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The Ask Doug question: “I have a practical question about the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. If one becomes convinced of both paedocommunion and paedobaptism and is residing in a Baptist church, should he settle for a local church that only practices paedobaptism and delays communion? Or should he remain at his Baptist church that baptizes children as early as 4 years old and admits them to communion once they are baptized? Or, should this person try to move and relocate his family and leave everyone and everything else he knows in order to find a church for he and his family that practices both?”
5 Comments
“Difference of opinion” manifests into primacy when your baptized infants want to eat with you but the fencers are fencing off such as these.
This was quite surprising coming from a man whose denomination (I presume) would be virtually empty if everyone followed his advice. Not that we should be flitting around from church to church, but it seems that searching for a church that closely fits one’s doctrinal beliefs would be quite reasonable and desirable. How difficult it would be to raise children who cherish your beliefs when they are being taught the opposite every Sunday (and Wednesday night)!
Wasn’t clear if “don’t leave over sacramental differences” meant “don’t uproot your family and move three states away” or “don’t move to the church three blocks away.”
One piece of advice I got re my last church move was “Go ask your elders if it’s OK with them if you leave. If they say yes, you’re free to go.” (I’d already had pretty extensive and ongoing discussions with them about my concerns and differences.) Not that one should leave over frivolous reasons, but I think that counsel covers a lot of substantive stuff and spared me a lot of hand-wringing over whether I was breaking my membership vows.
What if the Baptist church is also Dispensational and non-Calvinistic?
You say that it’s fine to remain in a Baptist church with good teaching and fellowship, so long as membership is permitted without a second baptism. And so, as membership is critical to our ability to serve well in our church, it follows that if we are not permitted to join as full members in the church we are attending, due to our infant baptism, we should find fellowship and membership elsewhere.
Is this correct, in your view?
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