Maybe Landmarkism has some of it right?

Is there a difference between a church full of Christians and a Christian church?

A VERY interesting conversation between Dr. Tom Ascol of Founders Ministries and Dr. Tom Nettles of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Nettles has written a number of books on the history of Baptists and Baptist distinctives /identity and I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that he is one of the, if not the, preeminent Baptist scholars on being Baptist alive. In the second of three podcasts, Dr. Ascol asks some pretty pointed questions of Dr. Nettles that focused at first on Landmarkism in Southern Baptist churches. I generally dislike the hyper-separatism of Landmark Baptist churches but they do have some valid points regarding the validity of a church that is operating in opposition to the Biblical command to baptize only believers.

What constitutes a church? Is it the presence of Christians? What of properly administering the sacraments? Let me ask this question as delicately as I can: if the Biblical teaching on baptism, as Baptists would hold, is that only believers are to be baptized and indeed as Dr. Nettles states ceremonies involving infants should not even properly be called baptism, then does it follow that by definition churches that baptize infants are not rightly administering the sacraments and as such are not valid Christian churches? In other words, is the baptism of believers alone merely a Baptist distinctive or is it indicative of a right administration of the sacraments of the church

A follow-up question revolved around a dilemma many a Reformed Baptist such as myself faces. Which is preferable: a church who has given up on core confessional truths but has the correct ecclesiology or a church which holds to the traditional orthodox confessional standards but has a faulty ecclesiology? In more specific parlance, would you rather go to a Baptist church that has a watered down doctrinal stance but only baptizes believers or would you rather go to an Orthodox Presbyterian church that toes the line on the Three Forms of Unity and has a liturgical service, but willfully baptized infants who are unable to show any sign of repentance?

This is a real dilemma for a lot of Reformed Baptists because there frankly aren’t a ton of Baptist churches that are also Reformed, or even committed to Baptist confessional truths. Many a Baptist church has drifted so close to the emergent/seeker-sensitive model that they have become indistinguishable from those heresies. Some would point to that and use that as a reason why Presbyterian/Reformed churches are preferable. I would argue that by trading one erroneous system for another, you really aren’t gaining anything. Dr. Nettles made the salient point that the Baptist church in our example is better because at least with the Baptist church, they are historically orthodox in their confession so you have the opportunity to restore confessional faith. In the Presbyterian church, they are institutional and confessionally wedded to the error of infant baptism. The opportunity to reform, in other words, is more realistic in the Baptist church.

What this should really indicate for us is that Baptist churches need to really return to their confessional truths. No one should be welcomed into full membership in a Baptist church who is not at least somewhat familiar with Baptist distinctives. If their reason for joining in membership is that they like the music or it is convenient or the pastor is nice, they need to look a little deeper at their motivation. Baptists shouldn't hide from our heritage and our confessions.