Why bother being a Baptist anyway?
The news from Minnesota, not Lake Woebegone but Bethlehem Baptist, is that they are revisiting the issue that caused so much controversy a few years ago: will they admit into membership people who were baptized as infants but don't want to be properly and Biblically baptized as adults. Traditionally, in most conservative Baptist churches, that was the case. If you were baptized as an infant and now wanted to join a Baptist church you had to undergo baptism. Not be rebaptized as infant baptism is rightly seen as illegitimate and not a true baptism anyway, but to be Biblically baptize after repentance and a public profession of faith in Christ. Now Bethlehem Baptist is questioning that practice.
The Issue: Church Membership
The issue was: How should our church relate to those who are born again, and deeply committed to the Bible and to Christ, but are not yet persuaded that their infant baptism is unbiblical and invalid? Should such believers be admitted in some cases to membership at Bethlehem? Or to put the question in the larger general way: Should the front door of the local church be roughly the same size as the door to the universal body of Christ? In other words, should we say to any person: We know you have truly entered into membership in the universal body of Christ, but you may not enter into membership in this local expression of the body of Christ?
How Important Is Membership?
Or another way to put the issue is: How does the seriousness of exclusion from local church membership compare with the seriousness of not being baptized even though, after studying the Scriptures and trying to be obedient, the unbaptized person believes that he is baptized? In the real world where genuine, Bible-believing, gospel-loving, Christ-exalting, missions-minded Christians do not agree on the meaning of baptism in the New Testament, how should we relate to each other?
Piper states that Bethlehem Baptist is concerned not with baptism per se, that they hold to an orthodox Baptist position on believers baptism. Their statement of faith certainly does. They claim this is a separate issue, an issue of membership not baptism.
The Issue: Church Membership
The issue was: How should our church relate to those who are born again, and deeply committed to the Bible and to Christ, but are not yet persuaded that their infant baptism is unbiblical and invalid? Should such believers be admitted in some cases to membership at Bethlehem? Or to put the question in the larger general way: Should the front door of the local church be roughly the same size as the door to the universal body of Christ? In other words, should we say to any person: We know you have truly entered into membership in the universal body of Christ, but you may not enter into membership in this local expression of the body of Christ?
How Important Is Membership?
Or another way to put the issue is: How does the seriousness of exclusion from local church membership compare with the seriousness of not being baptized even though, after studying the Scriptures and trying to be obedient, the unbaptized person believes that he is baptized? In the real world where genuine, Bible-believing, gospel-loving, Christ-exalting, missions-minded Christians do not agree on the meaning of baptism in the New Testament, how should we relate to each other?
Piper states that Bethlehem Baptist is concerned not with baptism per se, that they hold to an orthodox Baptist position on believers baptism. Their statement of faith certainly does. They claim this is a separate issue, an issue of membership not baptism.
But if you believe so strongly in believers baptism as Biblical, why would you admit into membership someone in rebellion against the Word, who refuses to submit to the authority of the Bible and be baptized as professing faith? Someone who apparently is relying on the act of getting sprinkled as a baby, before conversion to fulfill a very specific Biblical command? I think not and I am not sure what would motivate this.
On the other hand. what is the motivation of those seeking to join a Baptist church and not hold to Baptist theology? I fear it is based on a desire to be a member of Piper’s church, a name brand pastor. Why else would you seek to fellowship and join in covenant membership with a Baptist church if you refuse to follow one of the key distinctives of a Baptist church? I would hope that people would not join a church for such self-serving reasons, but I am cynical enough to assume that it does happen.
Should this be a conversation we should have? Certainly. We should be clear on what Biblical baptism looks like and what cchurch membership entails. But should a Baptist church abandon one of it's core convictions to bring in more members, to make rebellious Christians more comfortable, to allow some who refuse to be Biblically baptized to say "I belong to John Piper's church? I don't think so and I hope that the elders of Bethlehem Baptist agree.
Should this be a conversation we should have? Certainly. We should be clear on what Biblical baptism looks like and what cchurch membership entails. But should a Baptist church abandon one of it's core convictions to bring in more members, to make rebellious Christians more comfortable, to allow some who refuse to be Biblically baptized to say "I belong to John Piper's church? I don't think so and I hope that the elders of Bethlehem Baptist agree.
(HT: Voice of the Sheep)
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