exclude us from communion.
 
If he was talking about Luther himself, I might buy it. I think most modern Lutherans don't hold to irresistible grace either and probably wouldn't even qualify as Amaryldian much less Calvinist. But I haven't studied it that much and could be wrong. They also hold to baptismal regeneration and I think most basically reject the third use of the law even thought it is in the Book of Concord.

I'd like to see the context of Riddlebarger's statement.

[Edited on 7-26-2006 by Pilgrim]
 
Well, I know this...I have more in common with you guys here at the PB then I do with probably most Southern Baptists!
 
Originally posted by Pilgrim
Was this on Riddlebarger's blog, WHI, or somewhere else?

Riddlebarger made the statement in the first of 19 lectures on Covenant Theology based on R. Scott Clark's Theses on Covenant Theology.

The lectures were sent to me late last year. I don't know where they are available online. I will check...
 
My understanding is that Lutheranism, holding to baptismal regeneration, doesn't have a well developed covenant theology either.
 
I would guess that he was referring more to Luteran views of the church, the ministry, and worship, along the lines the high church/low church distinction. This would be in keeping with D. G. Hart's writings, such as the article: Rediscovering Mother Kirk

The other issue that seems to be causing trouble is that most Lutherans of today, even in the LCMS, aren't in line or of the same mind with their tradition.

Relative to the "Reformed" Baptist church I find myself in, I think he is correct.
 
I think Dr. Riddlebarger is exaggerating a bit.

One thing to note is that among serious Lutherans the Rod Rosenblat sort of irenic approach to Calvinism in my experience is a small minority position. Most LCMS Lutherans that I run into around Concordia STL circles who care, are dead set against most things "Reformed" and rip Calvinism with a vengeance (I think Concordia FW is worse btw).

I'm also curious where he would find agreement with Lutherans on a listed few things below?

- Eccelsiology (Since when did Lutherans become Presbyterian in Church government?)
- Sacraments (Lutherans call our position "real absence") and (do Confessional Presbyterians really think baptism is an instrument of conversion?)
- Soteriology - (Confessional Presbyterians have given up on the "I", "L" and "P" in TULIP?)
 
Originally posted by AdamM
I think Dr. Riddlebarger is exaggerating a bit.

One thing to note is that among serious Lutherans the Rod Rosenblat sort of irenic approach to Calvinism in my experience is a small minority position. Most LCMS Lutherans that I run into around Concordia STL circles who care, are dead set against most things "Reformed" and rip Calvinism with a vengeance (I think Concordia FW is worse btw).

I'm also curious where he would find agreement with Lutherans on a listed few things below?

- Eccelsiology (Since when did Lutherans become Presbyterian in Church government?)
- Sacraments (Lutherans call our position "real absence") and (do Confessional Presbyterians really think baptism is an instrument of conversion?)
- Soteriology - (Confessional Presbyterians have given up on the "I", "L" and "P" in TULIP?)

I agree, Adam, that those like Rosenbladt seem to be the minority. You summed it up much more succinctly than I could have. I was thinking of the attacks on Calvinism by Paul McCain late last year that can be found here, here here and here. My guess is that it is probably fairly representative of LCMS views. Perhaps when Riddlebarger said Reformed Lutherans (that's what Christopher put in his post) he meant Lutherans like Rosenbladt and others who are not so antagonistic toward Reformed thought.

[Edited on 7-26-2006 by Pilgrim]
 
Originally posted by Philip A
I would guess that he was referring more to Luteran views of the church, the ministry, and worship, along the lines the high church/low church distinction. This would be in keeping with D. G. Hart's writings, such as the article: Rediscovering Mother Kirk

The other issue that seems to be causing trouble is that most Lutherans of today, even in the LCMS, aren't in line or of the same mind with their tradition.

Relative to the "Reformed" Baptist church I find myself in, I think he is correct.

The Hart article is certainly an eye opener. I haven't read much of his work on worship. I'm assuming that this article is taken from or is a distillation of his book of the same name.

He notes that Calvin wrote out prayers for pastors to use in worship and families to use in devotion. The article is essentially a plea for a Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer and asserts that the Puritans overreacted to the Anglican BCP in their fear of Romish forms and that low church Presbyterianism in the tradition of the Puritans, Edwards, Whitefield and Old School Presbyterianism attempt to accommodate both Calvin and Wesley (or Whitefield) and ultimately leads not in a Reformed direction, but in a pentecostal one.

Evidently Hart continues this line of thought in his recent biography of Nevin.

[Edited on 7-26-2006 by Pilgrim]
 
Originally posted by Pilgrim
Perhaps when Riddlebarger said Reformed Lutherans (that's what Christopher put in his post) he meant Lutherans like Rosenbladt and others who are not so antagonistic toward Reformed thought.

He didn't really qualify what he meant by the Lutheranism he was referring to. I assumed the Rsenbladt Lutheranism. I wish I could find the lectures online. Perhaps Dr. Clark could add some clarity.

I assume that most Reformed people here, if faced with a situation where no Confessional Presbyterian churches were available, they would choose a Calvinistic Baptist church over a LCMS church?
 
I agree, Adam, that those like Rosenbladt seem to be the minority. You summed it up much more succinctly than I could have. I was thinking of the attacks on Calvinism by Paul McCain late last year that can be found here, here here and here. My guess is that it is probably fairly representative of LCMS views. Perhaps when Riddlebarger said Reformed Lutherans (that's what Christopher put in his post) he meant Lutherans like Rosenbladt and others who are not so antagonistic toward Reformed thought.

I think you are correct.

I can think of other men who are like Rosenblat in approach, including Gene Edward Veith, but they few and far between in my experience. It's interesting to note that McCain the extreme Calvinism basher, isn't some small fish in the LCMS either, he runs their publishing company.

They have the same struggles with confessionalism that Reformed folks do , but the ones that give a rip, tend to be very sectarian (by design). Again, these are all my experiences, so feel free to discount them, but once you refuse to acknowledge a local corporal presence in the LS, for most serious Lutherans the conversation is over. They see themselves as charting a midway course between Rome and Calvin (Calvin = radical reformation - I know, but if I had a nickel) and for them at least Rome confesses a real bodily presence.

This isn't to say that there are not a bunch of real points of agreement we have with the Lutherans, but to say that a Confessional Presbyterian has more in common with an LCMS Lutheran then with a Confessional Reformed Baptist is silly, in my opinion.
 
Originally posted by Ivan
Well, I know this...I have more in common with you guys here at the PB then I do with probably most Southern Baptists!

No doubt many Southern Baptists agree! ;)
 
Originally posted by Pilgrim
Originally posted by Ivan
Well, I know this...I have more in common with you guys here at the PB then I do with probably most Southern Baptists!

No doubt many Southern Baptists agree! ;)

:lol: Indeed.

Yet I haven't had too much trouble...yet. I think it's just a matter of time. God's will be done.
 
Originally posted by ChristopherPaul
I heard Kim Riddlebarger make the claim that Confessional Presbyterians are more in agreement with Reformed Lutherans (LCMS) than our Calvinist Baptist friends.

What are your thoughts on such a statement?

If this was on the WHI, I guess Kim said "confessional Lutheran." There isn't any such thing as a "Reformed Lutheran," in any real sense of the word. Some of the neo-Kohlbruggian German Reformed used to describe themselves as "Reformed Lutherans," because they didn't hold to the third part of the Heidelberg Catechism (QQ 86-129). This was almost certainly a disservice to confessional Lutheranism.

I have sometimes said this myself. It's a short-hand way of saying that the ethos, the way of relating to broad evangelicalism, commitment to the Reformation solas, the law/gospel distinction, Christian liberty, repudiation of evangelical/revivalist/pietist excesses among some in the LCMS (there's a fair bit of everything in the LCMS; it's 3 million folk or so!) represented by folk such as Todd Wilken or Rod Rosenblatt or David Scaer or Bob Kolb puts confessional Reformed folk closer to them than to many (if not most) "evangelicals."

Yes, we would continue to have big differences over the RPW - though some Lutherans sing more Psalms than some Reformed folk, some ethical issues (the sabbath). Properly understood, as confessed in the Book of Concord, the Lutheran doctrine of the tertius usus legis isn't very far from our understanding of the role of the law in the Christian life.

Kim is talking about our confessional Protestant co-belligerancy against evangelicalism more than anything else.

As often as we say this, however, it remains true that most confessional Lutherans (even Rod and Todd) would not allow me or Kim at their communion rail, in the same way that I would not invite Calvary Chapel members to communion.

rsc
 
If I had to choose between a confessional LCMS (not a happy-clappy congregation) and a confessional predestinarian Baptist congregation, I would worship with the Lutherans, even though they won't commune me. At least they recognize my baptism and my children's!

[As it happens, I was baptized by an LCMS minister in 1961].

In a confessional LCMS or Wisconsin Synod (where they have a rabid hatred for Calvinists but seem never to have actually met any!) one is sure to find the law and gospel preached and distinguished, the absolution of sins declared and not a shred of moralism.

I love my IRBS friends, and I suspect I would do well by them, judging by Jim Renihan and Earl Blackburn, but I guess I might not do as well outside of the IRBS.

rsc

Originally posted by ChristopherPaul
Originally posted by Pilgrim
Perhaps when Riddlebarger said Reformed Lutherans (that's what Christopher put in his post) he meant Lutherans like Rosenbladt and others who are not so antagonistic toward Reformed thought.

He didn't really qualify what he meant by the Lutheranism he was referring to. I assumed the Rsenbladt Lutheranism. I wish I could find the lectures online. Perhaps Dr. Clark could add some clarity.

I assume that most Reformed people here, if faced with a situation where no Confessional Presbyterian churches were available, they would choose a Calvinistic Baptist church over a LCMS church?

[Edited on 7-27-2006 by R. Scott Clark]
 
If I had to choose between a confessional LCMS (not a happy-clappy congregation) and a confessional predestinarian Baptist congregation, I would worship with the Lutherans, even though they won't commune me. At least they recognize my baptism and my children's!

Dr. Clark,

I have great respect for Lutherans and believe them to be helpful co-belligerents in the Gospel with us confessional Presbyterians, but I have a hard time seeing how a Confessional Reformed Baptist, with large sections of the 1689 London Baptist Confession coming directly from the Westminster Confession isn´t a lot closer in theology and practice to Presbyterianism?

I rejoice in our common commitment to the Solas with our Lutheran brethren, but beyond that there just is not a whole lot of unity with reformed confessionalism. The confessional Reformed Baptist affirms with us the five points of Calvinism, while the Lutherans deny at least three (L, I, & P.) I understand Presbyterian confessionalism is much more then the five points, but it certainly can´t be less and have a rightful claim to being anything close to Presbyterianism. The confessional Baptist has what we view as an incomplete covenant theology, but the Lutherans have none. The Lutherans explicitly deny the RPW, while the confessional Baptist affirms it. Yes, we differ with our Reformed Baptist brothers on the sacraments, but Lutheran sacramental theology is quite different from confessional Presbyterianism too.

BTW, doesn´t Westminster California have some sort of Reformed Baptist institute and graduate pastors who serve confessional Reformed Baptist churches? I would find that strange that if as claimed that confessional Reformed Baptists are further away from Westminster Confessionalism then are Lutherans.



[Edited on 7-27-2006 by AdamM]
 
Adam,

I understand your concerns and share some of them. We're speaking in general terms here.

It's a matter of priority. Lutherans teach an unconditional election. They also confess things that are inconsistent with that conviction. As a practial matter, however, I guess I've never heard a confessional Lutheran preach anything other than law/gospel whereas I've heard RB's preach ignorant, angry, rants (Al Martin) against paedobaptism. I'm thankful for Martin for driving me back to Scripture where having heard him yell "It says 'repent and be baptized'" several times, I found the next verse (Acts 2:39) to which I had not given much attention previously.

A more profound reason would be Belgic Confession Art 29 which stipulates three marks of a true church. It's true that the descendants of the English Baptists are more like us than the Anabaptists, but part of what made the AB's a "sect" according to the Belgic is their denial of baptism to covenant children. That is a most serious matter and a denial of one of the marks of a true church. In contrast, despite our differences over three of the 5 points of Dort, I'm not aware that the Reformed have ever regarded the confessional Lutherans as anything other than a true church. They have the marks of a true church, however corrupt, in other regards, their doctrine may be. We selected those marks advisedly, after several years of argument and discussion with the Lutherans.

Reformed Baptists, if they are consistent, cannot regard us a Baptized persons. Therefore, they cannot commune us. So, with the Lutherans, at least -- so far as I know -- I am a baptized person, even if a "crafty sacramentarian."

Historically, we are organically related to the Lutherans. We regarded ourselves as Luther's children, even if the Lutherans won't acknowledge us as such. The RB's are, I suppose, our rebellious children.

Yes, we do host the IRBS and Dr Jim Renihan and the Rev Mr Earl Blackburn are good friends. Jim lives only a few yards from me. I've enjoyed their students and they've even asked me to lecture at their annual conference. We get along well. We understand each other. I do my best to win RB students for the paedobaptist view and they try to keep them for the Baptist view. It's not personal. It's a matter of principle. They are principled men and they understand my principles, even if they don't accept them.

If it's a matter of percentage of the confessional matter that overlaps, well, the RB's win, but I doubt that's the best way to decide where to worship, which is the question I'm trying to answer.

It's a difficult choice, and I would not judge anyone for making a different choice, but those are my reasons.

rsc


Originally posted by AdamM
If I had to choose between a confessional LCMS (not a happy-clappy congregation) and a confessional predestinarian Baptist congregation, I would worship with the Lutherans, even though they won't commune me. At least they recognize my baptism and my children's!

Dr. Clark,

I have great respect for Lutherans and believe them to be helpful co-belligerents in the Gospel with us confessional Presbyterians, but I have a hard time seeing how a Confessional Reformed Baptist, with large sections of the 1689 London Baptist Confession coming directly from the Westminster Confession isn´t a lot closer in theology and practice to Presbyterianism?

I rejoice in our common commitment to the Solas with our Lutheran brethren, but beyond that there just is not a whole lot of unity with reformed confessionalism. The confessional Reformed Baptist affirms with us the five points of Calvinism, while the Lutherans deny at least three (L, I, & P.) I understand Presbyterian confessionalism is much more then the five points, but it certainly can´t be less and have a rightful claim to being anything close to Presbyterianism. The confessional Baptist has what we view as an incomplete covenant theology, but the Lutherans have none. The Lutherans explicitly deny the RPW, while the confessional Baptist affirms it. Yes, we differ with our Reformed Baptist brothers on the sacraments, but Lutheran sacramental theology is quite different from confessional Presbyterianism too.

BTW, doesn´t Westminster California have some sort of Reformed Baptist institute and graduate pastors who serve confessional Reformed Baptist churches? I would find that strange that if as claimed that confessional Reformed Baptists are further away from Westminster Confessionalism then are Lutherans.



[Edited on 7-27-2006 by AdamM]
 
Scott,

Thank you for the interaction. I'm in a weird position because I have great appreciation for Lutherans and make it a point to listen to Todd Wilken's excellent radio program during the drive home almost everyday, so I trust that my comments aren't taken by anyone as bashing Lutheranism. I actually have found Luther's small catechism to be very helpful and believe the law/gospel hermeneutic is at its essence just another way of expressing COW v. COG theology.

My main point was to counter what I perceive is a tendency among some high church Reformed folk to take gratuitous shots at our Reformed Baptist brothers (which I know you don't do btw.) I think if winsome, gospel loving, Calvinism preaching pastors like Tom Ascol, Sam Waldron, Mark Dever and the Founders are no longer considered near to us as Confessional Presbyterians, then we're going seriously off the tracks and need a course correction.
 
Dear Adam,

I understand.

Mark Dever is a terrific fellow and a friend and a great advocate for the gospel. I don't know personally the others you mention, but they are, baptism aside, good men.

That, of course, isn't the point.

My fundamental question is whether they regard us as baptized persons? To say: "You are not baptized" is to say, "You are outside the covenant community." As I understand our confession of the Scriptures, that's a very serious thing to say.

I recognize that there are predestinarian Baptists who regard me as Baptized, for which graciousness I am truly thankful. It's probably not very consistent with their theology and confession, but it's a happy inconsistency.

As to "high church," do you mean Calvin's Strasbourg (or Genevan, though I prefer the Strasbourg because the Genevan civil authorities mucked up the Genevan; stupid city council!) Liturgies? Those are all the "higher" I care to go!

What constitutes a "high" liturgy?

rsc

Originally posted by AdamM
Scott,

Thank you for the interaction. I'm in a weird position because I have great appreciation for Lutherans and make it a point to listen to Todd Wilken's excellent radio program during the drive home almost everyday, so I trust that my comments aren't taken by anyone as bashing Lutheranism. I actually have found Luther's small catechism to be very helpful and believe the law/gospel hermeneutic is at its essence just another way of expressing COW v. COG theology.

My main point was to counter what I perceive is a tendency among some high church Reformed folk to take gratuitous shots at our Reformed Baptist brothers (which I know you don't do btw.) I think if winsome, gospel loving, Calvinism preaching pastors like Tom Ascol, Sam Waldron, Mark Dever and the Founders are no longer considered near to us as Confessional Presbyterians, then we're going seriously off the tracks and need a course correction.
 
Dr. Clark,

It seems that we are all agreed on a great deal of the commonalities we have with confessional believers of both Lutheran and Baptist persuasion. And regarding the further issue of external covenant membership, I do see your point in how that is a significant issue weighing in on where one would corporately worship - and that due to the very nature of corporate worship, that doctrine of covenant membership may indeed have a greater type of weight than mere agreement on various other issues would when considering where one would align themselves in such worship.

Even so, regarding the issue of confessional overlap in those "other issues," I wanted to clarify your use of the term "predestinarian Baptist," since you used the term more than once. Even if people disagree as to the historical and theological honesty of the term "Reformed Baptist," if nothing else I assume you would agree that we have much more in common with a true, consistent 1689-confessing Baptist than we do with a mere "predestinarian" Baptist who could believe any number of things on many key issues. As such, even if one does not like some of the implications of the term "Reformed Baptist" (and I could go either way at the time), the simple term "predestinarian Baptist" still does not seem to do justice to the commonality we have with 1689'ers.
 
Chris,

I'm open to suggestions. It has seemed to me that PB is preferable to RB on the theory that there is much more to being Reformed than predestination and most folk, when they use the term, simply mean "PB." They're not usually invoking all the other loci of theology (doctrines of Scripture, God, Man, Christ etc).

It seems to me that if someone denies that my children are properly members of the covenant of grace and, as such, not eligible for the sign/seal of covenant initiation, they cannot be called Reformed.

We have, with our Baptist friends, a profound difference over the nature of redemptive history. They interject a radical and unwarranted discontinuity between Abraham and Christ/Paul. We do not have this difficulty with the Lutherans.

It seems to me that it is not really Christology, anthropology, or the like that really get so-called RB's "out of bed" as it were. It's paptism and predestination that get them going.

Yes, the 1689 borrows much from the WCF. That's fine, but is that what animates them? Is that their ethos?

With the Lutherans we have a great deal of history regarding distinctions between theology as God knows and as we know it -- they attribute to Christ's humanity archetypal theology, but at least they begin with the TA/TE distinction.

Is this true of the RB's? Is this part of their ethos, part of what makes them what they are?

Do they, with the Reformed and the Lutheran speak freely of "the means of grace?"

It seems to me that the Reformed are from a different time and place. Our roots are not quite theirs. They have, as has been noted on this board, ambiguous relations to the Anabaptists. Neither we nor the Lutherans do.

Other things about which to think.

I thought PD was a friendly term, but if there is an friendlier and more accurate term, let's use it.

rsc

Originally posted by Me Died Blue
Dr. Clark,

It seems that we are all agreed on a great deal of the commonalities we have with confessional believers of both Lutheran and Baptist persuasion. And regarding the further issue of external covenant membership, I do see your point in how that is a significant issue weighing in on where one would corporately worship - and that due to the very nature of corporate worship, that doctrine of covenant membership may indeed have a greater type of weight than mere agreement on various other issues would when considering where one would align themselves in such worship.

Even so, regarding the issue of confessional overlap in those "other issues," I wanted to clarify your use of the term "predestinarian Baptist," since you used the term more than once. Even if people disagree as to the historical and theological honesty of the term "Reformed Baptist," if nothing else I assume you would agree that we have much more in common with a true, consistent 1689-confessing Baptist than we do with a mere "predestinarian" Baptist who could believe any number of things on many key issues. As such, even if one does not like some of the implications of the term "Reformed Baptist" (and I could go either way at the time), the simple term "predestinarian Baptist" still does not seem to do justice to the commonality we have with 1689'ers.
 
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
Originally posted by ChristopherPaul
I heard Kim Riddlebarger make the claim that Confessional Presbyterians are more in agreement with Reformed Lutherans (LCMS) than our Calvinist Baptist friends.

What are your thoughts on such a statement?

If this was on the WHI, I guess Kim said "confessional Lutheran." There isn't any such thing as a "Reformed Lutheran," in any real sense of the word.

Thank you Dr. Clark for comments. Kim Riddlebarger may have used the term "confessional Lutheran." The statement was not made on the WHI (I would think it would not be appreciated by Ken Jones). He mentioned this during his presentation of your thesis on CT. I can not locate the lectures online.
 
Predestinarian is not a bad term, just perhaps a little imprecise. As Chris Blum noted above, there are all different types of baptistic folks who could fit under that umbrella, including dispensationalists of the MacArthur/S. Lewis Johnson variety, NCT, 1689ers, those who would identify strongly with the anabaptists and others who would instead identify with the Puritans, to Landmarkers and Primitive Baptists of the Absolute Predestinarian Order.

That being said, I'm not a big fan of the term Reformed Baptist either since it reflects the common tendency today to reduce Reformed theology to just the 5 points. I would prefer Calvinistic Baptist to Reformed Baptist since it may to some minds focus more narrowly on soteriology, but others would probably disagree with me there. Some use Historic Baptist, but that means different things to different people and can be invoked to support a myriad of different emphases. Perhaps the best term is the old label of Particular Baptist since it identifies with the English Baptists who gave us the 1st and 2nd London Confessions of Faith, but that term seems to have fallen out of general usage some time ago.

Another thought is to use the term Confessional Baptist for those who hold to the 1689 confession. I don't know that any would be what we would term strict subscriptionists, but it's a term that could perhaps be useful.
 
I (and I think most of us) would identify more with low church Anglican evangelicals like J.C. Ryle than with Lutherans but there don't seem to be many of them around these days.
 
Confessional Baptist is a fair and useful term. It certainly describes the way the IRBS folk think of themselves.

As you say, it doesn't describe others such as those affiliated with FIRE.

I don't think "Calvinistic Baptist" is appropriate as it reduces Calvin's theology to soteriology and disregards that which the eponym confessed and taught to be of the utmost importance! In short, "Calvinistic Baptist" is an oxymoron. It would cause Calvin to spin in his unmarked grave.

Perhaps "PD" would describe the predestinarian dispensationalists and quasi-dispensationalists who hang around the fringes of Reformed theology?

rsc

Originally posted by Pilgrim
Predestinarian is not a bad term, just perhaps a little imprecise. As Chris Blum noted above, there are all different types of baptistic folks who could fit under that umbrella, including dispensationalists of the MacArthur/S. Lewis Johnson variety, NCT, 1689ers, those who would identify strongly with the anabaptists and others who would instead identify with the Puritans, to Landmarkers and Primitive Baptists of the Absolute Predestinarian Order.

That being said, I'm not a big fan of the term Reformed Baptist either since it reflects the common tendency today to reduce Reformed theology to just the 5 points. I would prefer Calvinistic Baptist to Reformed Baptist since it may to some minds focus more narrowly on soteriology, but others would probably disagree with me there. Some use Historic Baptist, but that means different things to different people and can be invoked to support a myriad of different emphases. Perhaps the best term is the old label of Particular Baptist since it identifies with the English Baptists who gave us the 1st and 2nd London Confessions of Faith, but that term seems to have fallen out of general usage some time ago.

Another thought is to use the term Confessional Baptist for those who hold to the 1689 confession. I don't know that any would be what we would term strict subscriptionists, but it's a term that could perhaps be useful.
 
Sovereign Grace is another term that has been used, especially by those Baptists who would reject (rightly in my opinion) the terms Reformed or Calvinistic because they as Baptists could not identify with all of what those terms imply.
 
My fundamental question is whether they regard us as baptized persons? To say: "You are not baptized" is to say, "You are outside the covenant community." As I understand our confession of the Scriptures, that's a very serious thing to say.

I recognize that there are predestinarian Baptists who regard me as Baptized, for which graciousness I am truly thankful. It's probably not very consistent with their theology and confession, but it's a happy inconsistency.

Hi Scott,

Here are some mostly random thoughts:

1. In regard to Baptists considering you outside the covenant community, I think you are correct about the happy inconsistency, but I also think we need to honor the fact that as far as I can find their confessional documents and practice most don´t make that leap. I think in some ways its equivalent to the Lutherans denying us table fellowship. What does denying a fellow professing Christian the Lord's Table indicate? Happily, but perhaps also inconsistently, I´m sure most Lutherans consider me a covenant member although they deny me the covenant meal for which I have a right to eat.

2. I wonder in regard to confessional Baptists, if it´s really fair to bring up subjective judgments about emphasis of some pastors and letting those trump the many points of agreement we find between Westminster and the 1689 LBC? It seems to me that fairness demands that "œconfessional" Baptist theology ought to be judged by the objective standards that they confess, not the failure of some to properly apply the theology they confess.

3. Yes, I agree that it´s helpful to look back at the historical streams, but don´t think the current situation can necessarily be fit into a static model. From my observation we are seeing the confessional Baptist camp moving more toward our "œcovenantal" direction (www.founders.org), due to many Baptist ministerial students graduating from the same seminaries that are preparing most PCA/OPC/URCNA candidates (if the gap between confessional Baptists and confessional Presbyterians is so wide that would hardly make sense.) Confessional Baptists and confessional Presbyterians have for many years worked closely together as co-belligerents in organizations such as the Banner of Truth and the cross pollination of theological writing between both camps is extensive. I can´t think of a Lutheran in our circles that has the influence of D.A.Carson, Doug Moo, Tom Schreiner or Ron Nash and I doubt many Lutherans would think of using Hodge´s systematic as their primary textbook like confessional Baptist J.P. Boyce, a former student of Charles Hodge did with his own students. I could just be blind to all the links we as Presbyterians have with confessional Lutherans, but I just don´t see them?

As to "high church," do you mean Calvin's Strasbourg (or Genevan, though I prefer the Strasbourg because the Genevan civil authorities mucked up the Genevan; stupid city council!) Liturgies? Those are all the "higher" I care to go!

What constitutes a "high" liturgy?

No, I wasn't referring to Calvin's Strasbourg. I was thinking more along the lines of the modern Mercersburg approach, where the Lord's Supper supplants the preaching of the Word as the primary focus of worship, along with vestments (I am not meaning Geneva gowns) and etc.

I enjoy and appreciate the interaction Brother and pray you are doing well!

[Edited on 7-28-2006 by AdamM]
 
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