Tag: spirituality

Revisiting Baptism and Young Children

~ Bob Hayton ~ 28 Comments

I’ve considered this question before. As Baptists, when should we baptize our children? A few blog posts recently give reasons why we should or should not delay baptism until our children are more mature (apx. ages 10-12).

First, Trevin Wax gave 4 points on his position relating to this question (which is that we should delay baptizing children until they are around 10 years old or so).

John Starke at The Gospel Coalition Blog then gave 4 reasons why we should baptize small children.

On the heels of these posts, Mike Gilbart-Smith at 9 Marks Blog posted his own “9 reasons why we should not baptize young children“.

For my part, I have a hard time getting around the household baptism passages in Acts. Presbyterians point to household baptisms as evidence of the batpism of small children and infants. Baptists demur and say these passages are silent about the age of children, and often give evidence that all the members of the households evidenced faith. Now, however, when it comes to young children old enough to express faith, Baptists are free to let these children wait in some cases years before affirming their faith through baptism? The very same passages in Acts where all members of a household (presumably including children) believe and then are immediately baptized, now have nothing to say about children below the age of 12. It’s one thing to assume the passages don’t refer to infants, now we are supposed to believe they don’t refer to children under 12? Just who should we include as being in the households of the Cornelius, Lydia, the Philippian jailer and others?

As Starke points out, “the Bible doesn’t seem to give us any examples of an un-baptized Christian”. Furthermore, Justin Taylor in linking to Starke’s post above, added this insight:

There is an irony in the discussion””namely, that Jesus tells us to have faith like a child, and we often tell children that they first have to have demonstrate faith like an adult.

All things considered, at the risk of being considered a closet Presbyterian, I tend to think that the symbolism of Baptism is as much about the objective work of Christ for us (washing our hearts clean), as it is about the subjective experience of our testifying to our belief in the gospel (being buried with Christ in baptism). What happens in Baptism is an identifying with Christ and a celebration of what He has done, ultimately, not what we have done. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate for young children who have demonstrated faith in Christ. And since baptism doesn’t save, I am not persuaded by arguments for delaying baptism. I may not agree fully with Vern Poythress’ thoughts about how even 2 and 3 year old children can have saving faith, but I also think he has a point.

I’m interested in what my readers think about this. I understand that some of us find ourselves in churches with an official policy of delaying baptism. I’m not advocating that you disregard your church’s teaching on this subject. Please don’t misunderstand me. But I think a more biblical position is to accept the little children that come to Jesus, and allow them after a period of evaluation, to be baptized.

Quotes to Note 28: Daniel Doriani on How Pastors Read the Bible

~ Bob Hayton ~ 5 Comments

Recently, I was referencing Daniel Doriani’s commentary on James again. I have reviewed his commentary previously, and it is very good. He has a lot of pastoral wisdom, as seen by the following excerpt.

Here, Doriani exposes the tendencies of pastors or other teachers, to be too professional with the Bible in their own lives. His thoughts are worthy of reflection, which is why I’m sharing them with you here: Let me know what you think and if you agree that he strikes a nerve.

________________

…This seems obvious, but pastors and seminarians are prone to professionalize their use of Scripture, to read it to help every soul but their own. Let me offer a typology of the ways pastors can read Scripture.

When he is a new Christian, the future pastor’s reading is naïve and devotional. He devours Scripture, underlining virtually every word in his new Bible, feeling that God speaks directly to him with every word.

After a few years, the budding leader’s reading becomes sophisticated and devotional. He still feels that God is speaking to him in the text, but he has learned to read texts in their contexts. He reads Bible dictionaries and commentaries. He knows the translation strategies of various Bible versions and begins to use that knowledge to get at the original text.

The future pastor decides to go to seminary, where he becomes a technical reader. He reads Greek and Hebrew; he consults scholarly sources. He respects the distance between his world and that of biblical thought. His zeal to describe biblical history, culture, and language grows. He pursues what the word originally meant and perhaps neglects what it means today.

As ordination comes, our friend remembers that his study has, as its goal, the edification of the church. He continues to read technically, but now he shares his findings with the church. He becomes a technical-functional reader. His reading may be detached, personally speaking, but he stores and organizes his discoveries so he can offer them to others. While this phase may mark a partial improvement, he does not directly profit from his reading of Scripture.

He needs therefore to become a technical, devotional reader. Every technical skill remains, but he reads like a child, letting the word speak directly to his heart again. He gains what Paul Ricoeur calls a “second naiveté.” He is both technically astute and meek. He both receives God’s word and expounds it. In this way, he finds strength to endure trials and to check the growth of sin.

[pg. 50-51, James (Reformed Expository Commentary) from P&R Publishing]

Still a Fundamentalist at Heart: My Stance on Roman Catholicism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 9 Comments

Some readers of my blog dismiss me as having in effect abandoned the faith. They are so committed to certain fundamentalist practices and positions that they refuse to look on me with any grace. I am a hopeless liberal to them, and have abandoned important implications of the Gospel, and rejected Scriptural teaching.

My blog professes to stand “for the Unity of the Faith for the Glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3,13; Rom. 15:5-7”. In fact I strive for that. Much division in the body of Christ is avoidable and harmful. I’ve expressed my concerns over a radical separatism which views anyone who doesn’t self-identify as a fundamentalist with suspicion and distrust — even scorn.

I have found a wider grace in Christ through my experience with Reformed Theology, which rather than making me more narrow-minded has freed me to hope the best in people and let God do His work. This charitable spirit which many have taken time to thank me for, is nevertheless acknowledged by some critics to be just the spirit of this post-modern age. I’m nice and want to be nice. And niceness is all this is about. I don’t have the backbone needed to defend the faith as fundamentalists really should.

So I find it somewhat ironic that I am now being taken to task for my stance on Roman Catholicism by people to the left of me. I guess this is proof positive that I am still a fundamentalist at heart! In my recent review of Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality by Wesley Hill, I added the following caution:

I have but one small reservation with this book. Hill details both a Roman Catholic’s and Greek Orthodox’s struggle on this issue with no caution about the deficient theology of those churches. There may be genuine Christians who are RC or Orthodox, but they are the exception not the rule. Perhaps those faiths are more open to the struggle for faithful celibacy and so have something he can identify with. As a Protestant, I fear the gospel can be at stake in so easily recommending Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy with their denial of justification by faith alone.

I am now said to be the harsh judgmental one, who refuses to extend grace to the millions of Catholics and Greek Orthodox Christians around the world. I’m being denounced in no uncertain terms; here, here and here, and especially here. I’m hindering “the unity of the faith”, I’m the one who isn’t nice and is making harsh judgments.

Let me be clear, I still hold that the Bible does lay down guidelines and boundaries to the faith. We are not given the right to just blur those boundaries whenever we want. We don’t find Paul doing that, he names names and contends for the faith (as do the other Apostles). There is “another gospel” which is no gospel. The danger of false teachers looms large all over the New Testament. It behooves those who prize the Gospel, to defend the Gospel. Unity goes up to a point, but ultimately it must be tethered to the Gospel. Where the Gospel is in danger of being lost, unity can not continue.

So that makes me a fundamentalist, I guess. I think some doctrine is so vital to the essence of Christianity, that it must be defended and cannot be denied without serious consequences.

And I am not alone in my assessment of Roman Catholicism. Consider the words of one of the original fundamentalists from the 1920s:

I am aware that, if I undertake, to prove that Romanism is not Christianity, I must expect to be called “bigoted, harsh, uncharitable.” Nevertheless I am not daunted; for I believe that on a right understanding of this subject depends the salvation of millions. [T. W. Medhurst, “Is Romanism Christianity?” in The Fundamentals, edited by R.A. Torrey, online here]

Or consider the eloquent and large-hearted Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

There are, of course, individuals who are both Roman Catholics and Christians. You can be a Christian and yet be a Roman Catholic. My whole object is to try to show that such people are Christians in spite of the system to which they belong, and not because of it. [source]

I must say I haven’t read primary Catholic authors writing after Vatican 2. But in what I’ve heard and read about Vatican 2 it never abrogates the Council of Trent and it doesn’t change church teaching on additional things “necessary unto salvation”. I’m foolish enough to trust the Reformers and evangelical Protestants up through the middle of the 20th Century who have studied these matters and conclude that Roman Catholic doctrine on salvation is confusing at best and damning at worst.

Consider just a few of the statements from The Council of Trent, the reaction that Rome officially gave to the Protestant Reformation:

On Justification
CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.

On Baptism
CANON V.-If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema.

On the Eucharist
CANON I.-If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema.

On Penance
CANON VI.–If any one denieth, either that sacramental confession was instituted, or is necessary to salvation, of divine right; or saith, that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Church hath ever observed from the beginning, and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention; let him be anathema.

On the Mass
CANON III.–If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.

This is addition to the Gospel and hence it is “another Gospel”. See Galatians 5:2-6 and 1:6-9. That is my understanding and the understanding of the Reformers and most evangelical Protestant churches. I consider the trappings of the religious system which is Catholicism conspire to cloud out the simplicity of the gospel. Veneration of the saints, prayers to Mary, purgatory, the role of priests, the place the Eucharist holds, penance, beads, icons, holy object, the holy pope “” all of these easily vie for central place.

UPDATE: I forgot to add this bit. The Roman Catholic Church has no problem anathematizing me. The pope has no problem not recognizing my church as valid. Why isn’t that a big deal worth getting upset about?

I freely admit evangelicalism has its problems, and in many places another gospel is preached there too. But I cannot turn a blind eye to Rome’s problems. Call me a kook if you will. There are intelligent and careful responses to Rome’s doctrine available for those who search. Perhaps some of my readers can recommend good resources on this. I do respect and appreciate much that the Roman Catholic Church stands for and has bequeathed to us. But it is dead wrong on salvation and is misleading countless millions of followers around the world.

I realize this won’t win me many awards (except negative ones), and it won’t make me popular. But I aim for faithfulness rather than acceptance by the biblioblogging community.

“Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality” by Wesley Hill

~ Bob Hayton ~ 49 Comments

Homosexuality. The word stirs many reactions today. Many Christians who don’t know homosexuals personally, remain puzzled and scared by this term. Many suspect the word does not picture a reality, only an intentional perversion of God’s created order. Pat answers are easy, and when it comes to homosexuality a simple Bible-based condemnation seems all that is in order. It is easier and more convenient for us to file the word, and whatever reality it represents, away into a tidy corner — far away from our experience.

But in today’s world, we can no longer afford to ignore homosexuality. It is all around us, and if we open our eyes, we’ll see it is affecting people we rub shoulders with at work, it’s in our children’s schools, and even has entered our churches. The debate is here, and more. It’s not just a debate, there is a secret battle being waged in countless hearts around us. A battle to believe in Jesus despite personal homosexual attractions.

When the church takes a very public, vocal and aggressive stance against homosexuality and perceived encroaches on the church’s favored family ideal, we inadvertently make it hard for those among us struggling with identity questions of their own. On the other hand, when churches change their message, dismissing Biblical statements condemning homosexual practices outright, or employing some cunning and inventive “exegesis”, the core of Gospel truth is betrayed. And any message left over is spiritually bankrupt. What is needed is a careful balance between a Scriptural approach to homosexual practice as sin, and a gracious acceptance of sinners who are struggling to follow Jesus.

That balance is hard to achieve and frankly, quite rare today. Consider the words of an anonymous Christian who struggles with homosexuality:

What if the church were full of people who were loving and safe, willing to walk alongside people who struggle? What if there were people in the church who kept confidences, who took the time to be Jesus to those who struggle with homosexuality? What if the church were what God intended it to be? (pg. 113)

This perspective may be new to many of us. When is the last time that you or I have known someone struggling with homosexuality? Not one given over to it, but one who professes to be a Christian yet openly admits to struggles in this area? What would it be like to be a Christian struggling with this? Can you even be a Christian if you experience homosexual desires? Isn’t Jesus supposed to miraculously heal you of such a warped perspective?

In a new book from Zondervan, Wesley Hill bravely steps forward to share his own journey with us. In Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality Hill tells the story of his life-long struggle with homosexuality. He shares the hopes and struggles, the loneliness and longing, the despair and perplexity that is life for homosexual Christians. What Hill has to say needs to be heard throughout the church today. His honesty and candor, and his gospel-centered, graceful, hopeful perspective make the book a joy to read. He offers hope for all who struggle against sin this side of the resurrection.

The book is well-written and captivating. Hill finds the right balance in conveying what it is like to think like he does, and feel like he feels, without dragging the book down into a cesspool. He keeps the story moving and intersperses reflections on the testimony of other self-professed Christians who struggled with homosexual desires.

Hill grew up in a Christian home, went to a Christian school and went to a Christian college (Wheaton). He even pursued Christian ministry. He would appear a typical conservative-minded Christian from a loving home. But he learned as a young teenager that something was different with him. He had no sexual attraction for women, at all. Instead, his feelings were directed toward the other sex for apparently no reason that he has yet been able to discover. One story he tells captures his reality well. He was attending a dance at a friend’s wedding. A friend, set him up to dance with a gorgeous girl. And yet even in close quarter with this stunning beauty, he felt no attraction. Instead his eyes were wandering against his will to a man across the room who he couldn’t help but notice.

Hill’s story goes on throughout the book. He is still young (in his late twenties) and realizes he doesn’t have all the answers. But he hopes his story helps others like him come to grips with who they are, and the calling Christ has for them. Hill realizes that some homosexual Christians do experience a healing of their broken desires. But many do not. He writes for “homosexual persons who have tried — and are trying — to ‘become heterosexual’ and are not succeeding and wonder, for the umpteenth time, what exactly it is that God wants them to do.” (pg. 19)

Hill’s testimony of the struggle and perplexity that surrounds homosexuality, helps explain the attraction of homosexual accommodation by the Church. It’s surely easier to remain connected with one “soul-mate” than to struggle against one’s natural impulses. Hill observes:

Occasionally it strikes me again how strange it is to talk about the gospel — Christianity’s “good news” — demanding anything that would squelch my happiness, much less demanding abstinence from homosexual partnerships and homoerotic passions and activities. If the gospel really is full of hope and promise, surely it must endorse — or at least not oppose — people entering into loving, erotically expressive same-sex relationships. How could the gospel be opposed to love? (pg. 56)

Hill goes on to challenge this “easy way out.” He explains how and why abstinence from forbidden pleasures is essential to upholding the true Gospel. “One of the hardest-to-swallow, most countercultural, counterintuitive implications of the gospel is that bearing up under a difficult burden with patient perseverance is a good thing.” (pg. 71).

Hill’s struggles bring alive the hidden suffering of Christians struggling with this sin. There is an intense loneliness. First, it is hard to share with other Christians that you struggle with this issue. Second, if you agree that abstinence is God’s will, you will pull back from non-sexual relationships with others of the same sex for fear of temptation or rejection (if they knew the real you). Finally, for those who cannot just “switch” their inbred sense of attraction, for those who cannot just “become heterosexual”, or those who through long years of effort find they cannot, these are faced with a lonely future with no possibility of waking up next to the one you love and sharing life together. Hill shared some of his personal diary notes on this point: “And don’t you think we’re wired (Genesis 2!) to want the kind of companionship that can only come through marriage?” (pg. 106).

An even more devastating point comes in Hill’s discussion of lust. He quotes Dallas Willard to the extent that to merely look (or see) and desire someone sexually is not wrong. Rather, looking to desire someone is wrong. The second glance is the one with evil intent. Hill shares what it feels like to “look and desire” in a homosexual way, and how this is even more hopeless than those who struggle against inordinate heterosexual desires:

For me and other gay people, even when we’re not willfully cultivating desire, we know that when attraction does come — most of the time, it could be as unlooked for and unwanted as it was for me that day on the dance floor at my friends’ wedding reception — it will be attraction to someone of the same sex. And in those moments, it feels as though there is no desire that isn’t lust, no attraction that isn’t illicit. I never have the moment Dallas Willard describes as “looking and desiring” when I can thank God that he made me to be attracted to women… Every attraction I experience, before I ever get to intentional, willful, indulgent desire, seems bent, broken, misshapen. I think this grieves [God], but I can’t seem to help it. (pg. 136-137)

This experience of brokenness and uncontrollable desires is not uncommon. Hill speaks for many when he writes these words. Hill quotes Martin Hallett of True Freedom Trust, “There are probably nearly as many Christians with homosexual feelings who do not believe that homosexual sex is right for Christians as there are those who are advocating its acceptance.” (pg. 16)

The beauty of this book is that Hill not only describes the struggle, he also explains how he has found peace with the burden. His “life as a homosexual Christian… has simply been learning how to wait, to be patient, to endure, to bear up under an unwelcome burden for the long haul.” (pg. 50). Rather than seeing his struggles and shortcomings as “confirmations of [his] rank corruption and hypocrisy”, Hill has gradually learned to view his journey “of struggle, failure, repentance, restoration, renewal in joy, and persevering, agonized obedience — as what it looks like for the Holy Spirit to be transforming me on the basis of Christ’s cross and his Easter morning triumph over death.” (pg. 144). His insights on sanctification deserve to be quoted in full:

The Bible calls the Christian struggle against sin faith (Hebrews 12:3-4; 10:37-39). It calls the Christian fight against impure cravings holiness (Romans 6:12-13, 22). So I am trying to appropriate these biblical descriptions for myself. I am learning to look at my daily wrestling with disordered desires and call it trust. I am learning to look at my battle to keep from giving in to my temptations and call it sanctification. I am learning to see that my flawed, imperfect, yet never-giving-up faithfulness is precisely the spiritual fruit that God will praise me for on the last day, to the ultimate honor of Jesus Christ. (pg. 146)

What Christian cannot say amen to that? I found Hill’s honesty and frank discussion of his wrestlings against the sinful pull of his soul, inspiring and hope-giving even for broken heterosexuals like me. We could learn a lot from listening to homosexual Christians who are fighting to follow Jesus with a pure heart.

Hill encourages others struggling with this sin to be open about their struggles with others, to seek help, and find a church community to be a part of. Hill’s message also challenges churches today to be a community of Christ-loving people who minister with His gracious hands and loving heart to all those in need around them.

This book packs quite the punch for 160 short pages. It has opened up the struggle of what it means to be homosexual to me in a new way. It gives me hope and confidence that the Gospel of Jesus Christ does work, even for those with such a burden to bear. I pray and trust this book will make a wide impact among churches of all kinds, but especially the more conservative churches.

I have but one small reservation with this book. Hill details both a Roman Catholic’s and Greek Orthodox’s struggle on this issue with no caution about the deficient theology of those churches. There may be genuine Christians who are RC or Orthodox, but they are the exception not the rule. Perhaps those faiths are more open to the struggle for faithful celibacy and so have something he can identify with. As a Protestant, I fear the Gospel can be at stake in so easily recommending Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy with their denial of justification by faith alone.

One brief personal note, too, if I may. As I read the acknowledgments, I was delighted to find many names I recognized from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis where I was a member for four years. It’s a joy to think that my former pastor John Piper and the apprentice program he and others have poured their lives into was blessed to make a positive impact in Wesley Hill’s life. It shows that conservative evangelical churches can and do minister to struggling homosexual Christians.

I pray more churches would avail themselves of resources like this book and aim to think through what a full-fledged, Biblical perspective on homosexuality really means. I cannot recommend this book any more highly.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Zondervan for review. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

Pick up a copy of this book at Amazon.com or through Zondervan direct.

Quotes to Note 27: Dallas Willard on Lust

~ Bob Hayton ~ 7 Comments

I’m working on my review of Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality by Wesley Hill (Zondervan). You can follow other reviews of the book at Zondervan’s Engaging Church blog, but mine should be up tomorrow. I found this book immensely helpful on many levels, but more later.

In this book, on pages 135-136, the author quotes Dallas Willard on an important distinction when considering the nature of sexual lust. I thought Willard’s insights were quite helpful and so I’m sharing them here with you all:

Dallas Willard helpfully defines lust as “looking to desire” — looking at someone other than a spouse in order to indulge in sexual fantasies. “That is, we desire to desire. We indulge and cultivate desiring because we enjoy fantasizing about sex with the one seen. Desiring sex is the purpose for which we are looking.” ¹

This purposeful looking — the “second glance” — is different, Willard says, from “looking and desiring.” Looking to desire is intentional, willful. Looking and desiring is natural, reflexive, part of the experience of a God-designed and God-given desire for intimacy with someone of the opposite sex; it could happen at any time, in any place — as you drive down the road and see a billboard, as you place your order at a restaurant, as you browse shelves at a bookstore.

When we only think of sex with someone we see, or simply find him or her attractive, that is not wrong, and certainly is not what Jesus calls “adultery in the heart.” Merely to be tempted sexually requires that we think of sex with someone we are not married to, and that we desire the other person — usually, of course, someone we see. But temptation also is not wrong, though it should not be willfully entered. ²

Looking and desiring, according to Willard, isn’t sinful; it’s what you choose to do with the desire that determines whether the first look will turn into cultivated lust.

 ¹ Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 165.

 ² ibid, 164