A CrossPolitic Tranny Baptist Playbook

Introduction
For those of you just now joining us, CrossPolitic had Jason Farley on the show a week or so back, and in the course of discussing the tranny apocalypse upon us, he noted that this was caused by baptists (or at least their pastors). If you were listening carefully to the show, you might have had a least some inkling that there was more to it than a simple accusation of credo-baptism. As the surrounding conversation made clear, the target was radical individualism, revivalism, decisionism, using credo-baptism as a ceremony to express yourself, rather than as a confession of the sovereign Lordship of Christ. 

Anyway, while many baptists have contacted us to thank us for describing exactly what they grew up with, a number of others were a bit flustered, and there were calls for us to retract and apologize and grovel. Not everyone called for all three, but there were calls for all three. We didn’t retract anything, and that made some of the more vociferous critics more mad, which we aren’t sorry about at all. There were certainly reasonable questions and concerns raised by some friends who wished we would retract or distance ourselves from what Jason Farley said, but we didn’t and we won’t since we agree with him. 

Of course if you thought the comments were directed at all baptists or the simple conviction that the Bible teaches credo-baptism, we have been happy to clarify many times that we are not saying that and we don’t believe that. There’s a massive difference between baptists who see credo-baptism as a confesion that Jesus is Lord, and baptists who see credo-baptism as your own personal coming-out party, your moment to express your inner, sacred self, which really has been, in our view, a massive contributor to the current tranny madness. So much for a review of the game film. 

James White & Ecclesiology
It was a great honor to have James White respond to us on his own show (The Dividing Line) as well as having him on CrossPolitic to discuss these issues. While we certainly could have continued for many hours, and hopefully we will get an opportunity to continue the conversation, here are a few additional thoughts on some of the tectonic plates beneath this conversation. 

It finally dawned on me during our conversation with Dr. White that part of what we had bumped into was a difference in ecclesiology, a different understanding of the church. Dr. White pressed us a bit on exactly where the boundaries of the church are, and it finally occurred to me that this is because Reformed Baptist ecclesiology is different from Reformed Presbyterian ecclesiology. I confess if I have read the chapter On the Church in the 1689 Baptist Confession before, I didn’t remember some of the striking differences between it and the 1647 Westminster Confession that my church and many Reformed Presbyterians subscribe to. 

Let me just note here that I’m part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches which actually recognizes the 1689 Baptist Confession as an accepted confession in our denomination. So in what follows, nothing I say should suggest that I wouldn’t be able to be in full fellowship with brothers who subscribe to that confession. This is simply me pointing out obvious differences that should not divide us but certainly help explain why we might read things differently. You can’t tell the players without a playbook. Consider this a glossary of terms just to help us all communicate a little more clearly. 

So for example, the 1689 Confession does not even mention a “visible church.” It mentions an invisible universal church made up of all the elect (Westminster does too), but then the 1689 moves immediately to describe particular churches or associations and their necessity and usefulness and then goes into some details on how they are to be organized and function. Westminster by contrast spends several paragraphs describing the visible universal church, which consists of all those who profess the true religion, along with their children, to which Christ has entrusted the ordinances of the Church and which God makes effectual by His Spirit, which Church is more or less pure, and more or less visible in history depending on the purity of the gospel preached, ordinances performed, and public worship enacted. 

Different Views of the New Covenant
Behind this difference in the confessions is the classic underlying difference between Baptists and Presbyterians on the nature of the New Covenant. The central question is whether the Bible teaches that the New Covenant has unregenerate members in it or not. Baptists say no; Presbyterians say yes. Baptists point to passages like Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 to underline the newness of the New Covenant, and the promise that “all show know me” (Jer. 31:34). Presbyterians embrace that glorious newness but deny that this must be taken to mean that every last member of the new covenant must be regenerate. We hold Hebrews 8 together with Hebrews 10 that warns against those who would go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, and the promise of “worse punishment” for those who trample underfoot the Son of God, profaning the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraging the Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29).

There is some debate over who the “he” is who was sanctified by the blood of the covenant, but even if you take it as referring to the Son of God (as I understand John Owen did), I think you still have someone “profaning the blood of the covenant” along with the promise of worse punishment. Is Hebrews 10 merely warning about being outside of Christ (like all pagans)? It seems that the warning is against turning away from Christ, from having *some kind* of connection to Him and trampling that, profaning that. Presbyterians would call that a non-saving “covenantal connection,” membership in the visible church without regeneration. 

Presbyterians would also point to John 15, where Jesus says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Those branches that abide in Jesus are pruned and bear fruit, but those branches that do not bear fruit are cut off and thrown into the fire. The question is: what do we call those branches before they are cut out? What do we call a connection to Jesus that is not saving? The Presbyterian answer is the New Covenant. And again, in Romans 11, Paul describes the olive tree of Israel and how God has broken off unbelieving branches and grafted Gentile branches in, and warns the Gentiles against being haughty about being grafted in, since God is fully capable of cutting out unbelieving Gentile branches and grafting back in believing Jewish branches. What is that kind of relationship with God that allows for cutting out and grafting in? As Calvinists, we do not believe that salvation can be lost. Regeneration and justification are irreversible. All who are justified are guaranteed to be glorified (Rom. 8:30). But the New Testament clearly describes some kind of connection to Christ that admits being “cut out,” and Presbyterians account for that with the doctrine of the covenant and the visible church. 

Incidentally, all of this is why we also deny, to answer one of Dr. White’s gravest concerns, that baptism automatically equals regeneration. It is a sign and seal of regeneration (as Westminster says), but our confession also denies that all the baptized “are undoubtedly regenerated.” It also says that the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of administration, but “by the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time” (WCF XXVIII.6). So we do not believe in baptismal regeneration, but we do believe that God makes true promises in baptism which must be received by faith, a gift of the Holy Spirit, in God’s sovereign timing. 

How the New Covenant is Way Better
Nevertheless, to the concern more broadly of our Baptist brothers that we are flattening out the Old and New Covenants, we do affirm that the New Covenant is way better than the Old Covenant. It is better in clarity, efficacy, and extent. It is way better because Jesus is the fulfillment of all the types and shadows. What the sacrifices and cleansing rites and laws pointed to, God has now revealed with glorious clarity in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Whereas in the Old Covenant, the promises were limited to a tiny nation in Israel, and in that nation perhaps only a tiny percentage of them actually believed over a couple millennia, the New Covenant is international and we believe through the power of the gospel, the vast majority of covenant members over the course of human history will be regenerated and saved.

Jesus said that if He was lifted up, He would draw all men to Himself, and so He is (Jn. 12:32). He also gave us the marching orders to disciple the nations, and we believe that the mission of Jesus will be accomplished. All the nations will come. All the nations will be discipled before Jesus returns. This will not be accomplished through political action, marching armies, or humanistic power plays, but solely by the power of the Cross. So, in many millennia from now (it seems likely that we’re still in the early church) when Christ returns and the totals come in, if 10% of Israel was regenerate from Abraham to Christ, and 90% of the New Israel turns out to be saved from Christ to the end of the world, I don’t think Jeremiah’s prophesy or Hebrew’s celebration of the New Covenant will fall flat at all. 

Why All This Matters
But the reason why all of this matters is because it finally hit me in our conversation with James White that if you believe that “the church universal” is limited to the invisible church, the truly elect people of God, then how could *that* church be responsible for all kinds of evils and ills in this world? Dr. White emphasized on the show that he thought the Church primarily brings grace and blessing to the world through her witness and through that, a restraining influence. But when I (and the other CP guys) are talking about “the Church,” we are generally referring to the historic, visible church, all those who profess faith in Jesus and have some semblance of a Christian message and worship, a church which currently still has many spots and wrinkles and blemishes in it (Eph 5:27).

I’m pretty sure Dr. White would agree that our circle is probably quite a bit larger than his. Our confessions agree that certain congregations become so corrupt that they become “synagogues of Satan,” but I suspect that we (Presbyterians) tend to have a wider circle than 1689 Reformed Baptists. And the payout here is that when we are talking about “baptists” and the infiltration of Darwinism and the Enlightenment and Marxist categories and assumptions into the church, I have in mind a quite a bit larger swath of “baptists” than many Reformed Baptists would likely admit (I think). That’s a guess, but that helps me understand why many of them might have felt more targeted by our show than any of us realized (or intended!). We were talking about those baptists with waterslides that drop into the baptismal pool, the baptists with pirate ships, the baptists that recently invited Stacy Abrahms to speak on the biblical case for abortion in their sanctuary. We were talking about Joel Osteen and Andy Stanley and Hillsong.

But my point here is that if you don’t consider any of those folks members of “the visible church” then you might (understandably) be thinking that the only “real” baptists are the good kind, the regenerate kind. And this is just me saying, welp, here I was thinking like a presbyterian, and that never occurred to me.  

Given all of this, I hope that there can be continued discussion on whether God judges nations worse for the presence of those who once confessed His name and then go on sinning deliberately. That’s what Hebrews 10 says. 2 Peter says, “For if, after having escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness…” (2 Pet. 2:20-21). Or what about the house that is swept clean of one demon, who then returns with seven more? Can the historic Christian Church experience that? 

In other words, are there curses for disobedience and unfaithfulness in the New Covenant? When judgment begins in the household of God does God only ever find good things there? That doesn’t seem to be the case at all when Jesus evaluates the churches in Revelation (Rev. 2-3). Or what does it mean that Christians are the “kings and priests” of God in this world (Rev. 1)? Is our ministry to the world only ever blessing and grace? Or can some of God’s ministers become very corrupt and minister that corruption to the world around them? Could, for example, the largest Protestant denomination in the world commend Critical Race Theory as a useful analytical tool? And is it possible that could have a corrupting influence on the world? Not that I know anything about that; I’m just asking for a friend.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash