Leif, two words: full text. Forget the made-for-TV version. Just wait for the text of the speech to be released.

Michael, do we have some lurkers with the hook-up, or how did you get your hands on that Warfield so quickly? I think the BHT fellows and…whatever the feminine equivalent is of ‘fellows’...deserve full disclosure: you’re not only a user of blogcrack, you’re a pusher, too. You’re my enabler. And you are SO responsible for my wind-whipped, below-freezing pilgrimmage to the seminary library tomorrow.

Even on the most charitable reading, that Warfield quote ain’t much help to the rather implausible claim you mentioned earlier regarding infant baptism. This reminds me of others discussions I’ve had/read that infant baptism can be plucked easily out of “Reformed” or covenantal theology. That there is some fancy footwork that boils down to two incompatible positions: (1) we are “calvinists” and/or “Reformed” but (2) the true church (of which “we” are a part) has no vital historical connection to the Roman Catholic Church. Oversimplifying, what I’ve seen is that (1) is almost infinitely malleable (totally pliable or eccentric definition of what “Reformed” means) to the point where one can, without flinching, state that one’s own sect is more true to “calvinism” than was Calvin himself. I believe this cognitive dissonance is untroubling to such a one because that malleability is necessary to save (2): one must have improvements on Calvin’s calvinism because Calvin is obviously a Protesting reformer of Mother Church and too “tainted” by Catholic ecclesiology and sacramentology. Oh, and even if you could extract some claim from that quote by Warfield that Augustine was “moving away” from infant baptism, his interpretation of theological history seems selective at best.

This is why I am intrigued by your European Baptist version of covenant theology. I have some questions about it, but I need to get informed before I ask them.