Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
Brother Dennis,
Just to clarify, I mean no disrespect to you. You are an encouragement to my faith and have challenged me by your words here on the PB. I suppose the larger issue for me is Baptists that are ashamed to be Baptists. I would rather a Baptist go Presbyterian than to straddle the fence between both camps. I've seen the sparks fly when Baptists are actually called to subscribe to the confession they identify with. We're going through this right now in my church as we are vetting the ramifications of adopting the 1689 LBC as our doctrinal statement. The next few months should be interesting indeed.
Disrespect? Disrespect? DISRESPECT!?! I felt no disrespect. Just beware you New Joisey so-and-so, Guido is coming for YOU!
Actually, no offense taken. My point was that I ignorantly followed the procedures of my congregation, my congregation more concerned to be evangelical than Baptist, PRIOR to my becoming aware of the confessions in any meaningful way (my polity profs always said that Baptists were a non-creedal people and so we never did much reading of any confessions, including the LBCF).
BTW, it was never a case of permitting an UNbaptized person into the congregation but of allowing an irregularly baptized person to be admit upon profession of faith and testimony of a prior baptism. Still weird, I grant you.
While this mentality would seem to be less common in the Southern Baptist Convention, it does appear to be evident in the way that many churches practice the Lord's Supper. 100 years ago I think close communion would have been the norm for most Baptist churches, but many today practice what amounts to open communion, meaning that they let people come to the table who in their view haven't been scripturally baptized. While this is perhaps becoming the norm today, it really is a rather novel idea in church history. But that's probably a discussion better left another thread.