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Originally Posted by fredtgreco  Every PCA church should use discipline with its members with respect to infant baptism. The question is how that discipline should be carried out. Discipline takes many forms - from the informal to the formal. From counsel to excommunication.
My personal opinion would be to permit a non-paedobaptist to join (in light of the PCA's sole requirement of a credible profession of faith, and not confessional subscription by members) and to exhort, counsel and encourage (pastoral discipline) families to not neglect infant baptism.
More often than not, a family that stays committed to a PCA church for a length of time where tolerance is exhibited, but the truth of the Scripture is consistently and unashamedly proclaimed from the pulpit and in education classes, will come to adopt paedobaptism. |
The will either do that or possibly eventually leave. Of course some who stay do not have children or have grown children and so it's of no practical significance to them unless they are teaching credo and/or immersionist views in the church. The question is, how many churches consistently and unashamedly proclaim paedobaptism? I've heard the term "baptisterian" from enough sources of differing views to know that it's not just FVers who have that view of some of our churches.
Personally, I don't think I could have ever joined a Presbyterian church while still holding credo views. I came out of a church that was strongly anti-paedobaptist and influenced by works like Verduin's
Reformers and their Stepchildren and although I had respect for many paedobaptist preachers, I basically didn't consider paedo churches to be churches at all or at the very least not properly ordered ones since they rejected regenerate church membership, something that at that time I thought should be obvious to anyone who didn't have blinders on. That the FV was gaining a lot of publicity on the internet at about the time I was considering the issue (2004-2005) didn't help matters any. The fact that Jacob (Ivanhoe) joined the OPC in my area while he was in college and every other sentence out of his mouth back then seemed to start with either "Bahnsen said" or "Bahnsen thought" didn't help either, considering my background.
The pastor was also known to have been close to Bahnsen. Not finding a credo church in the area that I felt comfortable joining and not being entirely comfortable with a somewhat charismatic EPC church that welcomed Baptists with open arms, I studied the issue and was finally convinced of Presbyterianism and joined the OPC. Since moving to an area with a couple of FIRE churches and a couple of other baptistic possibilities as well, I reexamined the issue once again to make sure that I hadn't just convinced myself of paedobaptism and joined the OPC because there weren't any other options, but I remain a convinced paedobaptist and Presbyterian.