Cerphilly Castle, Wales (photo from trekearth.com)
http://satireandtheology.blogspot.com/2008/05/evangelize-while-in-
fight-for-your-life.html
Here is a hypothetical Frequently Asked Question and I really appreciate all my readers, commenters and links.
Question:
You state you hold to Believer’s baptism/credobaptism, although infant baptism/paedobaptism has some merit. If that is so, why are you a member of a Presbyterian Church in America?
I am not intending to debate the baptism issue in this article, but please feel free to review my article and link below. I have attended Baptist churches. I have earned a MTS degree at a Baptist seminary and have interacted with Baptist theology on the subject of baptism.
http://thekingpin68.blogspot.com/2007/08/some-thoughts-on-
infant-baptism.html
I am sure there are many godly Baptists out there, and I wish to have fellowship with many, but I have not found definitive Baptists, in particular, very supportive of me as a Christian. No one has ever reached out to me over a prolonged period within a Baptist church to guide me in my Christian walk and academic pursuits. As well, a Baptist pastor and theologian did a poor job in guiding and advising me at seminary and basically implied I was not good enough to write a thesis. The truth was although he was and is a very good theologian, he did a poor job advising his first thesis student. On that issue, he was not supported by the administration that pulled his negative letter concerning my thesis work off my record, when I strongly complained of the critique. He had taken a position at another institution.
With no additional training, and a new advisor at Wales, I went on to write a much more difficult 40, 000 word MPhil dissertation thesis by distance learning, without any local advisor and passed without revisions. I am in the process of completing a more difficult yet, distance learning PhD dissertation with Wales, which is from what I have read, by some standards, the second largest University in the United Kingdom. The Presbyterian church that I am a member of has very educated pastoral leadership that has assisted me with my PhD thesis and two of my pastors have commented on my blogs. My one pastor reads my blogs weekly.
As much as I have tried on-line, no definitive Baptist blogger has linked with me. I have contacted several, but they seem to show no interest in continually reading, commenting or linking with my blogs. I have, for example, links that are definitive Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and persons that attend the Church of Christ.
Now, I must admit, I am not aware of the denomination of every one of my links and so some of you may be Baptists. But, from what I am aware, the definitive Baptists I have attempted to contact do not want to support my work. I have heard Baptist theologian Albert Mohler state on-line that those that hold to Baptist theology on the issue of baptism should attend a Baptist church. I reason that is too narrow of a perspective, particularly in the rather secular, unchurched Greater Vancouver area. The subject of Baptism would be one area of theological agreement, but as my pastor pointed out, there are more Presbyterians that hold to Reformed, Calvinist doctrines than there are Baptists.
I reason there are more important theological issues than the important issue of baptism. I hold to compatibilism and not incompatibilism. Some Reformed, Calvinist Baptist churches would agree with me on the issue of compatibilism and some non-Reformed Baptist churches would not. This is a crucial issue in regard to the problem of evil and how persons are saved or not saved by Christ. I reason God without the use of force or coercion predestines those who believe in Christ. God chooses to regenerate a person by God’s will alone. Some reason God chooses to regenerate everyone, but cannot because of human free will, but I reason the since all human beings have a corrupt nature, no one could or would choose Christ without being regenerated by God and his divine choice. God regenerates the elect and simultaneously gives persons the ability to freely believe and trust in Christ. Romans 1-3, Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 are important Chapters in regard to this topic.
Baptists are not providing me with compelling reasons to attend and join a Baptist church. I really would like to be linked with many Baptists, both Reformed and non-Reformed. But, I know from experience with two Baptist theology professors that they were skeptical concerning conservative philosophical theologians that were not pastors. If this is a common view with the Baptist movement, this is a tremendous negative.
Definitions and Bibliography
Incompatibilism:
Gregory A. Boyd explains that incompatibilism assumes since human beings are free, their wills and resulting actions are not, in any way, determined by any outside force. Boyd (2001: 52).
Compatibilism:
Compatibilism, would agree with incompatibilism that God or any other being cannot cause by force or coercion any significantly free human action, but contrary to incompatibilism thinks that God or an outside force can simultaneously determine/will significantly free human actions. Feinberg (1994: 60).
Philosopher Louis P. Pojman explains that within determinism or hard determinism, an outside force causes an act and no created being is responsible for his or her moral actions, while for compatibilism or soft determinism, although an outside force causes actions, created beings are responsible where they act voluntarily. Within hard determinism an outside force would be the only cause of human actions, while with soft determinism an outside force would be the primary cause of human actions and persons the secondary cause. Pojman (1996: 596). God would be the primary cause within Christian theism.
BOYD, GREGORY A. (2001) Satan and the Problem of Evil, Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.
FEINBERG, JOHN S. (1994) The Many Faces of Evil, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House.
POJMAN, LOUIS P. (1996) Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Thanks Mom, a bad day...
