Michael: You big sexy “Hatching Church Movement” Stud! roflmbo…

JS: I have one question for you- Are you persuaded that infant baptism is true by scripture alone, or scripture and tradition?

I’m persuaded to my position by scripture interpreting tradition, as best I understand it. That and Fred Malone’s book. :-)

Before I put him on rule 40 so I don’t have to type stuff like this again, let me say that a TR named Doxoblogy has announced that I am part of the emerging church. That’s either not true or inaccurate or a mistake or an intentional lie. I have no idea which, but it’s one of the four.

I tell you Doxo, if I am what the emerging church is all about, they’ve got problems.

Defend- just DEFEND- the right of someone to have a part in a discussion, and the TRs are printing bumper stickers lying about you.

I would say what you are, but since I don’t know you, I have no idea.

Where is the BHT Center For Verbal Violence Against Men? I feel objectified. (jn+)

Michael – Don’t feel harassed – I had the disciples pictured in my mind specifically. I did not mean to be condescending toward your opinion on the matter, which I really do respect.

Put me at the top of the list of people who tend to take themselves too seriously (“adultish”), like to exclude others, especially when I don’t understand how they could contribute to my plans for things, and all around thick headed (dunder-head).

>adultish, exclusivist dunder-heads…

I feel harassed. Is there a lawyer in the house?

I agree with JS. – Given that Jesus told the disciples to quit preventing the children from coming to him, for of such is the kingdom. I know this passage isn’t talking about baptism, per se, but shows that we tend to be adultish, exclusivist dunder-heads while Jesus showed Himself to be mysterious and inclusive.

I don’t think that “for such is the kingdom of heaven” can only be interpreted analogously, that we adults in the life of the church are to have child like faith. It doesn’t seem fair to the text to devoid it of all literal meaning.

“Layers, Layers”

Kent: I think we’ve already established that I alone, of all BHTers, have no accent but speak perfect American english. Travis may, I suppose, be included in the “no accent” club.

Jim’s accent isn’t too bad, for someone from New Jersey. I’ll let Michael tell you about when I commented on his accent, gave entirely the wrong impression, then just dug myself in deeper as I tried to correct it. He and Denise found it amusing.

Great insight on Driscoll, McLaren and others from TSK. About McLaren:

Brian is great at stimulating questions but can frustrate people by not arriving at answers for them in one sitting. He generally wants them to think through the issue before formulating a response which causes fundamentalists to pull their hair out. And Brian’s background is not Reformed so his books will probably never be published by Banner of Truth.

Maybe the ‘problem’ with Brian McLaren is that he’s a teacher.

Jim, Scot and Brian are right and by deduction so am I as I agree with them all. I’m going to agree with Bill because I think I could understand his accent, I know I can understand Jesse’s accent ‘cause I’ve talked to him but I still think he’s wrong…I think he’s going through a phase.

I agree with Dennis too about how if you believe in the total depravity of infants and the salvific nature of baptism that you should get a job as a missionary babysitter and smuggle infants into LCMS churches. Archie Bunker did that in All in the Family (though I think it was a Catholic church) with his grandson because Meathead was a pagan. The Mormons practice baptism in abstensia which is a damn efficient way to make converts but it doesn’t bring in a lot of income because dead people don’t tithe.

If you baptise a baby and model Christian faith throughout his/her upbringing and have a meaningful spiritual relationship with the child they’ll probably be happy with the decision you made for them.

If you baptise a baby and don’t model Christian faith throughout his/her upbringing and don’t have a meaningful spiritual relationship with they child and they become a believer anyway they may choose to be baptised again based upon their own decision/commitment. I did.

Frankly, I’m glad that scripture gives us a great deal of freedom regarding the forms of baptism we practice.

JS: I think that the disciples, who actually did spend three years with Jesus, probably baptized infants, which seals the deal for me.

The evidence is this is lacking, other than the fact you “think” and “probably.” I am not sure there is enough “deal sealing” evidence there to build any kind of case for infant baptism. It’s not like “I know” Jesus asked his disciples to wash each others feet, so we will obey. IMHO

Michael, I think that it’s entirely likely that I would have baptized infants after spending three years with Jesus. And I think that the disciples, who actually did spend three years with Jesus, probably baptized infants, which seals the deal for me.

Jim is also right.

Dennis: Wow, that’s not the first “guerilla baptism” I’ve heard of by a Lutheran. I wonder how widespread the practice actually is. I don’t think the LCMS encourages such behavior.

Dennis, I’ve got some stuff to attend to today, so maybe Josh will descend upon the tavern and smite you all with the sword of Chemnitz in the meantime. But I would be interested in hearing any responses to what I wrote.

I am enjoying this discussion on infant/family baptism, but I am confused (as per this discussion) as to the relevance unless you believe baptism to be salvific in nature. If I believed infants we’re “totally depraved” (and I don’t) and baptism to be salvifically efficacious, then this argument for infant baptism might seem logical. The obvious conclusion of this type of hermenutic would be that the sacrament becomes the “savior”, which leads to what my Luthern friend did to an infant. She was babysitting, and she knew the mother of the infant didn’t go to church. So while the mother was shopping, my friend took the infant, without the permission of the parent, and baptised her. She was so excited to tell me. I was mortified. I can’t fathom that kind of misapplication of baptism. But it is logical, based upon what I am reading here.

I like Michael’s description of baptism as a mature, conscious expression of an already existing faith. I’ll add to that with this: It is the first major act of obedience to the Savior from whom, and to whom that faith is directed. For my part, I am extremely grateful that experience was not denied me, on the day I went under the waters of the river before my friends and family and expressed before them and God my faith in Christ.

It is almost a marriage ceremony, if you will pardon the analogy. To take liberties with Michael’s description, marriage is a mature conscious expression of an already existing love, performed before God and man, in obedience to God. I see baptism like that.

The abuses and mistakes don’t negate the theology. That argument has never logically held water. It’s not a perfect system, because we aren’t perfect. There will always be credobaptized people who turn out to be unregenerate just as there will always be paedobaptized people who grow up to be Wiccans.

On the paedo side: While I obviously don’t hold to the doctrines, I think the Lutherans and Catholics have the soundest, most consistent reasoning for baptizing infants.

Annie: I was mostly interested in the word “logically.” Wilson’s case was really good. The best of its type, in my opinion. But at its key point, the transition from circumcision to the baptism of infants, it is a case built on “logic,” not text. And that’s where I get off the train. I would have preferred the case been made from church tradition than on a “logical” deduction that this is the changed sign. I don’t believe God left us with the Bible, but we need to do the right math to understand the obvious things, and that is what infant baptism seems to me to be: the right math to solve the problem of what happened to circumcision.

As to the “household” argument, I think credoscholars have addressed this (see Beasley-Murray, Malone or Jewett.) The assumption that household includes infants for some things does not mean that household would include infants for everything. Do I need to cite examples? The paedo assumption is that those texts must- logically :) include infants when baptism is mentioned. I simply don’t believe that it is necessary for the word “household” to usually mean “all without exception.” The term household could be all-inclusive in every instance, or it can be generally inclusive in specific instances. The paedo assumption is the first, but I think it isn’t enough logic to overturn the great silence of texts that explicitly state infants must be baptized.

Again, I leave with one question: If I spent three years with Jesus, would I baptize infants? I am convinced not, but then again, I’m wrong so often I probably shouldn’t be listened to except in a “here’s one certainly WRONG position” kind of way :-)

Gone for the day. Cya’ll.

OK. I’m off to take my beagle to the vet, then work day at church. Maybe back in the early PM ‘cause I have two papers to write this weekend and haven’t done the reading necessary to write them. (call Ripley)

Promise you won’t drop the baptism issue or lose interest until I get back.

Michael – You said - to view baptism not as the culmination of an EXPERIENCE, but a mature, conscious expression of the faith that has long before embraced you. This definately clarified your position for me. I asked a while back if your stance on baptism had more to do with the christian community you were in than with arguments becuase I couldn’t put it together with most of the theology you argue for. This ties it together and makes sense.

I would agree with you that seeing baptism as a new seal of the covenant is a key part of the argument. If it is not a new seal, replacing circumcision, then it becomes more difficult to extend the practice to infants. And if it is not, then what is it? I believe I recall someone saying here something to the effect (Bill?) – “Jesus said do it, so we do it. Good enough for me.” The nominalistic randomness of such a stance doesn’t make any sense to me.

If it is, then Wilson’s arguement that such a change in the seal, to exclude it now from infants, would have caused a big noticable stink in the NT, becomes pretty convincing to me.

A question in return; You also wrote, Raise them in the Lord. Teach them to confess and trust in Christ. Baptism as the adult confession of that faith and entrance into the life of the church. NOT treating them as “unwashed pagans” before that moment, –
Doesn’t this give a strange rationalistic flavor to “life in the church” to define it as something only adults partake of? And is there still not a bit of arbitray judgement going on? HOw does this fit with the “household” baptisms, which would seem to argue for the life of the church to be defined by family tie more than age.

Hope I am making sense, I am nursing the baby at 4am and typing with one hand!

And my baptized baby just pooped all over my leg. Great.

What Jim said. I hope to say a bit more on this tomorrow (today?) if I get the time.

I think Mclaren is right, for what it’s worth. Whether it’s accurate or not, the abiding perception that the world has of the evangelical church is that we’re all raving homophobes. They have ceased to take us seriously, because, frankly, we can’t be serious. In their eyes, the church’s response to homosexuality is so incongruous with our response to virtually every other sinful act that we can’t even open our mouths to speak on the topic without revealing ourselves as hypocrites.

Thanks to the combined (one almost is tempted to say “coordinated”) efforts of the likes of Fred Phelps on one side and radical gay activists on the other, we actually have reached a point where to say “homosexuality is sin” is almost universally equated with saying “God hates fags.” Again, I don’t think it’s an accurate perception – although to witness the paranoia that some conservative church leaders exhibit when talking about gay & lesbian activists, gives one reason to wonder – but it is the entrenched perception.

Here’s an experiment to try: The next time you’re asked about homosexuality from someone you know isn’t a believer, start your reply like this: “Well, God hates fags. What I mean by that is…” You’ll find you lost your audience at the first period; if they continue to listen, it’s only to fuel the rage of their reaction to you, or to use you as a humorous anecdote.

What I’m saying – and what I think Mclaren is saying, perhaps behind some posturing – is that we need to shut the hell up about “homosexuality” and start showing the same Christ-like compassion for homosexuals that we do with most other forms of sin. We need to drop the conspiracy model and start viewing those who are gay or lesbian as our neighbors. We need to look hard at ourselves, individually and as churches, and see what the homosexuals in our communities see. To the extent that we can influence it, we need to do what we can to insure that any person looking at the church from the outside sees the open arms of the prodigal’s father, and not the self-righteous indignation of his brother.

I’m covering Song of Solomon this week. Ignatius Insight has a timely post, and the entire introduction to a new exposition of the book. (Joel…you will really like this.) Good stuff.

I prefer to be known by what I refuse to negate, so from now on I should be known as the “ananabaptist”.

Bill, none intended. I intentionally chose ‘antipaedobaptist’ for my question rather than ‘credobaptist’. Not to define you or any particular Baptist in my mind, but to highlight what I take (and have experienced) to be the underside of a particular way of defining a christian community. I did not try to make that clear enough (I do try to corner the market on obtuseness around here :-)

So, when I said antipaedobaptist view entail some predictable practices, namely, drawing ever-tighter definitions around who is a child of Christ by redrawing ever-narrower ecclesiological boundaries, I had in mind a rather specific group: namely, baptists who not only do not recognize the baptism of infants as a valid christian baptism, but those who would (or at least be inclined to) raise additional barriers to fellowship with them, and, for that matter, with other credobaptists. I’m trying to use ‘antipaedobaptist’ in a very narrow sense: a species of credobaptist whose relations with other christian communities begins from a standpoint of something like glowering skepticism. By no means was I trying to lump all credobaptists into that camp (I probably failed to exercise due care in how I used ‘antipaedobaptist’). But I think all credobaptists have a stake in what’s going on around this IMB thing, especially if they are in any kind of communion with the SBC.

My motivation: as a former SBCer myself, the actions of the IMB are mystifying to me (and I’ve read more than a little defense of those actions). If there’s more going on besides mere politics, I’m wondering what it might be that’s driving the redistricting efforts. The IMB’s actions (praxis) entail a theology. Is it different views of salvation? The spiritual life? Authority? (I can’t shake the strangeness of how very “popish” this decision was, which just adds to the irony.)

So the antipaedobaptist is now incarnated as the anticharismatic and the antiloseyoursalvationist.

I speculated that Baptists who have some historical ties to the English Reformation and Puritanism in particular will constantly be attracted to Landmarkism because the ecclesiology that they inherited was at pains to raise a very tall barrier between themselves and Rome. For example, Spurgeon:

We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves.

For such a brilliant man, this is just a bizarre way to disconnect oneself from the Protestant Reformation. And I think Michael has addressed this very well by appealing to the European Baptists as the better model that keeps the credobaptist distinctive but without the downward spiral into subjectivism and schism.

A testimony about close communion from a former Southern Baptist turned Lutheran.

Annie: Reading your pieces on paedobaptism (and Wilson’s excellent presentation), I read these words:

Why change the sign and seal of the Abrahamic covenant? Logically it makes sense to have a “new” seal when a pivotal event has taken place.

I wondered if you would agree with me that your choice of words here- which accurately reflect Wilson and the best paedo arguments, imo- are the KEY to the entire discussion from the reformed paedobaptist side?

Kathy, the San Franciscol lurker, sends me some recipes for a Friday Monkish Happy Hour.

No offense taken, but I don’t care for the term anti-paedobaptist. That is certainly not how I would describe my position. I prefer to be defined by what I affirm, not what I deny. I am a credobaptist. I didn’t reject paedo and become credo by default, rather the reverse.

I begin right here: How would Jesus have treated homosexuals? The answer to that question is incredibly simple: he would have treated
them as Eikons, as human beings made in God’s image who are designed to
reflect God’s glory in this world by relating to God lovingly, to
themselves lovingly, to others lovingly, and to the world lovingly.
They would have been welcomed at the table of discussion, they would
have been invited to listen to him, to interact with him, to follow
him, and to fellowship with his followers. They would have been
challenged to live before God as Jesus taught. In short, they would
have been loved by Jesus. Not shunned; not humiliated; not ostracized;
but given a seat for as long as they cared to be with him. He would
have told everyone and anyone that there was a seat (or place; they
didn’t use chairs) at the table for them.

Scot McKnight on Jesus and homosexuality. A fantastic answer, and there is more good stuff in the post, partiularly that the table fellowship was building an alternative society around Jesus, and that his goal was redemption. But the table fellowship came FIRST. Amen Scot!

Joel’s Baptism Question:

I think there are tendencies in both views. The tendency towards subjectivism and narrow definition based on ______________ for the credo team, and tendencies toward all the horrors Bill or any other Baptist deacon could recite on the other side. Both could be confirmed by a trip to any Baptist church with a serious revivalist in the pulpit, followed by a trip to any mainline that baptized all its kids who are now Hindus and Wiccans.

For me, I needed to hear credo baptism explained by a European Baptist (G.R. Beasley-Murray) OUTSIDE OF the context of American revivalism, etc, to see that there was a way to view our children virtually identically to the covenant view of children, and to view baptism not as the culmination of an EXPERIENCE, but a mature, conscious expression of the faith that has long before embraced you. Dr. Beasley-Murray said that European Baptists do not baptize before age 16. And of course they don’t have revivalism. So what you have is a kind of advanced confirmation and adult credobaptism, not revivalism, subjectivism, fundamentalism, etc.

I think that is the context that most suits my understanding of credo baptism and covenant theology. Raise them in the Lord. Teach them to confess and trust in Christ. Baptism as the adult confession of that faith and entrance into the life of the church. NOT treating them as “unwashed pagans” before that moment, and not constantly seeking the “experience of getting saved,” which really is the problem.

Gotta LOSE the TRANSACTIONALISM. That’s the ticket. Lose it. Keep Credo. That’s me. (And that’s why I understand paedo, because it is much closer to what I believe than revivalistic views of baptism.)

Rule 40 intact, but I can post what someone else says :-) The movie quotes are great.

We are going to meet the inlaws tomorrow. I’ve been thinking of a few things to do to break the ice:

Take puppets. Use them to talk to everyone at the table.
Watch a PSP movie with Clay, and laugh a lot.
Talk about back hair, and why it bothers people.
Read quotes from Josh. Especially today.
Explain my persistent doubts that Noel is my real daughter.
Talk about how the tent scene in Brokeback Mountain just won’t leave my mind.
Have Clay help me do some scenes from “This Is Spinal Tap.”
Explain what I would do if I met [name deleted] in a restaurant.
Talk about the Brewer’s chances to win the NL Central.

Joel, is there not some middle-ground between Landmarkian Redefinition and equipping ordained pastors for squirt gun evangelism?

Rocky Mountain Oysters: the ranchers in Colorado ate those things…they’re also called ‘lamb fries’. I always thought they were nuts.

internetmonk.com ป Southern Baptists and Charismatics: What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Yeah, don’t click the photo gallery on that site. Gross.

Are you serious about eating these? I think I can safely say that I will never put balls of any species in my mouth. Gross.

 Rocky Mountain Oysters Dudes. Someone so needs to prepare this for the bar. Like this.

Actually, if I were to have ‘moral compassion points’ it would be for serving the needs of the disabled and the mentally ill five days per week (for pay of-course).

Our client’s care and medical needs are paid for by state-funded programs.

One struggle that many direct care professionals in Minnesota have voiced is that as ‘working citizens’ they don’t have access to the same quality of medical care as do their clients…unless of course they work for the state.

State employees caring for developmentally delayed individuals make 70% more than employees of private agencies.

I guess that one could make the point that they ‘could always find a better paying job’. Which is true; but you should say that to them after watching them care for the needs of a helpless client. They are ‘wired’ for what they are doing; gifted by God with tremendous compassion and patience for the ‘least of these’.