Holy Joys Podcast
A discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church. A ministry of holyjoys.org.
Holy Joys Podcast
The CHM and Baptists
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Johnathan Arnold and David Fry discuss ways in which the CHM is more Baptist than classically Methodist.
And Baptists break away from that. That's what it means. That's a key thing for what it means to be a Baptist, is you only baptize those who are believers.
SPEAKER_00But I do see reconsideration of some of our theological commitments being evaluated in light of what the early Methodists believe, particularly in understanding humanity in light of Christ.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to the Holy Joys podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_03I was recently reflecting on some comments that I had heard about Baptists in some of the holiness churches that I've um visited or in camp meetings and various comments I've heard. And I've for a while I've I've been in tune to this idea that it seems as though within the holiness movement there's this conception, at least, that Baptists are like the opposite, ideological opposites of whatever it means to be holiness. You know, I've heard people comment things like, you know, we're not Baptists, we're holiness, like almost as though that's that's really the two major options. You know, I don't hear much about Presbyterians, I don't hear much about Lutherans, I don't hear much about Anglicans. It seems like those are really the only uh I hear a lot about Baptists, I'm not sure why that is, and then I'll often hear them contrasted to to holiness. So it seems to me like there's this idea, and I started talking to some people about this, you know, asking what do you think a Baptist is, what's your understanding of what a Baptist is? And uh overwhelmingly the answer is, well, they're Calvinists, that's what it means to be a Baptist, you know. And so it kind of seems like um, and maybe this is this is an unfair characterization, this is you know really my experience, but it seems like the perception seems pretty widespread, is like there's Roman Catholics, and then there's Protestants, and within Protestants, the major groups are like, you know, the Wesleins, and that's us, we're the true Wesleans, you know, we're holding to the real message of entire sanctification. And then there's the Baptists, and those are the Calvinists. And um, and that seems to be the widespread perception. Is that you know kind of consistent with your experience?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. You know, I think there are two, may we call them bugaboos of the holiness movement. One of them is the Baptist bugaboo, and the other is the mainline holiness churches, right? Uh so much so that I actually had someone in a Sunday school class years ago say that they would rather their children not attend church at all than to attend that particular church, you know, a different church that was in that case a mainline holiness church. Uh, but a Baptist has the kind of the same uh connotation, perhaps because of the conflation of Calvinism with Baptist theology. I think the reason the reason for that conflation now is different than what it has been. I I really don't know where the idea came from before, but you know, now you have you know Southern Seminary, which is very strongly reformed Calvinist, but you know, until Al Muller went you know to Southern and in Louisville, Kentucky, when like 2000 or somewhere back then, uh and really turned it into a bastion of reformed thought, um, it was not that reformed. And and so that's a fairly recent phenomenon. But even then, I think you say in an upcoming article, you mentioned that uh even now the Southern Baptist Church, Calvinist theology, it may be the loudest voice, but it's certainly not the majority.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I cited yeah, I cited some life way research. It is from 2012. Um so in those eight years, uh, I think there probably has been somewhat of a a reformed resurgence, but but yeah, so at 2012, I mean that's not terribly long enough ago, um, it was pretty much split, you know, within the within the uh SBC between churches that would consider themselves Calvinist or Reformed and churches that would consider themselves Arminian or Wesleyan. So you have almost as many Wesleyan Baptist or Arminian Baptist churches in the largest Baptist denomination. I mean, by far 14 million members in the SBC. Um but what I thought was really fascinating is even those, you know, maybe like like 50% or something that would consider themselves Calvinist or Reformed more, you know, a little more broadly there, uh 60% were concerned about the effect of Calvinism. So they see this kind of Calvinist resurgence, this hard line, kind of like high Calvinism, five-point Calvinism. And only 8% of Southern Baptist pastors in 2012 strongly agreed with the statement, I am a five-point Calvinist. I was like, that's I mean, that's that's pretty slim. Um so this idea that you know Baptists is is equals Calvinists is just it's just a myth. Um certainly there's there's Calvinist Baptists out there, but there's also Wesleyan Baptists. And um another thing I mentioned in this article is is uh my friend Paul Ryan, when he was in seminary, he attended uh for a little while, or at least visited or something, a Holiness Baptist church. And I thought, you know, for most people that seems like that's impossible, but actually, uh if we really understand what it means to be Baptist, I think most holiness churches I know uh could be called Holiness Baptist churches. Would you agree? I mean, would you agree with that for the most part?
SPEAKER_00Oh, very much. Very much. I think yeah, it's interesting. The a lot of the similarities which we have, that the the holiness movement does have a lot of similarities with the Baptist tradition in America. And I know that at least goes back to the 1830s, when what we now call the holiness movement really started gaining identity, because that was in the middle of the the second great awakening, right? When Finney, you know, he was not a friend to Arminians, uh, he was preaching some sort of convoluted Calvinist theology, and he was rejected by Calvinists, and actually, he was probably more accepted by Arminians than he was Calvinist. Um in any case, uh that era introduced a lot of uh baptistic ideas into the holiness movement, such as, and you point this out, believers' baptism over infant baptism. And so the holiness movement, which is a major movement in Methodist history, really radically turned their back on a pretty cardinal doctrine, it seems, in in Methodism, and that is uh infant baptism and how that represents what we've talked about in the past, provenient grace. And there was really a radical move away from that quite quickly. And I think that goes back to that revivalist era of the early and mid-19th century.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think that that's helpful because we can take an issue like you know infant baptism and say, well, it's just uh an isolated issue, you know, you gotta decide are you gonna baptize infants or not, but it's really it's it's really not uh it's not like that. It's it's downstream from a whole way of thinking. Um it it's it's downstream from your system of theology. And historically, Methodists have been really, really dogmatic. Um, I mean, I think dogma is like the right word. I mean, it was like a Methodist dogma, that this is the absolute uh implication of Methodist theology. And it it is patristic. I mean, it's uh I was reading Thomas Summers last night and just incredibly helpful. Um, you know, Summers has some, we talked about this in a previous podcast, has some some things that are pretty concerning as far as slavery goes. But um, but Summers, I mean, as far as his systematics goes, really, really helpful. I mean, I I really enjoy reading uh a lot of his stuff. And he talks about how we baptize infants because they're the object of of redemption in Christ. So we tend to think about um we talked about this before, people infants are born, they're sinners, and we hope someday they'll get saved. Um and when they get saved, then we'll baptize them. But Methodists have have traditionally understood that Christ as the second Adam has has saved the human race. I mean, he's he's reheaded it, justification for all men, Romans 5 says, has has come to all men. So, you know, infants are part of the saved human race. And unless they reject that deliberately, they're not excluded from baptism. Um and they can only directly, deliberately reject that when they get older. So at that point, you know, they can make a choice to leave the church. Um, but until that point, uh, if their parents are Christians, their parents can acknowledge that they're part of uh of the church through the redemptive, uh universal redemption provided in the second Adam. And uh so it really has to do with the way that we think about salvation. And I think um, I think Summers of all the Methodist theologians is one of the strongest that I've that I've found here. It's like a whole chapter. I think his systematic was was compiled from a bunch of his lectures. I guess it wasn't really his one. Right. There's a whole chapter in there. I mean, he had a whole lecture on it. He goes through the scriptural proof, and then he goes through the testimony from antiquity, you know, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, uh, Origin, Cyprian. He goes through, and then he basically, Gregory of Nazianzist uh he basically says, and all the fathers, you know, Jerome and nearly all the fathers of that age give us ample proof. Uh and then goes, you know, continues to say the Protestants agreed, they followed the patristic tradition. And uh, Baptists break away from that. That's what it, you know, that's a key thing for what it means to be a Baptist, is you only baptize those who are believers. Methodists have followed the the church fathers and the broader Protestant tradition in saying, no, you know, we baptize infants because they're the objects of redemption in Christ.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, so the Holiness movement definitely moved away from that notion of infants coming into the world, having their identity fully uh associated with the second Adam. I mean, there's very much uh that that move away from that. And and theologically, uh that did not happen in the 19th century. That's definitely a 20th century phenomenon. So, although the you know infant baptism was dropped throughout the 19th century, it continued to be dropped in the holy movement. Uh that shift in theological implication really caught hold of the holiness movement in the 20th century. And I think that could be found in the early Nazarene theology. I think it could be found in um certainly in in pilgrim holiness theology as well. And for those of us who grew up in the holiness movement, that was just common common sense to us. That's that's what we grew up believing and hearing that uh infants are born lost and born into the world lost and have to be saved at some uh some later point, age of accountability or so forth. But uh, yeah, so our reference point was that humanity enters the world with their identity in the first atom, not in the second atom. And that's certainly not historic Methodist theology.
SPEAKER_03You mentioned the Nazarenes. I I don't know much about Nazarene theology, but uh it's interesting. I checked H. Orton Wiley, uh, was curious what he had to say on it. I don't particularly care for Wiley, but uh, you know, his theology. But I I did find it interesting that if I recall correctly, it's been a little time now, he's pretty strong on it as well. I I think he makes a statement like almost like it is a non-question. Like, of course, we baptize infants. I I need to look at that and confirm that, but I'm pretty sure Wiley even was was pretty pretty strong on that point. So when would have the Nazarene tradition broke away from that? Any idea?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, um, yeah, so the the uh I think it was probably more of a mentality than uh so I'd have to pull out my Wiley again to see what he actually says, but uh he was a little bit later than what I'm I'm thinking of. Um yeah, yeah, you said Wiley, right? So Miley was the end of 20th, uh end of the 19th century. Wiley was uh mid-20th century. Um and uh but I think it really stems from the sort of revivalism within the Nazarene spirit, very evangelistic, very missional, and the whole uh evangelical mission, uh missional fervor of the early 20th century was very much based on these ideas, these more reformed ideas of you know, if we, you know, if if a person does not hear the gospel from a human agent, they have no chance of being saved. Uh, that was a sort of reformed exclusivism that uh did characterize a lot of baptistic um mission. Um, and then of course that went hand in hand with the rejection of infant baptism. Um, you know, a person is only saved by their act of confession. Uh so you know, I don't know a lot of the precise history, but uh I do know that that is certainly part of the 20th century missionary movement and has been all the way up until probably in the last 20 years, where I have had several conversations and written correspondences with some mission organization leaders, and we have taught through this theology, and it's been uh I think rewarding to uh to listen to mission leaders process their own theological journey in switching from a more finny type understanding to a historic Methodist understanding of Christian mission, which entails our identity in Christ as as infants, and also the work of the Holy Spirit uh beyond the reach of the church. So Methodists have always been very strong on the work of the Holy Spirit beyond the reach of the church. The the Holy Spirit is in the church, but is not limited by the church, and that's been very important doctrine for uh Wesleyan Arminians. Um, and and I would say, you know, we're talking about you know kind of the what is the theological overlap between the Baptist tradition and the Methodist tradition, the Wesleyan Arminian tradition, and uh some of these points of departure uh occurred in America. Uh so in in America, both the Methodist and the Baptist traditions have developed quite uh in in a lot of complexities. So it's hard to nail down today a single Baptist theology, just as it's difficult to nail down a single you know, holiness or Methodist theology. Uh the spectrum within those traditions is actually quite broad. And so it's that's that's a very tricky thing. So when we when people, especially from the pulpit, use those broad categories, Baptists, uh, for instance, uh, even the word holiness, you know, holiness people, right? I mean, that's very broad. And that can that can refer to, you know, at least that can have at least three different references. And uh so does uh Baptists.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so the you know, what would be the distinguishing core, you know, for for what it means to be a Baptist? What would I need to affirm to be a Baptist? And I think I think the the first point to make is this this issue of baptism is only for adult adult believers. And uh and with that comes only by immersion, is is my understanding. I mean, I'm I'm I'm pretty sure that Baptists across the board would be united in in saying we don't baptize by sprinkling or pouring. Would that be correct?
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Yeah, very much so. And again, that's a switch as well that has been made uh in the Methodist tradition, right? Or in the holiness tradition.
SPEAKER_03Right, because if you're going to baptize infants, it's a little hard to dunk them under the water. So you affirm, you know, you affirm sprinkling or or uh pouring. And and it's interesting too. I mean, this goes back to John Wesley himself. Of course, he was coming out of the Anglican church, but you know, it's not like these guys just these are not just like remnants of their Anglican or Catholic past that they just kind of thoughtlessly, you know, carried over. I mean, Wesley was like a staunch defender of this. I think in Hebrews there's a reference to sprinkling uh with the blood, and he likens this to being sprinkled in baptism, just as Paul also affirms the legitimacy of immersion in Romans 6. You know, he's trying to defend the legitimacy of all these modes, and we see that in all the subsequent um, you know, Methodist theologians as well. So, and oh actually, in fact, I think is it you probably know this better than me, is it Watson, Richard Watson, who wanted to say that actually sprinkling was the apostolic practice? Um which I which I I I read that and he, I think it was, I think it was Watson. I need to check that as well. But I had never heard that before. And then recently, Peter Lighthart released a book on baptism, uh, very much worth checking out. Um that he would defend infant baptism as well. Um, and it's one of the Lex Impress series books, uh uses Luther's baptismal prayer and works through it. It's just beautiful. But he actually also argues that sprinkling was the original apostolic practice. He even believes that Jesus was taken down into the water by John the Baptist and then sprinkled, not immersed. And he argues from the Old Testament the waters you know below and the waters above and the symbolism of that. It's very, very interesting. Um, whereas we we tend to think that you know sprinkling and and pouring was some much later Roman Catholic you know invention or something like that. And and uh that's certainly not been the perception throughout history, as far as I can tell.
SPEAKER_00There's another, I think, central element to Baptist theology, and that is the priesthood of all believers, right? Uh that I think would be common. I don't know if you talk about that in your article or not, um, but uh the priesthood of all believers, which I think we uh in the holiness movement, the the holiness movement uh would uh largely follow that as well. Uh don't you think so?
SPEAKER_03I would want to qualify and say they have a particular understanding of the priesthood of all believers, right? We we would affirm the priesthood of all believers. I think they just want to understand it more sometimes as the priesthood of every believer versus uh all believers, right? There's a there's a fine distinction there where we want to treat priesthood more corporately. It's something we exercise in community versus something we exercise individualistically. But I think I think there'd be some Baptists I've seen make the same distinction. And what that I think looks like in the local church is that as a local church, you know, we are a priesthood, we don't need a governing body, we don't need an Governing body above the local congregation. You know, each church has its own its own autonomy. So I think congregational government is linked to a certain understanding of the priesthood of all believers or of every believer, which tends to be more about our personal and then and then corporate responsibility directly to God, not having these additional structures over us that that you know gets more institutionalized where the authority shifts to some additional figure rather than our own responsibility as priests. Would that be maybe a fair characterization?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, I think it's really important. I think it's a that's an important distinction for people to understand that there is a difference in corporate understanding of the priesthood of believers and the kind of generic evangelical idea that uh that that reformed Protestant idea means that each of us can isolate from others as long as we have our Bible, and that's all we need. And so it really plays into or translates, I should say, into an American individualistic concept of salvation, which we've touched on before, but really have seen that doctrine fit into that framework, and that's the wrong framework. That's not at all what the Protestant reformers meant, and that's not what we should mean today, uh, although I think I have seen that across the board. And so you have um you have organizations like the Gideons, who by the way are really thinking through their methodology, um, you know, passing out Bibles. I think they have have made a tremendous impact through passing out the Word of God. Uh, I support the Gideons. Uh, I'm glad they are having conversation about trying to um draw in those who receive Bibles into a community of reading the Bible. So I think they're publishing some other material now as well to uh in order to shore up discipleship. And I'm really glad to hear that because I think that's comes out of a richer theological understanding of how um of how we ought to understand our salvation, our own priesthood, our own relationship with God's word, uh, in terms other than individualism, uh, that makes it more corporate. And I'm glad to see that.
SPEAKER_03Uh, it's very interesting that you mention that because uh I have another upcoming article, How Clear Is Clear the Church and the Clarity of Scripture. And one of the conclusions that I draw is that the doctrine of the clarity of scripture should give us confidence to place a Bible in the hands of our next door neighbor or to fund the distribution of Bibles across the globe, but it should not cause us to withdraw from the church or to assume that good Bible-believing Christians will agree on everything. Uh, instead, we need to read and study scripture in community. And I talk about, you know, for me, this is this is a really important distinction because uh I came to faith basically reading a Bible as a public school teenager, wasn't going to church. So I believe that God's word is sufficiently clear, you know, on salvation. But the danger is that, and I think, you know, to connect this back to what we're saying here with Baptists, we we do see the Baptist's emphasis on personal responsibility, on personal Bible reading, on personal devotions, on personal repentance, on personal salvation, you know. Um it it sometimes does, and on exercising the priesthood, you know, you're a priest, right? So you don't need a priest, you don't need to confess your sins, a priest, you don't need to, you know, any of that. It it can end up into individualism. Um, and that's that's the the the tight rope that we have to walk. And I think uh so I'm thinking of some of the better expressions of the Baptist tradition, because again, I want to be fair and charitable. I really, really appreciate the work of Matt Emerson and Luke Stamps. I would want to, if I would want to say, you know, if I look at my Baptist brothers and sisters and I could say, you know, here's the person you should, you know, emulate. Those those are the kind of Baptists that if I was Baptists, I would want to be. You know, and they they've said one of the one of the great things about the Baptist tradition is that the church needs to remember we do we are personally responsible before God. You know, repentance is a deeply personal thing. The scripture does place emphasis on that, but you know, we just have to be careful falling into this individualism. And I think again, we can see a lot of parallels in in the holiness movement. Church is treated as a place you go to get filled up for the week rather than really being about you know the heart of the Christian life living living it out in community.
SPEAKER_00Do you think that the the Baptist doctrine of believers' baptism, do you think that plays into that sort of individualistic uh idea of salvation?
SPEAKER_03I let me put it this way. Um I think infant baptism is one of the strongest guards against individualism. And I think that somebody who's gonna practice believers' baptism is gonna have to work extra hard to avoid individualism. I don't know that I'm ready to say that credo baptism necessarily lends itself to individualism because you can still stress that you are being baptized by the church into the church. I think the problem is when you make it all about your decision to follow Jesus. And that that's that's a huge like again, that comes back to this personal responsibility thing. I mean, that's a huge shift. We uh Credo Baptists tend to think about baptism as me stepping out to follow Jesus. I publicly declare that I'm following Jesus. You know, this is the beginning of discipleship. Whereas historically, baptism has been about the sign of God's promises to me in the gospel, right? That's a huge shift. And about the church exercising the office of the keys to acknowledge my membership in Christ and in the covenant community. So so I mean that's just that's a drap, drastic shift. And I think, you know, there are credo baptists, credo baptists, uh, I'm saying that and I know you know that, but you know, credo means I believe in the the creeds, creeds, apostles' creed, it begins I believe credo. So credo baptism means believers' baptism. Um but but I think that there are credo baptists who you know can hold those those two things together. I don't think they're mutually exclusive, but I do think it's a lot more difficult.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. So let's talk a little bit about um a little more about formal Baptist theology. So we've pointed out a couple of uh two or three similarities between the Baptist tradition, at least in America, and the holiness, American holiness tradition. Uh, where do Baptists have their uh what are the Baptist statements? What are their creeds? Uh what are their confessions? Um I I mean I think the the two that come to my mind would be um your one would be your the European uh confession, right? John Smith, John Smith um wrote a confession that is used by Baptists, and then I recently I've gotten oh go ahead. What the other one then that would be American, and I have a book or my sec um on this is the Philadelphia Baptist Catechism. So I'm just I'm just getting oriented to these, so I don't really know a lot of the history or background, uh, but that one's important because uh the Baptist, 19th century Baptists uh tended to be nativists. And so since I just taught this class in church and hist uh church and state, um it was the interaction between Thomas Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists, you know, that letter that introduced the concept of separation of church and state, which the Baptists were advocating for, uh, because they in the state of Virginia, it was the Church of England that was and and Roman Catholics, you know, they were the uh the the state-sponsored uh churches that were receiving tax dollars, and the Danbury Baptists were not okay with that. And so that's kind of where their that history starts. And well, interestingly, now you know many conservatives would kind of be on the other end of things. So to be a conservative back then meant separation of church and state. To be a conservative now means no, you that the church needs to be highly engaged within the state. Um, so that debate will continue to go on. Um, but I think a lot of that grows out of, or I think there is a history of political theology there as well in uh the Baptists. So to go back to the Philadelphia Catechism, uh, I think it's called the Philadelphia Baptist Catechism. Uh Philadelphia is the site, I want to say, and I want to say it was in the 1850s, but I'd have to go back and look. Someone who listens probably knows this. But when you have the nativist riots in Philadelphia, um, and uh that is largely Baptists against Roman Catholics. Uh, so there's a really deep nativist impulse within the Baptist tradition. So that might be touching on some sensitive uh social issues there, uh, but there are there is a definite social aspect to Baptist political theology. And I would say pretty clearly in America the history has been nativism, and by nativism, I don't mean like Native Americanism, uh, but a particular brand of Christianity as opposed to other Christian traditions, namely Roman Catholic.
SPEAKER_03Why don't you explain that a little bit more when you what when you use the word nativism? What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00So nativism is basically the 19th century version of Christian nationalism now. So Christian nationalism now is just the rebirth of early American nativism. Uh it was uh so there's a a they were anti-immigration. Uh at that point it was mostly Irish Catholics who were immigrating. Uh in fact, what put a stop to that movement was the Civil War, interestingly. Uh it was the Civil War that put a stop to that particular nativist movement in the North. And the reason it put a stop to it is because they needed guys to go fight for the Union. And so who do you get? You get the immigrants, and so you have these Irish Roman Catholics in large numbers going to fight for the Union, and suddenly nativism goes down. Suddenly, they're not quite as opposed to immigration because these guys are coming over and fighting. So um it did revive after the Civil War in different forms, but um, yeah, very much a mid-19th century nationalist movement that was anti-several things, but especially anti-Roman Catholic, anti-immigration, because most immigrants coming in at the time were were Roman Catholic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's helpful. Um, and one of four or or sometimes five distinctives that are given for Baptists, one of them is usually like a strong commitment to religious liberty, separation of church and state. There's definitely that political and social uh emphasis there. And I think we do see, you know, Baptists tend to be some of the most nationalistic um and uh and Christian nationalism, you know, I think is a is one of those slippery terms. But uh some of the the concerns that have been voiced. I think this has been a big battle within the SBC here in the last couple of years, and really appreciate some of the things that Russell Moore uh has had to say about you know can what really confronting idols of Christian nationalism within the SBC. And again, I think there's another place where we see you know these parallels in uh you know in the holiness movement. I mean, churches w that are just almost uh consider patriot like strong patriotism, uh especially American patriotism, right? Like a really like a Christian duty, Christian duty to vote, a Christian duty to these things are taken for granted. You know, there's not even discussion around these things. Um and uh just assumed that Christians would have very specific political commitments. Um so yeah, we see again there there's a very simp, very similar social and political commitments uh between the uh contemporary holiness movement and uh and Baptists as well.
SPEAKER_00I was just gonna ask you what you thought about Russell Moore going to CT.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I just saw that uh heading up a project in public theology. Um I I really haven't looked into it much. I'm actually I'm on vacation here, and I just saw the article the other day. Um, so I haven't done a lot of reading, but I think it's exciting um to see Christianity today leading up a public theology project. Um, first and foremost, we need we need more public theology. And I must say that Russell Moore, I've found him to be one of the most balanced uh voices. He's gotten a lot of flack, um, but I don't think really very fairly um he he's uh a lot of conspiracy nonsense that circles around him for whatever reason. But uh yeah, very great, great voice uh for the church. So I'm I'm excited to see what he what he does. But I think it's a great, I think it's a great uh connection that they're making there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so too. I think it's gonna be uh very uh interesting. I'm excited about it. I enjoy Russell Moore's uh podcast and his writings uh in public theology as well. But uh so let's come back to Baptist creeds and confessions.
SPEAKER_03I have never heard of the Philadelphia Baptist Catechism. I just looked that up. I like the first couple questions here. Uh, question one is what is it that everyone wants out of life? Happiness. Question two is where is this happiness to be found in God only? So I thought that was that was pretty good. But uh I'm not too familiar with their their confessions. The one I'm most familiar with is the London, uh, first London Baptist confession, and then the second London Baptist Confession, and um is that 1689, I think, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah, so the Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Catechism is uh 1742, I believe. I just looked that up, 1742. Uh the thing I like about it, because I've been going back into church history to try to uh find uh some some data on how the church has handled uh church discipline. And the Baptist uh Philadelphia Baptist cakeism actually has several uh points on on church discipline that I think are really, really interesting. Uh definitely puts it pretty squarely within um the uh Puritan tradition as well. Uh the earlier the short confession of faith by John Smith, uh 1610, uh you know, fairly short but meaningful uh 38 articles uh there. I think that is a significant uh confession. And then you mentioned the London Which would be particular statement as well.
SPEAKER_03The particular Baptists, right? 1689 is the is the one uh written by the Calvinistic that would be so if you were a Reform Baptist, um, you know, you would want to you'd want to affirm the the second London confession. I see that uh some guys that write or are on on social media or something, Baptist, Calvinist Baptists, they'll put that in their bio or something, you know. Hashtag 1689. So that's uh that's kind of their but I'm not sure what the more mainstream like across the board. Baptists more more recently there's the uh faith and message, right? Is that was that put out by SBC? That goes back to 1960s.
SPEAKER_00I I'm not sure what the answer is on that. I I just I remember in seminary, you know, reading various systematic theologies and you know the uh even the theologies that were written by Baptists, they were written as you know reformed systematic theologies or Arminian systemic theologies. And I remember uh Bill Ure saying, does anyone know of just a Baptist systematic theology? And I mean, I think the answer is there isn't just a a Baptist systematic theology, because um the Baptist tradition is is very diverse, uh extremely diverse, um, probably even more diverse than than even the Methodist tradition uh in many ways.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a really key point. Um I think that's that's really maybe the point that needs stress the most is that because we as Methodists define ourselves by some very specific soteriological commitments, we think that every other tradition must be defined by the same thing, but that's just not it's not true. Different traditions have different emphasis. Some of these emphases are more ecclesiological, you know, and they're not they're not necessarily all, you know, the differences aren't all always divides over um, you know, limited or universal atonement. So you can be a Baptist who believes in universal atonement, you can be a Baptist who believes in limited atonement. Um and that's another thing that I try to to flesh out a little bit in this article, and we we should come back to sometimes we should just have a discussion on uh just trying to make sense of the the many different traditions. I mean, there's it's it can be so overwhelming and confusing for people. Um, but uh, you know, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and you know, one of the things that that that to start out is their name is a good indicator of what what distinguishes them. Um and that's not always, you know, it's not always limited to that, their distinctives aren't limited to that. But when we think Baptist, we jump to you know, soteriology, Calvinism, they must be Calvinists, but really baptism, it's about baptism. Baptists is about baptism, and that view reflects a broader commitment to personal responsibility, um, you know, individual personal responsibility. And uh yeah, so I think that that's a key point that you made there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you mentioned you know ecclesiology, and you you do say in your article, I recall that you know the holiness movement is congregational just like Baptists are, and that's again another major shift in the American holiness movement from our Methodist heritage. Uh so I think your point here is you know, we have this Baptist bugaboo, you know, you're not supposed to be Baptists if you're holiness, and yet we're very Baptist on those points, you know, on credo baptism, on congregationalism, on uh you know, priesthood of of all believers, our our you know, the implications, our understanding of that. Uh, what were some other points that you make on similarities?
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, I want to get your I want to I want to get your thoughts actually on that that point about congregational government. But yeah, the other the other distinctive that I mentioned uh was religious liberty. We already touched on that a little bit. Uh I think an another point that needs to be mentioned that I don't really mention much in the article is is believers church. And one of the reasons why I didn't go there is it's it's a little it's a little bit more complicated, but basically believers church is very closely tied to the baptism issue. I mean, baptism is your entrance into the church. And so believers church means a church is made up of baptized adults or bap believers who've been baptized, um, whereas as Methodists and most most other Christian traditions historically have understood that infants are members. Of the church, you know, if they're bat if they've been baptized and their parents are believers as well. So yeah, those are the main distinctives. Honestly, those really that's that's basically all you have to affirm to be considered Baptist more broadly. I think if you affirmed those things, you could rightly say, yeah, I'm I'm Baptist. You know, I might have a few things I want to qualify there. But when I say I'm when I say I'm holiness or I say I'm Methodist, there's some things I want to qualify too, you know. I think I can broadly stagger in that tradition. So I think we can broadly say that every holiness church I've ever encountered is Baptist that I've encountered. I'm just saying personally. Yeah. Um there might be some that don't fit in that mold, but I don't know of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I would say that's probably true in my experience too. So it actually, so so to call oneself a Baptist is something more broad than to call oneself a Methodist.
SPEAKER_03It is, yeah. Definitely. Right.
SPEAKER_00So I mean so most most holiness people that I know of, and I'm talking here about the um both the broad holiness movement, that would include Pentecostals, okay, and what is is called the conservative holiness movement, especially especially those groups. So Pentecostals, there are hundreds of millions of Pentecostals around the world. Uh, there are, I don't know how many people would associate themselves with you know a much smaller conservative holiness movement. Um, but for the most part, those two groups, despite the disparity of their size, do not generally call themselves Methodists. Your mainline holiness uh groups, Church of the Nazarene, free uh free Methodists, obviously, you know, Wesleyan Methodists, um uh and and others, you know, they still have that sense of identity with Methodism, but I don't generally hear people in most quarters of the holiness movement call themselves Methodists.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. My experience has been been, and again, I I mean I've only been around the block here you know a couple of years. So I'm still learning, I'm still getting my finger on the pulse of all of this. But my experience has been that that there has been a sense that we're Methodists, and um some even really want to own that, want to emphasize that. But it it tends to be, it seems to me, like their what their understanding of Methodism is really small. Like it's just it's it's a few key John Wesley passages and and and maybe some like more, you know, some later Methodist stuff, like Miley. Like that's basically their conception of what it means to be a Methodist. Uh or um to be a Methodist is the four alls of Methodism, you know. Um, but I mean, does do those four alls really encapsulate Methodism? I mean, there's other traditions that can affirm like almost all of those things, right? You know? So it I think that there are there are people in the holiness movement, the conservative holiness movement, that would want to say, oh yeah, I'm a Methodist, I'm a Wesleyan, you know, I'm strongly, I'm strongly Wesleyan. I I love John Wesley, but uh it's not apparent to me that they really understand what what a Methodist is? So I I don't know. I mean it and this is uh here's a question for you. Does being a Baptist mean that you cease to be a Methodist, right? So so we've established first premise, okay?
SPEAKER_02The first premise is that most holiness churches are Baptist. Second, so now second question is does become being a Baptist mean that you cease to be Methodist?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, again, I would go back to the 1830s, which is so critical for understanding contemporary uh church theology and the holiness movement. And there was a pretty radical shift of direction from you know what John Wesley defined as a Methodist to what we would understand today for sure. Um and a lot of that occurred through interaction with that Baptist revivalistic second Great Awakening. So I can't over-emphasize how big that is, how significant that is. That's a major turning point in our history. So, yes, there was a dramatic setting aside of some key dogmas in Methodist theology, setting aside of certain practices, and it's hard to it's always hard to tell what comes first, but I think the uh Second Great Awakening was such a pragmatic movement, it was I think pretty easily the most theologically anemic religious movement in America, if not ever. And um, and so it didn't have deep roots. I mean, it really led to a lot of tremendous challenges that we continue to face today. So I know that's gonna aggravate a lot of people probably. Um, but that particular wave of revivalism uh has had a lot of negative consequences. That's not to say that other movements of revivalism have, but that particular one has had a lot of detrimental effects, particularly on the holiness movement theologically, because it was so pragmatic that uh you know the rise of several theologies, such as uh, you know, this practice of baptism, for instance, and not that you know credal baptism is is necessarily wrong, we're saying that's a major theological shift. That that change of practice entails a significant theological shift. And it may be years later when people start making those connections of oh, wait a second, you know, let's practice this, then these things that we thought we believed we must not believe, and you exchange those for other beliefs. Um so that can happen very subtly, and it has. And uh now I think you know, you mentioned that you think that uh many people you know uh around you have have found maybe even comfort and but certainly meaning in identifying as Methodists, recognizing hey, we are Methodists. Uh, I do think there's a religion for sure. There's a desire to go a little deeper into history and to find out uh more about our theological heritage. Uh so I think that's good. And I think uh, you know, I I still do not see the practice of infant baptism making a strong comeback anytime soon. Um but uh I I do see reconsideration of uh some of our theological commitments being evaluated in light of what the early Methodists uh believed, particularly in understanding humanity in light of Christ.
SPEAKER_03You mentioned the pragmatic emphasis, uh, and that brought to point, that brought to mind one final point. Uh and I think I want to bring this up because uh before this this extended reflection, I I think my main criticism of baptism, Baptists more generally, has been just their view of the sacraments. Um, my experience with with Baptists, uh, and I think this is this is pretty fair, is that they have a very, very low view um of baptism and the Lord's Supper. And in fact, Michael, Michael F. Byrd uh was formerly a Baptist, and and he's you know very grateful for that. Uh he was saved in a Baptist church uh while he was in the military. But then as he you know studied, as he uh got into theology, he he joined the Anglican church. Um and he has made the comment tongue-in-cheek, which if you know him, he's he's quite comical in his writing. But he's made the comment that uh the Baptist view of the Lord's Supper is so impoverished that it could qualify for theological food stamps. And that has been my my experience, just really like Zwinglian. And and I actually think there was a four views book and uh the Baptist view, like one of the chapters was titled The Baptist View, and it basically, you know, pretty pretty Zwinglian. Um Zwingli being the one who who thought, you know, they're they're mostly just symbols. Um, the spirit's present, but not uh, you know, not in such a way that we can say really this is our spiritual food and drink. Christ isn't, you know, we really participate, nourishes our union, you know, it's not really a reform view. And when you look at Methodists, I mean, wow, Methodists have been really strong, really high view of the sacraments. And um, you know, that's something, you know, we know everybody I think I've written enough about it, we've talked about it enough to know that's something that's very, very uh near and dear to my heart, very precious to me. I feel yeah, I feel like if there's one thing I could do in my lifetime, it would be to help facilitate, you know, sacramental renewal. And uh so that's been it, that's been one of my probably my primary concern with Baptists is that they really need um to address their their view of the sacraments. But I think again, um that is linked to this pragmatism. And in our conversation on provenient grace, you drew out an excellent point. I've continued to think about that if we understand provenient grace, we will renew our attention to the means of grace, the ways in which God works, the channels through which God ordinarily works. And um, and and this, you know, this this pragmatic revivalism because it's not against revival, of course. I'm not against revivalism. I mean, just the other day I'm just thinking and driving and thinking, and oh Lord, we need revival. You know, yeah, God send revival, right? We all want revival, um, and we ought to pray for revival, but but this pragmatic revivalism, it it does have a tendency to diminish the means of grace. And I think there's another key way in which we just really are more similar to the Baptist tradition than almost any other uh faith tradition.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So we need to come back and have a podcast on revival theology and talk about the at least three, if not four, revival different, very distinguishable revival movements and theologies that result from those just in America. Uh, you know, you have you have Edwards in the first Great Awakening, that's a particular revival theology. You have Finney in the second Great Awakening, that's a very different revival theology than Edwards, polar opposite. And then you have a an early 20th century movement, revivalist movement, that is yet, again, very, very different from both Edwards and Finney. And then you have a more recent uh late 20th century revival movement uh that is yet uh distinguishable as well. So we should come back and talk about those and how we have been shaped uh as as you know, Wesleyan Arminians, as Baptist Wesleyan Arminians, uh how we've been shaped uh by by those things. Um I've never identified myself as a Baptist.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, don't I hope that we doesn't include me. I'm not ready to draw the circle myself there. In fact, my wife and I have been talking.
SPEAKER_00Go ahead. That was tongue in totally tongue in cheek.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
unknownOkay, good.
SPEAKER_03My wife and I have been talking about it. She she's, you know, she grew up in this mindset, prevailing mindset. She's she's still having a hard time coming around to it. So I figure if I'm gonna convince any anyone else, I've got to convince my wife. But but I'm I'm I'm fairly convinced of infant baptism we've been discussing uh baptizing our little boy. So we'll see what happens here if I can convert convert my wife to being a true Methodist. But we have to wrap this up. Why don't I end with this this uh quote from Thomas Summers? Uh, infants are not baptized because their parents are believers in Christ. Their right to the ordinance is of a higher investiture. They claim by a nobler entail. Dying in infancy, they enter heaven, not on the ground of their Christian descent, the piety of their parents, but because of their personal connection with the second Adam, by whose righteousness the free gift is come upon them under justification of life. Romans 5 reference there. Upon this very same basis are they admitted to membership in the kingdom of grace and to baptism as the rite of initiation into the Church of God. If there be any for whom Christ did not die, any for whom he did not purchase the sanctifying grace of the Holy Ghost, any whom he designed and decreed never to save, such are obviously ineligible to baptism, which is the exponent of those great benefits that flow from the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. But if he tasted death for every man, if the free gift has come upon all who are involved in the condemnation of the pristine offense, there can be no reason to justify the exclusion of any from the sign and seal of the divine mercy, except such as exclude themselves by their obstinate impenitency. And infants are not of that number.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, love it. Thank you for listening to the Holy Joys Podcast. Email your questions to podcast at holyjoys.org, and they may be featured on a future episode. Our labors for a holy happy church are supported by generous listeners like you. Please pray about partnering with us at holyjoys.org forward slash donate.
