Baptists

Baptist Distinctives Day 4: Two Ordinances

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Rather than having multiple sacraments Baptists hold to “ordinances” of which there are only two: baptism and communion. Both of these are held by Baptists to be purely symbolic in nature and contain no efficacy whatsoever. Just because they’re symbolic, however, doesn’t mean that they’re not worth spilling gallons of ink (and possibly blood) over.

The qualifications of a candidate for baptism are a pretty straightforward affair in fundyland. You have to be at least old enough to repeat the sinner’s prayer more or less intelligibly after a Sunday School teacher and you have to be willing to take the risk on getting water up your nose if the pastor’s handkerchief hand slips. Although baptism is considered an act of obedience, to a Baptist, getting dunked under water serves mainly as a testimony to the community that the person is publicly professing his faith. The fact that nobody in the Bible ever appears to have had this motivation for being baptized doesn’t bother them in the least.

Like baptism, the Lord’s Supper is also a completely symbolic affair — the only difference being that if you screw around with it, God may very well up and kill you. Seriously. Perhaps it’s this mortal danger (or perhaps it’s just that it takes away from the amount of time the pastor has to preach) but communion doesn’t happen all that frequently in fundyland. After all we wouldn’t want to remember Christ’s sacrifice too often. That kind of frequent ritual is reserved for things like praying a blessing over every Snickers bar and bag of potato chips.

In reality, the list of two ordinances is far from complete. There are a plethora of other observances in fundamentalism that may not make it onto the official list but are are required all the same. These include Church Attendance, Tithing, The Praising of The Pastor, and Sewing Your Own Jean Jumpers (with bedazzlers!) and so on.

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man.

Baptists

Baptist Distinctives Day 3: Priesthood of the Believer & Individual Soul Liberty

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We’ll come back and hit “Two Ordinances” tomorrow but I’m going to combine the discussion of Priesthood and Soul Liberty into one today.

The P and I of the BAPTIST acronym can most easily summed up as the “We Ain’t No Catholics” declarations.

For unlike the papists, every Baptist gets to be his very own priest and can directly access God to pray, confess his sins, and debate the efficacy of abstaining from meat on Fridays. The absence of a priest does not mean, however, that the penitent man gets a free pass. Penance will be exacted each Sunday morning after the second hymn while the organist plays Nothing Between.

Individual Soul Liberty, on the other hand, theoretically grants each individual person the right to decide for themselves what to believe and practice based on their understanding of what the Scriptures command. This is the reason why fundamentalist churches allow each person the freedom to set their own personal standards based on their convictions rather than exerting authoritarian rule. (Permit me a moment to wipe away the tears of mirth after writing that) No, but seriously though, there has never to my knowledge been a recorded case of a fundamentalist actually being caught practicing soul liberty and living to tell the tale.

Combine these two points together and they definitely prove that Baptists are not Roman Catholics. Yet, somehow, similarities remain. For all the lip service to liberty it seems that they are as dependent on the traditions of men as any person possibly could be.

“We already have our own local pope and household god, thanks. We don’t need to be bothered with yours.”

Baptists

Baptist Distinctives Day 2: Autonomy of the Local Church

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While most (although certainly not all) fundamentalists acknowledge that the universal church is composed of all believers in all places and times, on this side of eternity Independent Baptists are theoretically dedicated to staying as far away from most other Christians as possible. The fear is that if too many Christians get together, they’ll attempt to form a denominational unit and immediately set to dictating policy to individual churches, thereby grieving the consciences of members who have deep personal convictions about matters such as the correct way to pronounce “Johannine.”

Instead of having a denomination which binds churches together in matters of doctrine, fundamentalists instead have fellowships, conferences, and knitting circles wherein the members attempt dominate each other in pretty much every area except legitimate doctrinal concerns. By gum nobody is going to tell the preacher of an independent local church how orthodox his ecclesiology is but (unless he’s the son of a famous preacher or a regular contributor to conference news publication) they will spend four hours questioning him about his decision to move his services from Wednesday to Thursday. We’ll never tell you how to run your church…except for all the times we will.

As one might imagine, fundamentalist camps and conferences split, fracture, and fissure almost as frequently as the churches contained within them do. When you get that many men who fancy themselves as prophets, priests, and kings under one roof there’s bound to be trouble. But not to worry. No matter how much conflict may arise outside the gate, a pastor can always scurry back home to his personal empire where none shall say to him “what doest thou?” and where he’ll never have to justify his actions to anybody.

Autonomy means never having to say you’re sorry.

Baptists

Baptist Distinctives Day 1: Biblical Authority

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Fundamentalists believe that the inspired words of God were written down by holy men and transmitted to us in an inerrant, inspired, perfectly preserved text of the Bible. The Bible was then translated word-for-word exactly from the original languages into English with absolutely no meaning whatsoever lost (unless a Greek translation is really needed to help a shaky sermon point). This Bible is given lip service as the perfect standard for all belief and practice within every Independent, Fundamental, Bible-Believing, New Testament, Eagerly Awaiting Either The Rapture Or Dinner Time Whichever Comes First Baptist Church.

In reality, however, a fundamentalists really only needs to acknowledge the authority of Scripture in three key areas:

1) The pastor is right.
2) The Bible says whatever the pastor says it does
3) If the pastor’s interpretation sounds a little weird, illogical, or downright heretical refer to point one.

Using this simple formula, fundamentalists can claim that the Bible is their absolute standard for faith and practice no matter what silly or anachronistic path that made lead them down. The Bible may forbid everything from cosmopolitans to chat rooms and from CCM to children’s church. It may command door-to-door soul winning and three services per week. It may regulate everything from birth control to bathing suits. And it does all this without ever actually forbidding or commanding any of those thing in any way shape or form. It’s a good thing we have pastors.

The Bible may still be on prominent display in fundamentalist churches but both their faith and practice more often seem to spring from the mind of man than from the Word of God. Yet every jot and typo  receives the status of “biblical” — so it must be in the Scriptures somewhere. If only the rest of us could be blessed enough to see it.

A silly blog dedicated to Independent Fundamental Baptists, their standards, their beliefs, and their craziness.