Baptism and church membership
I know this is a hot topic right now, but since only ten people read this blog, I don’t think that I am going to solve any problems or change anyone’s mind. But I do want to set out my position as it stands right now, if for no other reason than to help to clarify my own thinking on this issue.
Before I begin, I should say that my mind has changed several times on this issue. I have had the unique privilege of spending a couple of years with some wise and godly men who are on both sides of this issue.
During my two years in Minneapolis at Bethlehem, I leaned towards Piper’s view (open membership). Then, when I moved to Louisville, although I initially held Piper’s position pretty strongly, I changed my view to a certain degree after listening to the arguments of my professors and pastors at Southern Seminary and Clifton Baptist. And to be honest, I still go back-and-forth on this issue.
If I were forced to articulate a position, I would advocate something of a conditional open membership view. What do I mean by this? First of all, I am a pretty committed credobaptist. I will not take time here to rehearse the arguments for this position, but it does lead me to say that in order to be biblically baptized, one must be baptized after conversion. This, and this alone, is proper baptism.
For better or for worse, most of us in the West live in places where we can find a church that will agree with our position on baptism. Therefore, we cannot honestly say that we are excluding a brother or sister from membership if they do not accept our understanding, because they probably could find a good Presbyterian or non-denominational church in the area. So, if I were a member of a church that was proposing a shift to open membership, but knew of a good Presbyterian church down the street, I would probably vote against it.
Having said that, I do concede the point that there are places all over the world that do not have both good credobaptists and good paedobaptists within a reasonable distance of each other. In such circumstances, I concede that since our paedobaptist brothers and sisters practice a form of defective obedience, their obedience, while defective, is nonetheless a real form of obedience. In these circumstances, I would not raise an objection to open membership.
Am I talking out of both sides of my mouth? I am being—gasp—pragmatic? Probably. But we must always be aware of our circumstances and strive to make wise, Scripturally informed choices in light of these circumstances. In this case, I admit the importance of believer’s baptism and will defend it. But I also believe there may be some circumstances when other factors trump this understanding of baptism.
Before I begin, I should say that my mind has changed several times on this issue. I have had the unique privilege of spending a couple of years with some wise and godly men who are on both sides of this issue.
During my two years in Minneapolis at Bethlehem, I leaned towards Piper’s view (open membership). Then, when I moved to Louisville, although I initially held Piper’s position pretty strongly, I changed my view to a certain degree after listening to the arguments of my professors and pastors at Southern Seminary and Clifton Baptist. And to be honest, I still go back-and-forth on this issue.
If I were forced to articulate a position, I would advocate something of a conditional open membership view. What do I mean by this? First of all, I am a pretty committed credobaptist. I will not take time here to rehearse the arguments for this position, but it does lead me to say that in order to be biblically baptized, one must be baptized after conversion. This, and this alone, is proper baptism.
For better or for worse, most of us in the West live in places where we can find a church that will agree with our position on baptism. Therefore, we cannot honestly say that we are excluding a brother or sister from membership if they do not accept our understanding, because they probably could find a good Presbyterian or non-denominational church in the area. So, if I were a member of a church that was proposing a shift to open membership, but knew of a good Presbyterian church down the street, I would probably vote against it.
Having said that, I do concede the point that there are places all over the world that do not have both good credobaptists and good paedobaptists within a reasonable distance of each other. In such circumstances, I concede that since our paedobaptist brothers and sisters practice a form of defective obedience, their obedience, while defective, is nonetheless a real form of obedience. In these circumstances, I would not raise an objection to open membership.
Am I talking out of both sides of my mouth? I am being—gasp—pragmatic? Probably. But we must always be aware of our circumstances and strive to make wise, Scripturally informed choices in light of these circumstances. In this case, I admit the importance of believer’s baptism and will defend it. But I also believe there may be some circumstances when other factors trump this understanding of baptism.
Labels: Baptism, church membership, polity
posted by Chris Bruno at 9:41 PM
2 Comments:
Here's to both/and pragmatism :-)
I wrestled with this one internally quite a bit as we (Lerro and I) were formulating our constitution for the church. At the end of the day the visual drama of union with Christ is so important to the church we felt it necessary to require immersion post-conversion for membership.
What is interesting is that a couple of families that are checking us out are coming from a Presbyterian church. They don't seem to have a problem with it for now. They have not revealed if they have been immersed post-conversion. I agree with a post on JT's blog (I don't remember who he was quoting) a while back: most of the laity in the Presbyterian church cannot really articulate the significance of infant baptism. Ironically enough, many of the laity (dare I say leaders) of credo-baptists also miss the import as well. I rarely here the emphasis of the individual's new position in Christ articulated. It seems to be presented as the "first act of obedience" as opposed to a public demonstration to the community of identification in Christ.
Anyway, we also developed a limited child membership section in an attempt to deal with the hard issues related to children in the covenant community. We think it will help the families and the church care for our children to the glory of God.
Glad to see you blogging more. I am one of your "ten" faithful readers.
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