Between Two Worlds: "Wayne, Wayne, Wayne, Why?"

Thursday, August 09, 2007

"Wayne, Wayne, Wayne, Why?"

15 comments | Permalink

Piper responds to Grudem regarding his shift on baptism.

15 Comments:

Anonymous said...: As a PCA pastor who has for many years now used the same argument to welcome into membership many who disagree with covenantal infant baptism, I appreciate Dr. Piper's words here.

My only concern is that it is not clear whether Dr. Piper first attempted to communicate with Dr. Grudem to get clarification (as he has modeled for us on other previous occasions when he takes issue publicly with someone's position) before this blog post. It would help to know this.; 8/09/2007 07:38:00 AM
Christopher said...: As a whole, I agree with Piper on this. However, it should be noted that Grudem is coming from an Ev.Free back ground and Piper is coming from a Baptist background. Piper protects his Baptist identity by stating that those potential members who hold to infant baptism could never be elders in his Church. Grudem, having no protection clause, in fact, having paedo-baptist pastors in his denomination, is falling off the horse on the other side.

As a formerly baptistic Presbyterian, I like John’s solution. We do exactly what he outlines in the PCA. Yes, come join our fellowship, but no, you may not be an elder if you remain a Baptist. Let each man be thoroughly convinced in his own mind, and yet, on this one, the elders must be faithful to the doctrines confessed by the denomination.

As Piper once said about this issue, long before he moved in this direction, “Truth matters.”

With all due respect to the PCA pastor above (How can we say the Amen if we don't know who you are?), this type of thing just does not have to be cleared ahead of time. Piper has not made anything close to a personal attack. All he has done is publicly disagreed with Grudem's public statement.

Should we say, "Wayne, did you check with me before writing what you did? You know, I disagree with it!"

Please, let the conversation and debate move forward.

In Christ,

CT; 8/09/2007 07:52:00 AM
Hashman said...: I think the best evidence (anecdotally) for Grudem's perspective is Piper's church, which even John Piper could not ultimately sway to accept his understanding. Which means a lot.

So perhaps Grudem's feet are a just a little more on the ground on this issue.

Though I may not have all the facts on the issue at Bethlehem.; 8/09/2007 08:25:00 AM
Katie R. said...: Christopher,
What's a baptistic Presbyterian??; 8/09/2007 08:26:00 AM
Christopher said...: Katie,

Sorry, that didn't come out as clearly as I meant it. I grew up a Baptist in baptistic churches. I am a former Baptist. I've embraced the PCA whole heartedly, infant baptism and all.

Warmly,

CT; 8/09/2007 09:28:00 AM
D. Taylor benton said...: In response to the article on DG

Dr. Piper,

I think in your final statement, "would say that when a person looks a true and precious brother in the eye and says, “You may not join this church,” he is doing one of two things: Seriously diminishing our spiritual union in Christ, or seriously minimizing the importance of church membership." , I don't think either one of those statements are true, by keeping the membership "pure" and I use that term loosely, it would increase our spiritual union and boldly highlight the obedience of believers baptism that we see in scripture. The second, no one excluding someone because of baptism would at the same time have as a motive to diminish the importance of church membership, those two motives are juxtaposed against one another. Finally, I think the main reason to exclude paedo-baptists from member ship was not answered in any of this article and that is we cannot have true communion and fellowship with someone that is in sin by directly opposing a command clearly taught in scripture. Fellowship, relationships, and most importantly the Lords Supper would be "tainted" by such an act. I think outright disobedience would break the barrier especially in the case of the Lord’s Supper. How can we have unity when that happens? Our paedo friends and allies need to realize that arguing this position from feeling and "conviction" is not enough, give scriptural warrant, and hard prayer, in love, to this matter and a real brother would understand what the scripture does and does not say. Tradition, feelings, and relationships need to be checked at the door when discussing this along with several other doctrinal issues.; 8/09/2007 09:28:00 AM
James Anderson said...: Hashman:

I think the best evidence (anecdotally) for Grudem's perspective is Piper's church, which even John Piper could not ultimately sway to accept his understanding. Which means a lot.

Piper points out that he's more concerned here about what ought to be than what is likely to be. He says that Grudem's claim about the unlikelihood of denominational groups adopting a 'compromise' position is "probably true". No doubt his own experiences have contributed to this pessimistic conclusion.

But the question Grudem originally posed was, "Do Churches Need to Be Divided Over Baptism?" The bulk of Piper's response is an answer in the negative to that question.; 8/09/2007 09:28:00 AM
Jake said...: Taylor, you said "Our paedo friends and allies need to realize that arguing this position from feeling and "conviction" is not enough, give scriptural warrant, and hard prayer, in love, to this matter and a real brother would understand what the scripture does and does not say."

You are claiming two things:

1. Paedobaptists only argue from feelings; they don't make any arguments from Scripture.

2. All true Christians, upon reading the Bible, will become credobaptists.

#1 is not true; paedobaptists (I'm not one) would go to lots of Scripture, like Gen 17, Rom 6, Gal 3, Col 2, and Acts 2, to defend their position. I disagree with them, but they have biblical arguments. Your assumption that they're all just caught up in their feelings is unfair, and it doesn't help the debate.

#2 is just scary. If your claim is true then Luther, Calvin, almost all the other Reformers, the authors of the Westminster Confession (which became the London Baptist Confession), Edwards, Whitfield, Wesley, Warfield, Machen, John Murray, Lig Duncan, R.C. Sproul, and the majority of people in church history have not been true believers. I don't think you really believe that.

We have to be able to talk about these things biblically, seriously and lovingly, without making dramatic statements like "a real Christian would agree with me on this."; 8/09/2007 09:57:00 AM
Bruce said...: Though I am an EFCA pastor, I can see why Grudem changed his position. The position that is ours currently and that Piper desires does involves some real tension.

This is a sticky issue partly because baptism is, among other things, a tangible act of obedience. Being a physical act, it is therefore far more objective than the difference between schools of thought and interpretation, such as Calvinism vs. Arminianism, or Covenantal vs. Dispensational theology, which we also tolerate within our denomination and local church membership. Someone either is or is not baptized according to the teaching of the church, or the church is allowing and maintaining two contradictory teachings.

In an EFCA setting, this means we do not define baptism in our doctrinal statement, and, yes, I do agree with Grudem that this can tend to minimize its rich gospel signficance in our practice. On the other hand, for Baptists or Presbyterians who allow for members who do not affirm their church's teaching on baptism, they end up making degrees of membership which says that you can be united to the church without agreeing with the entire doctrinal statement.

I think there are levels of doctrine (see Mohler's triage analogy), but I really wouldn't like having members who 1) don't affirm the entire statement of faith, 2) can't be held accountable on a particular, primary act of discipleship, and 3) are ineligible to become elders for doctrinal reasons.

Ultimately, though we in our congregation teach a strong believer's baptism position, and we haven't had any real conflicts arise, we could end up with some problems similar to those above. Number 1 is not an issue because of the silence of our statement of faith. Number 2 could be an issue, because as many read our statement (see below) we cannot hold a member accountable to be baptized. And regarding number 3, it is at least possible that we could have a man who is nominated and congregationally approved to be an elder who is not baptized. We would have to specify this requirement in our by-laws, which, incidentally, is where we do state that our elders should be men.

For reference...

Current EFCA statement on the ordinances: "We believe that water baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances to be observed by the Church during the present age. They are, however, not to be regarded as means of salvation."

Part of a new EFCA Statement of Faith, under consideration: "The Lord Jesus mandated two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which visibly and tangibly express the gospel. Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer."; 8/09/2007 10:22:00 AM
Bob Hayton said...: I posted a follow up to the Piper-Grudem exchange, and then as an after thought, I added this question:

How far removed is the open membership question from the open communion question?

The New Hampshire Baptist Confession of 1833 affirmed: “Christian Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer… that it is prerequisite to the privileges of a Church relation; and to the Lord’s Supper…” Is not the historic acceptance of open communion among Baptists not an historic support for an open membership view?

And for what its worth, Piper's church (of which I'm a member), holds to open communion.

On the obedience question, no one who has not submitted to baptism would be admitted. [I don't believe Roman Catholic baptism or a cult's baptism would be accepted either.] In the conscience of these fellow believers, they have obeyed Scripture. The question concerns what is or isn't valid baptism.; 8/09/2007 11:08:00 AM
Katie R. said...: Christopher,

Oh! I get it! Lol. :) Thanks for the clarification!

Katie; 8/09/2007 11:13:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Just for clarification. It is true that Wayne Grudem used to teach at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School which is the flagship seminary for the Evangelical Free Church. However, I believe that he now teaches at Phoenix Seminary which is a non-denominational school (?). Also, there are some lectures somewhere on line (perhaps linked by Justin Taylor on this site) of Wayne Grudem teaching a theology class at his church. The church he is currently attending or rather teaching at is a non-denominational Bible Church.

P.S.--Justin Taylor thank you for this website.; 8/09/2007 12:57:00 PM
David said...: I am increasingly coming to appreciate David Wright's view that "A critical test of a baptismal theology is that it can encompass both infant and believers’ baptism within a single understanding".

If anyone is interested, see in brief a précis of his article on "Habitats of Infant Baptism" here or, at length, his collection of essays on baptism.

David Reimer; 8/09/2007 03:43:00 PM
Ken Davis said...: Just a practical consideration that may be included in the many issues that remain unresolved. Paedobaptists who join the Baptist church will one day have children and they will want them to be baptized as soon as possible. Would Dr. Piper baptize them; have someone else in his church baptize them; send them to a Presbyterian church to be baptized? How can violating your own church's doctrinal position or denying people the ability to fulfill theirs in the church in which they are members, be avoided? Would this not tell them they are second class Christians if they are refused the baptism of their children? Would this not say that our own doctrinal position is not that solid if we do baptize them? How could such a scenario not do more damage than good?; 8/09/2007 04:20:00 PM
D. Taylor benton said...: Jake,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. In addition, just like many mediums of communication, posts are not as clear as one would want. I would however say that your two points are very valid.
I would say that the scriptural argument would be made from inference. Making an argument from inference or even silence in many cases is very dangerous, especially where we can see in several other places that there is evidence that teaches contrary to the inference.
Second
I would NOT say they are not regenerate; it is a matter of obedience, not salvation.
So I would still hold to my main point is that the "disobedience" that paedo Baptists are involved in do more damage to the unity than "just letting them in". I want to make it clear that I do have many friends that are PCA and respect and revere many that are Presbyterians...but I think many of the upper echelons of theological class in our seminaries and influential pastors come and this topic very emotionally meaning they argue from their situation and not looking at the situation objectively in my opinion.; 8/09/2007 09:54:00 PM