A love letter for EAC

Today at Estevan Alliance Church a letter (read it here) was read to the congregation that announced my resignation from the position of Lead Pastor so that I could pursue what for me has been the unmistakable call of God on my life. The last few months have been a time of deep searching and testing the will of God not only for our congregation but for Joanna and me as well. We have been asking God to revitalize and renew our church and as we have been doing that we have been asking God to reveal his plan and purpose for us in that season of renewal.

Along the way the Spirit of God has gotten a hold of us, and began telling us – that Joanna, the kids and I are supposed to leave our comfortable life, our exciting ministry, and all of our friends and surrogate family behind and follow him east. As we have journeyed through this season of discernment He has put in our paths friends and colleagues, prayer-warriors and prophets, scriptures and circumstances that again and again that have confirmed this calling. We even invited our board of elders to join us in praying for wisdom and guidance as we tried to separate emotion from ordinance and comfort from calling. This was not a decision that was made in a vacuum, but one that was done with the certainty that comes from the unity of the Spirit within the people of God. He has led me in my study of his word and my ministry of preaching to entreat to our congregation to submit everything to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in doing so I have specifically called for your to place your families, your careers, and your futures on the altar – giving God permission to disrupt, displace and redirect those things in ways that will bring him glory. I knew in my heart that asking you for these things was a burden put on me by God himself, but what I didn’t know when I started preaching these things was that God wanted to start with me.

Jesus knew though; and as Joanna and I have strained to hear and discern his voice it has been clear that God has been asking us to do a most unexpected thing – to leave this congregation and go somewhere new.  And so it is with mixed emotions that we embark on this new chapter of life and ministry; we go with a heaviness of heart  because we love this church and we had hoped that we would be the ones that God allowed to lead you into this amazing calling that he has put upon you, but also with an excitement and anticipation – both for the new ministry and family that has called us to walk alongside them as their pastor, but also for you as God, I believe is stirring up this congregation in anticipation of a great work that he wants to do among you; perhaps even a work that my continued presence would have been a hindrance to – that last part is only speculation but it’s a logical conclusion nonetheless.

I’m sure that in the days and weeks ahead there will be many questions, and I will endeavour to answer as many of them as I can. For the office week beginning Tuesday April 30, open office hours will be extended to all-day Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and I would warmly invite you to drop in and talk about your feelings, concerns or questions. My desire is not to run away from the difficulty of this decision but to be as open and transparent as possible with you about it. Some questions I will be unable to answer because God has not given me the answers myself – some aspects of this process have been an exercise of faith for me and Joanna – but what we are certain of we would certainly be willing to share with you.  You can feel free to ask us anything, but there are a few questions that I want to deal with here and now before anyone has a chance to speculate about things that would be hurtful and untrue.

1.       We are not leaving because of conflict in the church. Every church has conflict, and every church has disunity. The fact that I have been preaching about the unity of the fellowship from the book of 1 Corinthians lately should not be taken as evidence that we have been fighting a losing battle with any person or group within the church and were finally driven out. I have heard these concerns and they are untrue. We are leaving because God has called us to an amazing opportunity to walk in his will by joining with another congregation that we seem uniquely suited to be a part of.

2.       We are not trading up. It is true that we are very excited about the people and the opportunities that await us in our new congregation. We fully expect to be blessed and to be a blessing in this next chapter of life and we are joyfully embracing that call – but that is by no means an indication that the experience we have had over the last 9 years in Estevan has been insufficient or unfulfilling in any way. For the past 9 years we believe that we have been in the centre of God’s will among our friends and family in Estevan, we have been well cared for and abundantly blessed and no amount of joy for what lies ahead can fully dull the sadness of what we leave behind.

3.       This is not the end of the fresh movement of the spirit that we have been experiencing at EAC. In fact I believe that this is only the beginning. I pray with all my heart that in our example of obedience and submission that some of you may be further inspired to follow in my footsteps – not necessarily by leaving the church and community – but by sacrificing your dreams, desires and self-determination on the altar and holding nothing back that he would call you to surrender. God may be calling you to do something that would be equally (or even) more frightening than the step that Joanna and I are taking and my prayer is that our story would give you confidence to allow God to direct yours. More than that, your real senior pastor is Jesus Christ – and he isn’t going anywhere, so how possibly could our departure derail what he wants to accomplish in you.

Please in these days and weeks and months to come remember your board of elders in prayer. They are the ones to whom the burden of leadership has fallen. Ask the Lord fervently that they would hear from the Spirit and know how to lead. Also pray for Pastor Waylon and Lisa as Joanna and I know from experience that this is a difficult season for a staff pastor to navigate. But pray most of all that God would continue to speak directly to his people; pray that the sheep would know the shepherds voice and that they would joyfully obey. It is that prayer that will make the most difference in the days and weeks and months ahead and it’s the prayer that I will commit to praying for you.

With sincere love and gratitude,

Pastor Chris

Theology of Baptism (Part Two)

This is the second part of a two-part posting of a paper that I had prepared for a seminary course on pastoral theology this spring dealing with the issue of the theology of baptism. The first post (which can be found here) deals with an academic survey of the doctrine of baptism from biblical, theological and historical perspectives, whereas this post explains what I have come to believe personally about baptism through my research and contemplation. It bears mentioning that this is my personal theology and should not be seen as the official position of either Estevan Alliance Church where I serve as the Lead Pastor, nor should it be understood to be the official position of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada, the denomination in which I am ordained for ministry. It is my belief that four of the five points in this paper are fully-congruent with accepted C&MA positions on the topic and that the fifth and final point, while at odds with the letter of the law in today’s constitution, more accurately reflects the traditional position of the Alliance.

In the interest of preserving the integrity of the paper as submitted I will reserve additional comments on the theological dissonance generated for a future post on the topic. It is my hope and earnest prayer that as I, and others within our movement, begin to speak up about our concerns regarding our current policy of rebaptism within the C&MA that a healthy and constructive dialogue may begin, that one day may find its way onto the agenda of a General Assembly. Thanks for taking the time to hear me out. Enjoy the paper.

Chris

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Personal Theology of Baptism

1.  Believers’ baptism as best practice

I was raised in a tradition that practiced believers’ baptism as the normative ordinance of the church and nothing that I have learned in my study of this doctrine has led me to any other conclusions. Firstly, I affirm with Bruce Ware that there is no clear evidence of non-believer's or infant baptism anywhere in the New Testament[i] and with Bernie Van De Walle that the only baptisms mentioned explicitly in Scripture are those of adults.[ii] I reject the notion that the household baptism texts in the book of Acts (11:13-14, 16:14-16, 32-34 and 18:7-8) provide clear evidence of the practice of baptizing infants based on both the textual and contextual evidence that implies that those in the household who responded and were baptized demonstrated belief in some way.[iii] Faith is a necessary antecedent of proper baptism for “[b]aptism can be given only when the recipient has responded to the word in penitence and faith.”[iv] We are not saved by baptism in an ex opera operato sense, but rather we are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:9). That is not to say that baptism does not play a role in the drama of salvation but it is in an evidentiary role as Lane describes it: “Salvation is received by the faith that expresses itself in baptism and by the baptism that is an expression of faith.”[v] It seems clear to me that the biblical expression of the call to baptize is to baptize individuals upon their own profession of faith and desire to obey rather than to impose the rite upon those who lack the capacity to seek it for themselves.[vi] That does not mean however that I embrace the evangelical tendency to indefinitely delay baptism until the candidate has reached some point of heightened understanding of the theology of baptism; rather what I understand from scripture is that baptism is something that should follow faith immediately.

2. The immediacy of baptism upon the profession of faith

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). If we are to maintain the position that baptism needs to come out of a conscious decision to respond to Christ and believe on him, then we must be clear to define those crucial terms 'believe,' 'decide' and 'respond?' Do we mean to say that to believe means to understand and that to decide means to have all the relevant information to make an informed choice and that to respond means to undertake a fully thought out and rationalized action based upon the empirical data that we have processed? My experience in Evangelical churches throughout most of my life reflects that approach to this quandary. We want to ensure that people understand fully the commitment they are making when they go through the waters of baptism and we want them to have a fleshed out understanding of salvation with at least a rudimentary understanding of Christian theology, so we have developed complicated and lengthy systems of checks and balances to ensure that is the case.[vii]

In the Bible however we get a very different picture of baptism. We get a picture of a rite that comes from God, is enacted by God and that we play our part by responding to him out of obedience. It is not a rite that is always (or even often) preceded by understanding; it is not a rite that marks the completion of a long season of preparation and study, it is not even explicitly confessional in nature. Witherington makes the case that baptism is not so much a statement as it is an appeal.[viii] It is an appeal to God in obedience that we would be counted with Christ in his death and resurrection and would receive the baptism of fire and Spirit promised by John when he was awaiting Jesus. Belief, in that sense only need be as robust as is required to call out to God who can save us.

I am convinced that our common evangelical baptismal practice runs contrary to our biblical convictions that baptism is the immediate and non-negotiable response to the call of God on the life of the believer. One cannot separate coming to faith in Christ from the divinely ordained act that serves as the legitimate manifestation of that change in the life of the convert as Smith reminds us, “[b]aptism and conversion are linked, and the church is most effective in its witness to the meaning of baptism and the power of conversion when baptism is very intentionally spoken of as integral to rather than subsequent to conversion.”[ix] Certainly faith precedes baptism in some way, but it does not thrive, blossom or grow when separated from it. Too often we make faith into some sort of unbiblical abstraction that stands on its own, as James reminds us faith without a manifestation in action is no faith at all, baptism is the manifestation of a saving faith. What are we to say about a faith that refuses the gift of baptism? Or even one that delays it without good cause? Is it really faith at all or are we fooling ourselves with religious platitudes of belief that aren't any deeper than the words that encapsulate them?

All of that has been said however demands an answer to the larger question of what actually qualifies as saving belief in the Christian church? What do believe that makes us Christian? Or more specifically, to what extent to we have to believe to be saved?  Michael Root gives a helpful explanation when he says:

Baptism requires no prior physical, intellectual, moral or religious attainments. The membership of the church is not made up of an elite who have successfully undergone some kind of initiatory ordeal. If we can boast of baptism, we can only boast of The Lord, not of anything we brought to it or achieved within it.[x]

While the problem of adults indefinitely delaying their baptism for fear of not being ready or worthy of the rite is a very real one in most evangelical churches, the question behind the question when it comes to baptismal readiness is in what ways can a child respond to God?

I am convinced that Jesus holds us accountable for what we can understand, and expects us to respond according to what he has revealed to in the capacity we have been given to understand. So when a young child asks Jesus into their heart because that is the extent of what they can comprehend, I am convinced that they are fully in the family of God. God accepts their confession of faith, as simple as it may be, as a full commitment of all that they are. And when a child asks, as the Ethiopian Eunuch does in Acts 8, “why can't I be baptized?” then we should do all that we can to help that child respond to God in obedience, instead of stifling them in their relationship with Christ by imposing impossible requirements upon them. Anything less than this sort of acknowledgement of child-like faith puts we learned Christians in the awkward position of wearing millstone shaped pendants.[xi]

3. The inextricable link between baptism and church membership

When one is baptized, “[i]t is generally agreed ecumenically that baptism is always both into a particular local church and into the church universal…One cannot belong to “the church in general” without belonging to some concrete, historically particular body.”[xii] Thus it is right to understand that to be baptized by a congregation is to also be baptized into that congregation; into fellowship, into commitment, into the life and membership of that specific local expression of the church universal. As Smith reminds us, “[b]aptism is the act by which the new believer is incorporated into the church, thus it is right to link baptism with church membership.”[xiii]

Debates over whether formal membership in a Christian church is a biblical mandate or not have obscured the vital spiritual reality at play in the act of baptizing; when we are baptized into Christ we are united with Christ and in being united with Christ we are also united with all the others who have been drawn into him through baptism. “To assume one can be Christian without attending church and participating in the life and mission of the fellowship is to misunderstand the meaning of being joined to Christ.”[xiv] It is impossible therefore to live in the baptismal reality without a vital and intentional connection to the local assembly of believers. As Purves reminds us, “the communion of the Holy Spirit is a dynamic and living relationship with Christ that can never be separated from that fellowship that being in Christ creates.”[xv] To do baptism properly in my local context then I must also be prepared to draw a line in the sand that to be baptized is to come into church membership and a refusal to accept the latter will then need to be understood as a refusal to accept the full implications and responsibilities of the former.

4. The availability of child dedication only to baptized members of the church

It is at this point that we must recognize the inherent weakness of the believers’ baptism position – what do we do with the children of believers? This has been postulated by many as the real reason the practice of infant baptism began in the first place. Van De Walle makes the point well that believers' baptism "does not, in any way, grant the children of believers any real status in the Church or grant, to any degree, the reality of their salvation, embryonic or otherwise."[xvi] If baptism is to be seen as the legitimate rite of initiation into the covenant fellowship of God’s people then what standing to the children of covenant people have?

Traditionally this is where paedobaptist traditions have had a more thoroughly developed theology and where evangelical traditions have faltered in the quagmire of the substitutionary ritual of child dedication. Many evangelicals would be proud to puff-out their chest and affirm that they practice dedication instead of infant baptism because they take seriously the commitments that we make before God, yet it is frighteningly frequent in my tradition to find that we will let just about anybody stand up in the service and make promises for child dedication without any real assurance of what their faith and commitment to Christ is! Evangelicals have failed to understand that our common practice of child dedication frequently succumbs to the same faults that we have long criticized paedobaptists of engaging in – namely we celebrate a rite of commitment without any assurances that the commitment will be kept. Lane pointing to the problem of indiscriminate baptisms by state churches in Europe muses about restricting the rite to committed and active Christian families[xvii] and I wonder if the same would reinvigorate the evangelical practice of child dedication. How, after all, can parents raise their children to follow Christ where they have not yet followed themselves? If we were to restrict this rite of vicarious Christian initiation to parents (the real objects of child dedication) who had themselves professed faith through baptism and commitment through church membership, would we not greatly reduce the number of empty and abandoned promises made before God and the church in these ceremonies?

5. There is one Baptism. 

And lastly, while there are more right and less-right ways to administer the sacrament of baptism within a local church, and while I would certainly advocate a very specific doctrine and mode of baptism, the very fact that baptism is a work of God and not humanity[xviii] gives me great concern over my own tradition’s practice of baptism. If Paul is correct, then baptism is supposed to be a means to preserve the unity of the Church:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph 4:3-6).

If this is the truth of the matter and the will of God - then what can we rightfully say about traditions that mandate rebaptism of those who received an (improper) form of the sacrament? According to Root, baptism fundamentally must include three things to be considered authentic. 1.) It must be done in the triune name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; 2.) It must be done using water (although the mode of the water baptism is debatable); and 3.) It must be done with the intention to do what the church does when it baptizes.[xix] That is to say that any baptism done by members of the body of Christ, in the triune name of God, with water are inherently legitimate so long as they understand that their role is to mediate or administer the gift of God freely given in Christ.  To contest the spiritual validity of any baptism that meets those very basic requirements is to inherently pass judgment not only upon the individual, but also upon the legitimacy of that congregation's/tradition's place in the universal Church.

When a child is born out of wedlock we may legitimately lament the unfortunate situation into which that child is born, be concerned for the fact that the child may not have the benefit of a traditional home, and may desire to correct their understanding from that experience of what is normative and healthy so that they do not make the same choices that their parents did - but we do not declare that their birth was invalid and ask them to do it over again! We acknowledge the legitimacy of their birth and the reality of their life and vitality. Perhaps they will find themselves in a healthy and stable family or perhaps they won't but the very real evidence of their physical birth and existence is uncontested. In a similar manner, when someone undergoes the spiritual birth of baptism - a work of God, not people or the church,[xx] we may rightfully acknowledge that it is not always done in the best way. The child of God may be disadvantaged by their improper or unconventional baptism; or there may be (spiritual) family of origin issues that will need correction later on in their walk with Christ so that they do not repeat the same mistakes with their children - but we should not ask them to redo what was never theirs to do in the first place. Their baptism and place in the family of God is legitimate and secure awaiting actualization in a personal confession of faith. When we state otherwise through a policy of rebaptism we effectively tell the child (of God) that they are a spiritual bastard and consequently are not welcome in this family unless they renounce their spiritual adoption. Granted, says Barth that baptism “must be apprehended and taken hold of ever and again by faith,” but “it cannot be said too emphatically that the sign [baptism] has been given to him, it cannot be taken again and he can reject faith only by senseless contradiction of this sign.”[xxi] Would it not be much better and theologically consistent to have that person who wishes to make an adult declaration of their baptismal commitment undergo some sort of rite of confirmation? Would it not be healthier to ask them to submit to a season of catechism followed by a public confession of faith where they take hold of their infant baptism personally? [xxii] This would allow them to make their own conscious decision to follow Christ and validate the work of Christ in their infant baptism regardless of how it was misapplied by the church of their youth.

Rebaptism also hinders our efforts toward church unity. The fact that we do not acknowledge the baptism of the great majority of Christendom is to say that we do not have fellowship with them, for how can we be cohorts in the body of Christ if we are not baptized into Christ by the same Holy Spirit? To infant baptism invalid is to declare that the Holy Spirit which that church baptizes in the name of is not the same Holy Spirit that is at work in our tradition; that the Lord that they baptize in the name of is not the Lord Jesus Christ whom we worship; and that the Father God who speaks approval of the new birth and who adopts the baptized into a filial relationship with Christ is not the same Father that Jesus speaks of in the Gospels. And if we are not united to Christ by the same God, in the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then it is logical to conclude that either we or they are not united to Christ at all! To outright discredit the baptisms of so many committed Christians is to mutilate the body of Christ through careless and unnecessary amputation. If therefore, there is only one baptism (as the scriptures attest) then the very thought of rebaptism into the 'proper' way is an affront against the unity of the church at best, and a sinful act being called sacred at worst.

This final conviction, which I feel reflects both the biblical testimony of and the historical position of my denomination, does unfortunately bring me into conflict with its current policy. It is my hope that this paper and the study that has birthed it will help me to begin a dialogue with those in leadership of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada to rediscover our baptismal heritage and re-engage not only a great number of our people who have come from paedobaptist backgrounds, but also the other Christian faith communities that we have passed judgement on through our misguided policy of rebaptism.

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[i] Wright, Baptism, 29.

[ii] Van De Walle, “The Nature and Purpose of Baptism,” 16.

[iii] Ben Witherington, Troubled Waters: The Real New Testament Theology of Baptism (Waco, Tex: Baylor University Press, 2007), 61–65.

[iv] G.W. Bromiley, “Baptism, Believers'” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984).

[v] Wright, Baptism, 127.

[vi] This does of course also have strong implications for the mentally disabled, and those who through age or disease have lost the cognitive ability to understand faith at a level that would seek out baptism.

[vii] In my tradition we generally put them through baptismal classes and then have them interviewed by the elders to make sure that they were actually paying attention in those classes and to make certain they are good candidates for the rite. It is virtually impossible in our polity to have someone respond immediately to baptism upon the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

[viii] Witherington, Troubled Waters, 74.

[ix] Smith, Transforming Conversion, 151.

[x] Root and Saarinen, Baptism and the Unity of the Church, 18.

[xi] Jesus isn't interested in how much we know, he's interested in how much of us we are willing to give to him (Mark 12:41-44). To those who understand much, much is expected; but those who understand less are called to the same 100% obedience. I would hazard a guess that as a percentage of full devotion, the child who sings ‘Jesus loves me this I know,’ at the top of her lungs on a Sunday morning, or the new believer who is excited to give his whole life over to God in baptism may be more committed to Christ than the seminarian in the front pew.

[xii] Root and Saarinen, Baptism and the Unity of the Church, 15.

[xiii] Smith, Transforming Conversion, 149.

[xiv] Andrew Purves, Reconstructing Pastoral Theology: a Christological Foundation, 1st ed (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 41.

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Van De Walle, “The Nature and Purpose of Baptism,” 16.

[xvii] Wright, Baptism, 168.

[xviii] Root and Saarinen, Baptism and the Unity of the Church, 16.

[xix] Ibid., 23.

[xx] I recognize of course that this is an interpretive statement that will be at odds with many others, including some of the authors referenced in this paper but it nonetheless stands as by best understanding of the scriptural evidence.

[xxi] Barth, The Teaching of the Church Regarding Baptism, 63.

[xxii] Although it exceeds the scope of this paper to examine in detail, I am also becoming convinced that a post-baptismal season of catechism is a policy that should be instituted for baptismal candidates of all ages within the evangelical church.