Saylorville Church responds: "Could it be that Dr. Bauder has touched a nerve of fear? ... a fear of 1,000 'what ifs'?"

I have on more than a few occasions, had the door slammed in my face when I stated I was from such and such Baptist church. But there was no way to tell whether it was because I said “Baptist” or because I said “church”. Many are turned off by the name “Christian” and almost always site the RCC Crusades as evidence that Christians are evil. Yet I refuse to stop calling myself a Christian.

I have found that most of the doors I have knocked that abruptly ended any potential dialogue about the Bible already had their minds made up before I stepped on their porch. There have been many instances where there was a sense of hostility when the name Baptist was mentioned, and once I explained that you do not have to be a Baptist to go to heaven, and that you can be just as much a lost Baptist as a lost Catholic or Jehovah’s Witness, their defenses weren’t so taut.

In 1 Cor 1:11, Paul labeled a church as the house of Chloe. It was not just the church in Corinth, or the church by the riverside, it specifically identified the believers of a particular group. When a believer entered that town, they knew the difference between the doctrines of the house of Chloe, and the church of Webelieveitall on 1st Street.

I believe that changing your name can be seen as even more sinister than maintaining the Baptist name. It gives the appearance that you have something to hide once it is discovered that you believe the same things as a fundamental Baptist church. Seventh Adventists did this with their “Amazing Facts” ministry and more people were turned off by the fact that they tried to hide it then if they had just admitted their doctrinal distinctions were in line with the 7DAC.

Furthermore, I don’t see the logic in the exchange of reputations. We don’t want the Baptist label because of a few bad apples, but we would rather have the reputation of all the other emerging churches, charismatic denominations and other pseudo Christian cults that appear non-denominational? There is also just as much documented abuse within the non-denominational churches as there have been within the Baptist churches.

Finally, anyone who has studied the “trail of blood” of the Baptist church knows that fundamentalists have been labeled no matter what they have chosen to name their church. Changing the name of your church will not prevent those whom you fear will erroneously categorize your church from calling you a Donatist, Bogomile, Paulican, Montanist, et al, regardless of what name you give your church. We live in a society that thrives on labels whether it’s the label of a church, a food category or an attitude defined by the DSM, it’s inescapable. So why change a label that clearly identifies what my beliefs are to satisfy the criticisms of those who will eventually find another label for me anyway?

I’d love to say everything I want to say - but will not yet because of another private conversation I need to have first. I think I can say something very quickly to bring light at least to one part of the discussion. Some here might ask, “OK if the church in question says it is historically ‘Baptist’ why would they not put the label on their church name?” Let me draw a comparison.

There are many churches today that are historically and in practice a fundamentalist church. However many of those churches will not publicly call themselves a fundamentalist church because often very strong or even hyper-fundamentalist churches have given the good name of fundamentalism enough of a black eye that it actually impacts ministry (negatively) on the local level.

in the same manner

There is at least one Baptist church in Iowa that is historically and in practice a baptist church. However apparently they are no longer calling themselves “Baptist” (at least in the title of the church) because perhaps in Iowa and no doubt in other parts of the Mid-West there are very strong or even hyper baptist churches that have given the good name of Baptist enough of a black eye that it actually impacts ministry (negatively) on the local level.

So if you would not separate a fundamental church that does not use that name to describe itself even thought it is in fact historically fundamental……why would you separate yourself from a baptist church that continues to be a baptist church but simply does not use the label?

My guess is some here are just struggling with why you would do this……especially when the majority would admit that the term “Baptist” while historically significant simply does not say everything today that it once meant. A Baptist church can be everything from Hyper-Fundy to the extreme right to a Liberal/Neo-Marxist liberation theology to the left and everything (and I mean everything) in between.

Straight Ahead!

jt

Full disclosure time: FBBC grad. Went to Saylorville my freshman year for all the wonderful reasons a person chooses their college church: My roommate was going there. She was planning to attend Saylorville because family friends from their neck of the woods (and the same general neighborhood of my eventual in-laws) had settled in at Saylorville. So a lot of deep thought went into the decision. Ended up at Ankeny Baptist for the remainder of my time in Iowa.

In the past decade we have unhappily found ourselves seeking out a new fellowship several times. It is well nigh impossible to find a doctrinal statement with any substance from churches which do not have a “denominational tag”. We ended up in what should have been a baptistic leaning “nondenominational” church plant, only to realize the pastor took Presbyterian style polity as a defining issue. Which is certainly his prerogative but it was masked somewhat by the statement of faith. We had told the pastor we would be faithful attenders (and givers) but could never join. We were initially welcomed and allowed to serve but eventually were basically told to knuckle under for the sake of church unity. We left, feeling like habitual church hoppers.

We are in Lutheran territory here - ELCA, WELS, Mo Synod and a couple of smaller bodies plus a few breakaway congregations (over various issues) with no formal ties to any body. There is no wholesale movement to drop the Lutheran name. I am right down the road from a Lutheran university, and got my teaching credential from a Catholic university. Historically, it would seem those two groups have had their share of issues and reasons to want to move away from their names, but they don’t.

Just my observations from these deep, dark, woods :)

[Kevin T. Bauder]… The idea can be used to judge any appropriation of the label. If your can is labeled “corn,” and you discover green beans when you open it, you don’t just say, “Oh, this is another kind of corn.” You judge the can to have been mislabeled.

You want yellow corn. Your favorite brand used to be called “Yellow Corn.” Now the canning company, which only cans yellow corn, has chosen to remove “Yellow” and simply call their product “Corn.”

Then you write papers supporting a boycott of this company’s corn because words mean things and if they are going to change the name, maybe the corn won’t really be quite as yellow.

[Kevin T. Bauder]…The label Baptist stands for an idea. That ideas includes at least six components.

1. The absolute authority of the New Testament in all church faith and order.
2. Believer immersion.
3. Pure church membership.
4. Individual Christian responsibility.
5. Congregational polity.
6. Separation of church and state.

…

Every Baptist should be able to do this.

If you asked a bunch of unchurched people, “Tell me what ‘Baptist’ means.” You would not get anything on that list, except #2 sometimes.

[Kevin T. Bauder]

Greg (Long),

So you’re a fellow Ballard Bomber? I had no idea! Back in the early 1970s I spent many a happy hour in the gymnasium of the elementary school in Slater.

I can’t help thinking that we are talking past one another at several points. You evidently think that I misunderstood (or even willfully misrepresented?) some of what Pat said. By the same token, I think you have misunderstood or misappropriated some of what I said, though I don’t think you would misrepresent it. Rather than try to hash through this point by point, let me back up and try an entirely different approach.

While Charlie will surely cringe under the deficiencies of a gross oversimplification that I am about to make, I would like to suggest that approaches to language can be divided into at least three classes.

(1) Words mean other words. This is the approach of structuralism, and it readily decays into deconstruction.

(2) Words mean things. Besides being the approach of Rush Limbaugh, this is also (very roughly) the approach of nominalism. The word is merely a convenient label. When it becomes inconvenient, it can be easily replaced, discarded, or invested with some alternative meaning. Something like this is happening right now in the debate over “gay marriage,” which isn’t really either.

(3) Words mean ideas. This is approximately the approach of realism. Words point to something transcendent. Language is sermonic. While meanings can and do alter, meaning is nevertheless covenantal in nature, and, consequently, relatively stable. Meanings cannot simply be altered at will.

As it happens, I subscribe to theory (3). This definitely has an effect upon the way I view labels. Labels point, not to things (let alone to other words), but to ideas. The idea can be used to judge any appropriation of the label. If your can is labeled “corn,” and you discover green beans when you open it, you don’t just say, “Oh, this is another kind of corn.” You judge the can to have been mislabeled.

The label Baptist stands for an idea. That ideas includes at least six components.

1. The absolute authority of the New Testament in all church faith and order.
2. Believer immersion.
3. Pure church membership.
4. Individual Christian responsibility.
5. Congregational polity.
6. Separation of church and state.

Because the idea judges every appropriation of the label, we are in a position to say that people like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Fred Phelps really have no right to claim the to be Baptists. If somebody wishes to associate us with them, then we ought to point out that such individuals are guilty of dishonesty (at minimum) in applying this label to themselves. Then we ought to explain what a Baptist is.

Every Baptist should be able to do this. Training in this point ought to be a deliberate aspect of our catechesis. The label may not be found in Scripture, but the idea is (or at least we Baptists believe that it is). Not only is it found in Scripture, it is prominently featured there and it is vital to the bene esse, and perhaps even in some senses to the esse, of the church.

Since it is a very important matter, a church that orders itself according to the idea ought to be willing to announce its order publicly. I suppose that there are multiple ways of doing this. One way would be to feature the above list prominently on the church sign and other public documents. Most churches, however, have found it a bit cumbersome to call themselves the First [or whatever] New-Testament-Authority-Believer-Immersion-Pure-Church-Membership-Individual-Christian-Responsibility-Congregational-Polity-Separation-of-Church-and-State Church. They have found it much more useful to use the label that reflects the idea. That label is Baptist.

I would have no objection at all to a church dropping the name Baptist in favor of another name that was equally or more descriptive of its distinctives. Unfortunately, however, such a name does not exist. No one has yet coined an alternative, and if anybody did, it would not be likely to catch on. So we are stuck with the name Baptist.

I have nowhere suggested that if a church abandons the name Baptist, then it will also abandon the names Christian or Church. What I have argued is that all of the reasons for not claiming the name Baptist also apply to other labels like Christian and Church. If the argument for dropping the name is persuasive in the one instance, then it ought to be equally persuasive in the other instances, or, indeed, in any instance whatever in which someone somewhere finds a label to be either offensive or meaningless.

Of course I do not think that Saylorville is likely to stop calling itself a church (though many of the emergents have—we may not have a “Community Garden Club,” but we do have a “Solomon’s Porch?”). But why not? Whatever reasons Saylorville can offer for retaining the name Church also apply to retaining the name Baptist. It is simply a matter of calling things by their right names.

As far as I know, Saylorville still affirms all of the Baptist distinctives. At that level, we agree. The difference between us is this. I believe that those distinctives are so important that we ought to be known publicly for our adherence to them, and that the best way of announcing our commitment to these distinctives is to use the one label that denotes them. Since it has now rejected the label, I believe that it is fair to infer that Saylorville values the distinctives themselves differently than I do. Furthermore, that difference in valuation is a doctrinal difference.

Speaking of labels, here is the principal definition of demagogue: “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power,” (definition supplied by Merriam-Webster). I certainly hope that this definition does not apply to anything that I’ve said in this discussion.

By the way, I was number 83 on the football team. I played defensive end. Go, red and white.

Kevin

When we moved to Iowa in 1986 from Ohio for my dad to take a position at FBBC, we lived in Huxley for two years before moving to Ankeny. We attended Slater Baptist Church all throughout my upper elementary and teenage years. I was not a Ballard Bomber per se, as I attended Grandview Park Baptist School, but I attended several Ballard athletic events and had several close youth group friends who attended the school. I know the Slater Elementary gymnasium to which you refer and can picture it in my mind because Paul Hartog took the youth group there on several occasions for open gym nights. Unfortunately (I hope you are sitting down for this), that elementary school has been razed to make way for a bank. As far as I have seen, there is not even any kind of historical marker commemorating the spot where the mind of the young Kevin Bauder began to be shaped in his formative years. But perhaps they have retired your football jersey number?

Thank you for your follow up post and for your patient explanation of your position. It was a helpful clarification. And I apologize for the “demagoguery” remark. (I could say that I was choosing to define the word differently than the dictionary, but I don’t think that explanation would suffice with you. :))

I am a Baptist through and through. In my younger days I was saved under the preaching and pastoral ministry of Dr. Ernest Pickering at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Toledo, Ohio. As I mentioned, as a teen I was mentored and taught by Pastors Hartog and Hindal at Slater Baptist Church. I was the youth pastor under Dr. John Hartog II as we helped to plant Maranatha Baptist Church in Grimes. I served on staff at Grandview Park Baptist Church. I graduated from Grandview Park Baptist School. I received my bachelors and masters degrees from Faith Baptist Bible College & Theological Seminary (taking Church History as well as Baptist Faith and Polity from Dr. George Houghton) and am pursuing an advanced degree at a Baptist institution. I have taught the Baptist distinctives to both teens and adults in church ministry. I am not ashamed of my Baptist beliefs.

I also understand the importance of labels. However, I’m sure you would agree that all labels are not equally important? Perhaps instead of theological triage, we could practice some kind of (I’m not sure of the right word)…”nominal triage”? (By “nominal” I mean “relating to names,” not nominalism in the sense you mentioned.)

For example, up until my current ministry I have been a Regular Baptist. But as Farmer Tom N pointed out, the label “Regular” has caused almost universal confusion (if not mockery). I can’t think of a single time when I mentioned that name to someone that it did not require explanation. In fact, I agree with Farmer Tom that most Regular Baptists don’t even know what it means. (I would go one step further—and please correct me if I am wrong—I don’t think it was used by the original Regular Baptists in an historically correct way. If I’m not mistaken, “Regular Baptists” were Particular [vs. General] Baptists. I believe the GARBC founders used “Regular” in the sense of “Good Old Fashioned Regular Baptists,” that is not modernist or liberal.)

I agree with Greg Linscott that “Regular” is still helpful in an associational name, but I do not think it is necessary in a church’s name. On the other hand, no one is suggesting that the name “Christian” should be discarded, no matter how much confusion or misunderstanding there is concerning it.

So what about “Baptist”? I think that is somewhere in between those other two labels. In other words,

“Christian” > “Baptist” > “Regular” (or “Fundamentalist” or “Dispensational”, etc.).

The point is, I understand the desire to hold on to the label “Baptist.” And yet I also understand those who are willing to let go of it (the name, not the doctrine) for the sake of the greater name, “Christian.” I understand Faith’s desire to keep the label, but I also have no quarrel with Saylorville’s desire to let it go. The beliefs are far more important to me. I would agree that there are inherent dangers in discarding certain labels, but there may be greater advantages as well. Additionally, as I mentioned from personal experience (which is obviously not normative), a church can remove the name “Baptist” and still remain faithful to Christ, to His Word, and to Baptistic doctrine. We teach this to everyone interested in becoming a part of our church in our membership class.

Thanks for allowing me to interact with you, Dr. Bauder. Again, your contributions to this forum are much appreciated.

This past summer the SBC adopted the Great Commission Baptist (GBC) as an alternative label for churches. This was done to help Northern SBC churches to avoid the stigma of the word “Southern.” This was a hotly contested issue and both sides made great points, but it passed by a slim margin. So take a page from your compromising cousin in the south, let them change their name. We can’t stop this mentality, of being pleasing to all. This is between a church/collage and not a denomination, so unless your a member of that church/collage, who cares?

According to the fount of all wisdom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_Baptists

[Don Johnson]

According to the fount of all wisdom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_Baptists

Argh. Yer killin’ me. Please don’t regard the Wiki definition as being accurate. At some point I’ll hack into their site and give the definition an update…just haven’t had time.

Short story: In the northern tradition, “regular” means “orthodox.” The phrase was in popular use way before the GARBC adopted it in 1932. In fact, it crops up in the New York Times well before 1900. Its usage was a sardonic commentary on the state of Baptist affairs in the north: Churches had to go out of their way to clarify that they were orthodox Baptist churches, not the other kind. Our GARBC usage of this phrase was inspired by Howard Fulton’s noted 1932 sermon, “What Do Old Fashioned Regular Baptists Stand For?”.

Kevin Bauder is a “regular Baptist.” Note the small “r” here. He embraces regular Baptist ideas. Note his post (#52223) in this thread, where he outlines (6) Baptist ideas. By the way…[commercial break]…those are the first six chapters of his new book, which everyone should purchase.

As far as my own “Regular Baptist” credentials go…I grew up on the same street as Greg Long in Toledo, and I’ve actually shared dinner with Kevin Bauder at the famed Taco Time in Ames (order the fried burrito, Bauder says, a fond memory from his high school career).

Inevitably, when staffing the IARBC booth at the Iowa State Fair, you would get the guy who would come and make the crack about “regular” Baptists in regards to bowel movements… :|

Kevin beat me to the punch.

For more information, you can read “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Regular’ Baptist?” (The article also mentions the sense in which Abraham Lincoln was a Regular Baptist!)

After settling into the colonies, General [General Atonement] Baptists in the middle colonies were more commonly called Free Baptists. Particular [Particular Atonement] Baptists, in and around freer colonies such as Rhode Island, came to be called Regular Baptists. The designation “Regular” to describe one kind of Baptist did not appear until the Baptists came to America…

Eventually the name “Regular Baptist” became somewhat generic and no longer necessarily designated particular atonement beliefs…

Eventually any Strict Baptist churches in Canada that held to this strict order of belief about communion called themselves Regular Baptists because they were just normal, orthodox (regular) practicing Baptists…

The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches has affirmed a moderately Calvinistic statement of faith based on the New Hampshire Confession (1833). Its use of the word “Regular” has never been a direct reference to a particular view of the atonement; rather, it stems from the later, more generic meaning of the word. By the time the GARBC was formed in 1932, the Modernist Controversy had split the Northern Baptist Convention into several factions. Regular Baptists held orthodox beliefs in an era when some Baptist churches were highly irregular. This meaning of “Regular” was clear from the beginning, when Howard Fulton preached his seminal sermon “What Regular Old Fashioned Baptists Stand For.”

The Latin term regula, which means “rule or example,” is the root of our English word “regular.” The first time the word was used in the English form was in 1387. John of Trevisa (c.1326–c.1402, English writer) connected it to the Canon (“rule or measure”) of Scripture. The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary provides a similar definition for “regular” in the adjectival form: “Ecclesiastically subject to, or bound by, a religious rule, belonging to a religious or monastic order.” For our churches, “Regular” is an adjective that describes Baptists as orthodox churches that affirm the rule or measure of Scripture.

In The Baptists (1988), William Henry Brackney summarized this long history by stating, “Baptists have differed widely about their origins and their composition.”6 This is certainly true. But when it comes to answering, “Who are the Regular Baptists?” it is not so difficult to find their origin or the distinct quality found in the word “Regular” when placed next to the name “Baptist.” A Regular Baptist believes orthodox, Baptist doctrine.

And let me correct one of Kevin’s statements…I grew up on his street.

Aren’t the “Regular Baptists” different than the “Old Regular Baptists”?

What does it mean when we have to spend this much time finding a definition the name “regular” among ourselves?

I work in a secular workplace and have spent my last few days taking an unofficial poll among my co-workers. While I did encounter a few Christians who knew the “right answers, here are some general findings:

Everyone knew what a church was. (Condensed definition: a place for people who believe in God.)

What is a Christian?

1. Somebody who follows or believes in Jesus.

2. People who aren’t Muslim or Jews.

3. Didn’t know.

What is Bible?

1. A religious book.
2. An inspirational book.

Here’s the interesting one: What do you think of when you hear the words “Baptist Church”?

1. No idea was the number one answer.

2. A kind of a Christian church

most didn’t know how Baptists were different while the rest said that they believed in dunking people in water

The there were the responses from people who knew about Baptists or were Baptists:

1. “We believe in getting baptized to wash your sins away” narrowly edged “we believe in getting baptized because Jesus was baptized”.

2. Baptists don’t let women wear pants

3. And my favorite, “Go talk to M___ and B______, They’re Baptists.”

M________ tells me that he goes to the only real Baptist church around. The one started by Jesus. You can tell because they wash each others feet and don’t do all this modern, worldly stuff.

B______ goes to the big Southern Baptist Church in town. She’s looking for another church because she feels lost in the crowd. She just goes to church when she doesn’t have to work, but feels she doesn’t fit. We talked about her salvation and walk with the Lord. She said her church is big and just built a new annex, but most of the people are over 50 (she’s in her 30”s) and there a very few younger people or teens.

Again, I know this doesn’t prove anything, but it helps me to talk to people who are in the real world.

Thank you for the history lessons on “Regular Baptists.” Our church is not officially part of the Regular Baptists, but our beliefs match up with the Regular Baptists so when people ask what kind of Baptist I am, I am not ashamed to identify with them. For example I talked to a pastor a few weeks ago and asked him if he was familiar with the Regular Baptists (he had a Baptist background but the church did not have Baptist in its name). He was familiar with them, so by identifying with them, it gave him an idea of the sort of things I believed. BTW, his response to the term was not negative so that was encouraging.

I have a friend who pastors a Regular Baptist Church in central Pennsylvania that was founded in the 1700’s. The name “Regular” has always been a prominent part of its name. According to my friend, the “regular” in their name refers to their Calvinism. Regular Baptist means the same as Particular Baptist, and different from General Baptist, which refers to belief in a General Atonement (universal) as opposed to Particular Atonement (sometimes referred to as Limited Atonement, Definite Atonement, or Particular Redemption.)

This, of course, long predates the GARBC. When I first heard the name of his church, I assumed it was GARBC. It is not, and has never been. However, it is a still surviving testimony to the original meaning of “Regular Baptist” in American history.

It is therefore with some justification that Calvinists within the GARBC believe that “Regular” is a testimony to the historic Calvinist roots of the GARBC. (Also attested to by the adoption of the New Hampshire Confession, which is Calvinist, though not as conspicuously so as the Philadelphia Confession.) Non Calvinists prefer to emphasize the historic orthodoxy of the GARBC manifested by the term “Regular.” I see a measure of justification in this perspective as well.

It may be similar to the history of the Southern Baptist Convention. There can be no doubt that the most prominent founders were doctrinal Calvinists. It is also true that many of the pastors were poorly educated, and not all shared the theological Calvinism of the founders. The “Founders Movement” within the SBC exists to call Southern Baptist back to their doctrinal heritage, which was largely lost in the 20th century.

It would appear that the GARBC was from the beginning, a mixture of Calvinists and those who were more Arminian. (I do not say five-point Arminians, but leaned in a more “Arminianly” direction.) Because the main issues was orthodoxy verses modernism, both Calvinists and non Calvinists joined together to oppose apostasy. In many ways, the formation of the GARBC was a microcosm of broader Fundamentalism, ie, the joining of those of orthodox persuasion from many denominational backgrounds to offer united opposition to modernism. In the GARBC as in Fundamentalism generally, Calvinists have played a prominent role. I trust our more Arminian brethren will allow us to continue that role without the all too frequent periodic declamations regarding the heresies of Calvinism from platforms designed to promote Fundamentalism.

That the “Regular” in the name of the GARBC refers to Regular Old Fashioned Baptists in contrast to modern, liberal Baptists is beyond dispute. However, it should be noted that this phrase also probably meant different things to different people. To some, “Regular Old-Fashioned Baptists” referred to the historic orthodoxy of American Baptists that were not associated with the Free Will Baptists, who first appeared in New Hampshire in the early 1800’s. In other words, “Regular Baptist” meant Calvinist Baptist to them.

But by the early 1900’s, “Regular Baptist”, simply meant “Old fashioned Baptist” as opposed to liberal Baptists. This is similar to differing understandings of the world “orthodox.” To some, an “Orthodox Baptist” is a successor to the doctrine of the mainstream Baptists of the 18th and 19th centuries, represented by the Philadelphia Confession and the New Hampshire Confession. In other words, “orthodox” in this context means Calvinist. But to others, “orthodox” refers only to adherence to the basic fundamentals of the faith, in contrast to “liberal” or “modernist.” (The basis for the Fundamentalist movement.)

Thus two people can hear the term “Regular Baptist” and be thinking of entirely different concepts. One hears “Calvinist Baptist.” The other hears
“Old Fashioned Fundamental Baptist.” In a sense, this second meaning represents a deterioration of the original meaning of “Regular.” But it was undoubtedly the understanding of many at the time of the formation of the GARBC, and the reason why debates over Calvinism, and the correct meaning of “Regular” in the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches occur from time to time.