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

Assuming that a church holds the the seven or eight Baptist distinctives, which of the following would disqualify them from being considered a Baptist church?

Multiple elders

Not being dispensational

Being something other than pre-mill and pre-trib

Not having Baptist in the church name.

Can a Baptist church do any one of these four things and still be a Baptist church?

I was hoping someone else would answer Ron Beam’s question, but as several hours have passed with no response, I’ll give him my reply.

If we view this historically, none of the above are contrary to Baptist distinctives. Most Baptist churches before the 20th century conformed to your second and third description, and most of the larger churches would subscribe to the first. Spurgeon, for example, had multiple elders. Which brings us back to the point of this thread, the “Baptist” name. Historically, it would be difficult to find a “Baptist” church without the Baptist name. I believe our Baptist forefathers would have thought that a strange idea. Why would a Baptist church not want to call itself “Baptist”? Why indeed.

If you drop the Baptist name, no one would question any of the first three, or an almost limitless list of other doctrines. If you don’t call yourself “Baptist,” you are free to believe what you will, but as soon as you attach the name “Baptist”, you narrow the range of beliefs that people expect of you. Admittedly, the list of expectations is generally shaped by people’s personal experiences, and knowledge of history, but the possibilities are certainly fewer than without the label. Which may constitute a reasonable argument for maintaining the name.

[Ron Bean] …seven or eight Baptist distinctives…

[G. N. Barkman]

If you drop the Baptist name, no one would question any of the first three, or an almost limitless list of other doctrines. If you don’t call yourself “Baptist,” you are free to believe what you will, but as soon as you attach the name “Baptist”, you narrow the range of beliefs that people expect of you. Admittedly, the list of expectations is generally shaped by people’s personal experiences, and knowledge of history, but the possibilities are certainly fewer than without the label. Which may constitute a reasonable argument for maintaining the name.

What is the point of having the name? Is it for the lost or for Christians? I’d suggest it is primarily for Christians who do have a clue about what the name means. For the lost, the word church is probably a bigger turnoff than Baptist.

That doesn’t address the question of whether we need the name for other Christians or not, I think we do. But the point I am trying to make in this post is that the argument that non-Christians are clueless about the term Baptist is really irrelevant. I really doubt that any non-Christian is seriously hindered from listening to the gospel simply because you have the word Baptist on your sign. Some disgruntled Christians might not like it, but it might be a good idea that they looked somewhere else anyway, eh?

I’ve tried to pose this question in many forms for a reason. At my ordination council 30 years ago (5 hours of questions, even with a 30 page doctrinal statement), I was grilled on these questions. Starting then and over the years I have been told by too many people that a church having multiple elders or not being dispensational and pre-trib pre-mill was not a true Baptist church. As you said, historically that is not the case but I have been left with the general impression that today these are additional Baptist distinctives. I’ve always hoped that one of the notables in IFB circles would comment or that some Baptist fellowship would acknowledge baptist history. At my council, I said that I believed that the New testament spoke of multiple elders in a single church and the response looked like the Pharisees and Saducees arguing about the resurrection.

Ron, G.N., Chris,

Whenever I teach Baptist distinctives, one of the things I stress is the unique combination of beliefs they represent. Immersion is probably the singular distinction, but the combination of the 6 mentioned traits is also unique (not just because of the immersion).

In my conversations with Christians, Baptists seem to have a reputation of not getting along with one another. While being nominally united in their distinctives, they are often strongly divided from each other in their differences.

[Ron Bean]

In my conversations with Christians, Baptists seem to have a reputation of not getting along with one another. While being nominally united in their distinctives, they are often strongly divided from each other in their differences.

I would assume that Ron’s question about church splits being a Baptist distinctive was probably at least somewhat tongue in cheek. But I think he is on to something. His statement about Baptists having “unity in distinctives but division in differences” is all too often accurate. That is what is so troubling to me about the situation being discussed in this thread and other similar discussions going on. It’s like we believe in the priesthood of the believer only until someone disagrees with us :). It just seems like separation has been (and in many cases remains) the default mindset in much of fundamentalism. Separation over music. Separation over eschatology. Separation over polity. We could go on and on.

Now I understand that disagreement in some of these areas will disallow some types of joint endeavors. That is just common sense. But we don’t need to announce to the world that we “separate” from our brother over ________ (whatever the issue is). This is where separation has been taken to unbiblical extremes, in my opinion. We have people “separating” from brothers that they’ve never met - and probably never will meet. We have people “separating” from brothers over issues that the Scripture is silent on. We have people “separating” from brothers over issues that would fall into the Scriptural category of “let each one be convinced in his own mind”. As time goes along, it is interesting to observe how militant separatists change. For example, what happens when an individual who separates over music has a child that grows up to embrace Christian rap. Do they separate from them? Do they “call them out” in front of the whole fundamentalist world and announce that they are breaking fellowship with their own child? Not that I’ve seen. And that’s a good thing. Because I believe good things happen when we are finally forced to deal with these types of issues in the realm of “family” which is what should have been done all along.

I have a very simplistic resolution for these things is my mind. When I am dealing with unbelievers, I go back to the beginning - “In the beginning, God…” - and I work forward from there. When I am dealing with believers, I go to the end - to heaven, where I will be worshipping the Creator God of the universe alongside my brother (who I may have major disagreements with) for all of eternity. And when I work backwards from that point I find myself much less likely to separate over meaningless things. I find myself much more likely to find points of agreement and unity so as to promote pure gospel work and impact communities for the kingdom of God. At the end of the day, I think we are too often fragmented unnecessarily. I think we need to be more zealous for true, Christian unity and holiness than we are for separation. Our message should be first and foremost about what we’ve been called to rather than what we separate from.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

Ron, G.N., Chris,

Whenever I teach Baptist distinctives, one of the things I stress is the unique combination of beliefs they represent. Immersion is probably the singular distinction, but the combination of the 6 mentioned traits is also unique (not just because of the immersion).

I’m really interested in the die in the wool baptist take on what my church does, which is to baptize by immersion only, but to accept those who have been baptized as believers by another mode (e.g. pouring). We think scripture is clear enough that our consciences are bound to what we will do, but not that someone well meaning in the past was baptized by a different mode wasn’t truly making the same basic sign that regular immersion Baptists are. So our view is that immersion is the very best overall picture of water baptism, but we won’t make that a test of local church fellowship if someone has already made public profession in a different way as a believer. Does this exist in any other baptist churches you know of?

Shaynus,

The closest situation I can think of that was “high profile” was the controversy a few years ago with Piper’s church taking in sprinkled members, but not considering them eligible for leadership as elders (a policy that was eventually rescinded, as I recall). Sam Storms blogged on it here if you need a refresher.

Larry’s reply was well-put as to why Baptists, if consistently applying principles, could accept nothing other than believer’s immersion.

I can think of no Baptist church in Fundamental circles that would consider what you have proposed. I am curious- why only pouring, and not sprinkling? Is it because sprinkling is so tightly associated with paedobaptism?

BTW- the phrase is “dyed in the wool…”

We would accept any mode commonly accepted among Christians, sprinkling and pouring included. So let’s take the case of an attender of our church (who ended up moving away before he joined) who was baptized as a believer in a Presbyterian church by sprinkling. He was saved in college and his baptism meant to him at the time a public profession of faith. We don’t believe in rebaptism, so the main question is was that baptism valid. I would say yes insofar as it was a symbol that he meant in good faith. It wasn’t best, but it was good enough so that I couldn’t point to a scripture to say it was invalid to the extent and confidence I would need to from scripture that he needed a do-over. Let’s say his baptism meant to him that he was mearly a part of a generic covenant, such as in many Presby circles. I would say he needed a do-over, but it was the meaning behind it that needs the do-over, not the mode of water.

oh and I think it’s wholly inconsistent to take on any member that you would not consider for leadership based on their past. I don’t think we should have first and second class members of any kind. Either they’re all in or not.

The Baptist churches I have been in have had a requirement of deacons not being divorced, and quite often will specify “nor married to a woman who has been divorced.”

[Shaynus]

oh and I think it’s wholly inconsistent to take on any member that you would not consider for leadership based on their past. I don’t think we should have first and second class members of any kind. Either they’re all in or not.

I think you need to explore this a little more. A pedophile just released form prison who was saved in prison might be eligible for membership but certainly not for leadership, even if he was saved right after incarceration, completed a Bible college degree and MDiv while in prison, and led the prisoner Bible studies before being released.