What Baptists Forgot About the Lord’s Supper — with Michael Haykin

[00:00:00] In this episode, I interview Michael Haykin on the topic of Baptists and the sacraments. And those two words don't often go together when we think about Baptists today, but that's actually part of the Baptist tradition. And there are some things that the early Baptists said about the Lord's Supper that might shock us today. We also talk about whether Baptists can view themselves as part of the great tradition of

[00:00:25] the Church, and whether we should extend the Lord's Supper to people who have not been baptized, but who we consider are genuine believers. So we have a lot of great discussion about this, some even points of pushback, and I think you guys will enjoy this episode. If you do, make sure you follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Welcome to Thatll Preach. We have back on our show today Dr. Michael Haykin.

[00:00:51] Dr. Haykin is the Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he's been on the show before talking about Protestants and the need for them to understand church history and also their place in church history. And we're really happy to have him back on the show again. Michael, it's great to see you. Thanks for being with us. Great to be with you. Thank you. Well, you know, you've been on my mind because I've followed your sub stack, and I always enjoy reading some of your thoughts there.

[00:01:19] There you have described yourself as a Book of Common Prayer loving Baptist, which I have a lot of affinity for. I love the Book of Common Prayer as well. I have a lot of Anklan friends and great appreciation for their tradition. But you're also a dyed-in-the-wool Baptist, congregationalist, firmly credo-baptist, and with a great appreciation as your heritage, the Baptist tradition.

[00:01:46] And I think that's what makes you a very interesting interview as someone to talk to. Now, you've written a book called Amidst Us, Our Beloved Stands. It's about recovering sacrament in the Baptist tradition. We can talk a little bit about that, but I kind of want to hear just broader, just your ideas on Baptist sacramentology and is that even possible? And what does that mean? And what could it look like? And all those things.

[00:02:10] But maybe starting just with your general interest in the area, what inspired you to start studying this topic? And why is it important to you on a personal level? Mm-hmm. Yeah, good. Yeah, so it naturally comes up in the study of Baptist history. As soon as you start looking at the development of the Baptist tradition in the 17th century, it's centered around one of the sacraments or one of the ordinances.

[00:02:39] Both of those words are used by Baptist authors in the 17th and 18th century. By the 19th century, the word sacrament has taken on overtones, at least in Baptist thinking, that make it not a word that they tend to use. But in the 17th and 18th century, both of those words are used. And obviously, the Baptist tradition differentiates itself from congregationalism, from Presbyterianism,

[00:03:06] from Anglicanism, and later from Methodism, by the fact that it baptizes believers. And so you immediately have a focal point, namely, this tradition is built around the initiation rite in Christianity, which is baptism, but that it reserves that for believers, professing believers. And then that becomes a central part of the polemic in the 17th century.

[00:03:35] Probably easily 40% of the books written by Baptists in the 17th century are focused on defending Baptist convictions vis-a-vis this ordinance. And then within Baptist circles, there becomes a major question, which is, what is the relationship between the Lord's table and baptism?

[00:04:00] And that becomes a major issue of debate, because you have major figures like John Bunyan, who argues that believers' baptism is the biblical mode and proper, or the biblical approach.

[00:04:20] But it is a personal event between the believer and God, and therefore should not prevent believers who have not been baptized as believers, but have had infant baptism from participating at the Lord's table in a local Baptist church. That obviously gets significant pushback. And probably the most explosive issue, at least one or two, one of the two or three most explosive

[00:04:49] issues within Baptist circles in the 17th and 18th century, is what is the relationship between baptism and the Lord's Supper? So inevitably, you've got to grapple with this subject. The Lord's Supper is also central to both the Reformation and Puritanism. In some ways, the development or the separation of the Lutheran wing and the Reformed wing of

[00:05:16] the Reformation come over the issue, how is the Lord Jesus Christ present at the table? And Zwingli and Luther in 1529 at the Synod of Marburg, or the Colloquy of Marburg, agreed on 14 points of theological doctrine. But on that one, they differed, and it led Luther to castigate Zwingli as an unbeliever, as far as he was concerned.

[00:05:46] If he could come down on Luther's side of this question, he was outside the pale. And this becomes a major issue within the whole Reformed tradition. The Puritans are by and large, they follow a third position, which is that of John Calvin, which he enunciates as kind of a via media between Luther and Zwingli.

[00:06:10] And so you just can't study 17th and 18th century Protestantism, and more particularly the Baptist tradition, without grappling with this central issue. And for me personally, the Lord's Supper is a central vehicle, a central means of grace in my Christian walk. And so that also plays a role. The subjectivity of the historian can never be discounted.

[00:06:39] And I have an interest in this personally, and thus it shaped my research. What's striking about your book is you mention just how intentional Baptists were, at least the early Baptists were, in their language regarding the Lord's Supper. Or something you mentioned is how, I think it's in the 1689 London Baptist Confession,

[00:07:04] the second London Baptist Confession, it talks about receiving Christ truly in the Lord's Supper, not corporeally, not as though you're physically eating him. But there is a deep reality that is occurring there. And you mentioned Calvin's view as sort of the in-between between Zwingli and Luther. And it's funny when you mention Luther essentially calling Zwingli a non-believer. He had very bold opinions on a lot of things.

[00:07:31] But it struck me that if the Reformed Baptists, the Baptists who trace their lineage to the Reformation, really took Calvin's kind of view, what happened? Because that is not exactly what Baptists in the 20th century are known for, a kind of deep sacramentology, real presence view of Christ the Lord's Supper. Or what developed where that faded into the background?

[00:08:01] Yeah, the turning point probably is the beginning of the 19th century. As with many of these sort of developments, you just can't necessarily pinpoint a date. But by the mid-19th century, the memorial-only view, the view that Zwingli is credited with, I think there's indications that Zwingli by the end of his life, did not hold to a memorial-only or symbolic-only.

[00:08:30] But that view becomes the dominant view. The Zwinglian view of the table becomes the dominant view in mid-19th century Baptist circles, particularly in England, the Victorian Baptists, the major exception being Charles Spurgeon. And Spurgeon is the exception because he's heavily read in Puritan literature. What triggers that change? And there are a number of arguments that have been put forward.

[00:08:58] One of them is that the rationalism of the 18th century, the age of reason, so-called, the beginning of the Enlightenment, which seeks to remove, really, mystery from the realm of human thought, has an impact here. And I don't doubt that there is some element of rationalism going on.

[00:09:18] Second, there is a resurgent Roman Catholicism or resurgent high sacramentology within the Anglican Church in the early 19th century, the Tractarian movement, mostly associated with John Henry Newman. And then Newman in 1845 becomes Roman Catholic, but continued within Anglicanism by people like Edward Pusey, and so it becomes known as Puseyism.

[00:09:46] And so the argument is that this is a Baptist reaction. Forming one's theology in reaction to an era is never a good idea. But again, I think there's some truth in that. But the fact that I don't think that that is the bottom line explanation is that the evidence for a Zwinglian memorial view

[00:10:13] occurs significantly before the emergence of Tractarianism, or let alone the swimming of the Tiber, as we call it, of John Henry Newman. William W. M. Ward, who was a historian of the 18th century particularly, had a very distinctive essay in which he argued that the ecclesiology of evangelicals,

[00:10:43] and Baptists in particular, by the late 18th century had become centered on evangelism. That the church was a place for the winning of the lost. The church was, in the words of Andrew Fuller, the armies of the Lamb, that was designed to go out and win the lost throughout the world, which is obviously biblical and important. But the church becomes geared to becoming a vehicle for evangelism.

[00:11:12] And the Lord's Supper is not a converting ordinance. And thus, there is a growing diminution of its importance. And so much so that by the time you hit the mid to late 19th century, it really is a, in many Baptist circles, it's just tacked on at the end of a service, gotten through quickly, done maybe monthly, Spurgeon being the exception.

[00:11:37] In North American contexts, by the late 19th century, you've got the development of another vehicle within the context of worship, and namely the altar call. So much so that by the 20th century, the altar call has become de rigueur for many Baptists. And a potential Baptist pastor being interviewed will often be asked, do you believe in altar calls?

[00:12:06] And if he doesn't, he doesn't practice altar calls, he won't be called to be the pastor of the church. And it's almost become a sacrament. And what the altar call has done is it basically takes the place of what the Lord's Supper is designed to do, which is the Lord's Supper, one of the key elements of the Lord's Supper is it is a place of rededication to Christ and to his people. And so there are a number of things that probably cohere

[00:12:36] to basically undermine the classical Baptist view of the table as a central vehicle for the life of the church. I think it's a very accurate summary of what seems to be an odd replacement where the altar, and people have asked at our church, you know, why don't you guys do an altar call? And it's like, well, we do the Lord's Supper. We call people to something that Jesus actually commanded us to do.

[00:13:05] So you mentioned there's a Tractarian movement, there's sort of a resurgence in Roman Catholicism, things of that nature. And I think even today, there are many notable evangelicals who have, if not swum the Tiber, become Roman Catholic, have at least gravitated towards higher forms of liturgical worship, high church kind of liturgy. And it does seem today, if you say Baptist or evangelical,

[00:13:31] you think missions, evangelism, preaching, all good things. But when you think about sacramentology, you think high church Lutheranism, you think some forms maybe of Presbyterianism, you think Anglican, you certainly think Roman Catholicism. And that word just doesn't seem to fit in a Baptist context. But some of the authors you quote in your book have a very, I mean, if you covered their name, you'd think, is this an Anglican saying this? Is this a Roman Catholic saying this?

[00:14:00] Some of the language they use. Can you help us understand, if we go back before the 20th and 19th century to those early Baptists, help us understand how they viewed the sacraments? What role did it play in the way they understood the Christian life in the church? Yeah, so you have to, you know, think back to a period when Baptists are a marginal people. The sort of experience of,

[00:14:30] the Baptist experience in the United States is quite unusual in some respects. I mean, basically in the South, Baptists are the established church. They are a major, major player, culturally, politically, etc. If you go back to the early Baptists, and this will be true of, say, New England, and the Baptists in Britain,

[00:14:58] particularly is what I'm thinking of, they're marginal. Marginal. And definitely marginal after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and the heavy persecution against nonconformity, that is, those who are not Baptists, that is, those who are congregationless, Presbyterian, or Baptists. When the act of toleration comes in, in 1689, 1688, 1689,

[00:15:28] which allows Baptists now, with others outside the Church of England, to exist and to plant and build buildings, they nonetheless have still major cultural strikes against them. One could not be, and this is true all the way into the early 19th century, one could not graduate from Oxford or Cambridge, the only two universities at the time, if you are not an Anglican. You have to demonstrate you had received the Lord's Supper from an Anglican minister within the year before your graduation.

[00:15:58] One could not be a politician. You couldn't hold political office unless you could do the same. You couldn't be a naval or army officer, a commissioned officer, unless, again, you had to demonstrate with a signed declaration by an Anglican minister that you would receive the Lord's Supper in an Anglican church. Wow. And so Baptists were shunted out of the political realm in terms of influence,

[00:16:26] the realm of culture and education, you know, the whole area of university life and military. And on top of that, Baptists tend to occupy probably the lowest social strata in the various bodies of nonconformity. The Presbyterians usually were the wealthiest and then followed, interestingly enough, by the Quakers who ended up specializing

[00:16:55] in things like chocolate and became, some of the congregations were enormously wealthy. Baptists tended to be lower middle class at best. I mean, you find, quote unquote, gentlemen who would have the phrase esquire after their name. These are people who don't work for a living, who have significant land holdings. They're not technically aristocracy. They're very far and few between.

[00:17:25] As the 18th century wears on, you do find some Baptist businessmen in London who are fairly well off. But generally speaking, Baptists are poor. And so you have a marginal group who have had a history of persecution who are regarded as complete nutters because of infamous believers' baptism. Nobody else does this. And they tended then

[00:17:54] to be on the margins of society. And so their communities were very, very tight. And at the heart of that community were two things. One, the preaching of the word and the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper was, you just have to read diaries or letters. The Lord's Supper is a very, very high point in which these men and women renew their commitment to one another. In fact, one of the things

[00:18:23] that these Baptists did was that every year they would have a renewal of a covenant. Not a confession of faith, which is their beliefs, but a covenant which would specify how they would live. And one of the worst things that, well, in fact, the key area of church discipline that would be exercised would be that if a person persisted in egregious, unrepentant sin, they would be told

[00:18:53] they could not take the Lord's Supper. And if you said that today, that's never used as a vehicle of discipline today and partly because maybe don't give a hoot about the table. I'm being blunt here. And to tell somebody, well, you know, you're not going to be able to participate at the table for the next six months, well, no big deal. But it was a very big deal in this period. Baptists then and now sinned. So,

[00:19:23] you have Baptists running away, leaving debts, leaving their spouses, getting drunk, having sex outside of marriage, getting people pregnant. These things all come up in Baptist Minute books, these discipline cases. And if a person was unrepentant, they would be told that they could not take the table for six months. And that was really, you're being cut off from a bonding event

[00:19:52] that was so central to these marginalized communities. It also meant that a degree of support might be lacking. And again, as I say, remember, these people are poor. They need each other. And so, this is a very serious thing to have the Lord's table removed from one. And we've lost all of that. I'm not necessarily saying we have to

[00:20:22] go back to being marginal or we have to specialize in being poor. but what I'm trying to do is give you a picture of why the table, which you asked, why the table is so important to these people is because it is a central bonding event for these people. If you read, for instance, one of the figures I talk about in my book, Ann Dutton, it's quite clear. Well, she actually says,

[00:20:51] this is the closest we come to heaven in this world. And when you read her language, and I've had students tell me, oh, I think she's a Roman Catholic. No, she's anything but a Roman Catholic. And that tells me that her experience is far removed from the experience of many Baptists today. So, that gives you some idea, I hope, as to why the table is so important

[00:21:21] to these people. You know, it's interesting, when I asked that question, I was thinking maybe, you know, generally when people talk about sacramentology, they talk about the metaphysics of it, they talk about their own personal experience of it, how it's ministered to them. But you took it the angle of the communal aspect, which I think is refreshing in the sense that that's what it seems like the Apostle Paul focuses on. Not that the spiritual presence is not important or even in the Scriptures, but that when Paul's rebuking the Corinthians,

[00:21:51] he's saying, you know, when you guys gather together, it's not the Lord's Supper, because you don't actually love each other and you're mistreating each other and that communal aspect can be lost. And I think the irony is sometimes Baptists are pegged as the ultimate individualists. You know, it's all about your choices and when in reality it seems like these early Baptists, it was all about the community and that today sometimes people talk about the Lord's Supper in very individualistic ways, what it means to you, how it, you know, how the liturgy spoke to you personally, which is not unimportant,

[00:22:20] but there's that sense in which they, I mean, that's really powerful when you talk about Ann Dutton and just the vision of heaven is not just the communion with God, which is primary, but also there's this deep, tight communion with your brothers and sisters that becomes embodied in a powerful way at the table. That's very interesting. And the materiality of it also bespeaks this communal element because there's one cup. So it's one cup. It's like,

[00:22:50] it's like an Anglican service where one cup is used and they pass that one cup around. Now, in the wake of the significant waves of disease in urban centers in the 19th century, diphtheria, typhus, cholera, you have the development of the individual cups. But that is not the, that's not the early Baptist experience. So the, the fact you've got one cup

[00:23:19] also is a way of visually bonding them because they're drinking out of the same cup. I, I remember very vividly an experience in Northern England in a small Baptist church, country church near Leeds. I had spoken from the pulpit that morning, the evening and then I came down and I, I hadn't noticed it, but that night was to be the communion Sunday. And when they took the, the cover off the elements, I noticed

[00:23:48] there was one, there was one cup. And I went to school at an Anglican seminary and so was very used to having one cup, but it was always silver. The liquid in it was wine, it wasn't grape juice. so the wine itself had an antiseptic element. The person who would preside at the table and administer the cup would turn it when they gave it to the next person and then they'd wipe it.

[00:24:19] And so I thought to myself, man, I, first of all, I don't know if it's wine. The cup didn't look silver. I didn't see a cloth for wiping it. Yeah. And I thought, man, I'm not sure I want to do this. And then I realized because I had just come down from the pulpit, I was the first in the row. I was in the first in the row. And those are not the thoughts you need to be thinking

[00:24:49] at the Lord's table. But it was a very vivid reminder to me that this is the experience of my Baptist forebears. The one cup, which is the visual element of the bonding that I spoke about there. What about the spiritual presence? I mean, what was the spirituality of the cup? Did they just sort of just say, well, we follow what Calvin follows? Or how would they have described what happens

[00:25:19] at the Lord's Supper between them and God? Yeah, so for them, the supper is, for those who come with faith, the supper is a vehicle where the Lord Jesus uses it to make it manifest his presence by the Holy Spirit. They tweak Calvin a little bit because Calvin has this idea that the table is not only a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb, but actually takes us to heaven.

[00:25:50] I think maybe this is partly where Ann Stutton gets some of her thought because the Holy Spirit brings us into the very presence of the risen Christ. Generally speaking, the Baptists do it the other way around, that the Holy Spirit makes manifest the risen Lord Jesus in our midst. the matrix of the Baptist tradition is Puritanism and none of the Puritans were Zwinglian. They basically

[00:26:20] rejected the memorial view and were very committed to a Calvinistic view of the table. So a real presence but not a bodily presence. Now this kind of gets into the debate you mentioned earlier about John Bunyan and then you talk about Andrew Fuller about open and closed communion whether you can give communion to those who are not baptized as believers or who are baptized as infants or I guess weren't actually baptized however you want to phrase

[00:26:50] it. And the tension I feel is it seems to me like you mentioned to have someone not take communion with you was a big deal. If they deny communion to a Presbyterian it seems like saying something more than just we're different denominations right because exclusion from the table is a severe thing so how does that work with the tension of this

[00:27:19] catholicity that you rightly praise in the book with fuller even though he held that stance and the theological import of what it means to not allow someone to take the Lord's supper yeah there is a tension there there's no doubt about it in other words can you hold to a commitment to close communion that is you need to

[00:28:09] be to mark in the 19th century with the emergence of what we call the landmark movement which is mostly an American phenomenon so if we have a universal church and these are members of the body of Christ who are we to refuse the table to such people Thor's argument runs along a number of lines but part of it is that that is to exalt the ordinance of the Lord's Supper above baptism and basically to say okay you don't need to

[00:28:39] be baptized but you can participate in this second ordinance which basically follows after the initiatory ordinance of baptism and in Fuller's mind it seemed to undermine the importance of baptism as an ordinance of yes following the Lord in baptism but in obedience but also one of commitment and there is a sense in Fuller and other 18th century divines

[00:29:09] that not only is Christ present at the table but he's also present in the waters of baptism and so there's more going on in the waters of baptism than simply a human act a human following and obedience and if we allow people to partake of the table then we are we negating the importance of baptism so there is a tension

[00:29:38] here and it's a tension that the early church generally doesn't experience because pacha or contrary to pedo-baptist arguments most believers up until the 4th century were baptized as believers infabaptism was the rarity of is happening but it's rare once you move outside the Roman empire and the collapse of the Roman imperium

[00:30:08] in the west you start to see the shift towards infant baptism which is going to raise all kinds of problems on a number of levels and then the Baptists recover the ordinance but this becomes because they're committed they are committed to the Catholicity of the church but this becomes you know if baptism is so important how dare you refuse the table to say somebody like Jonathan

[00:30:38] Edwards or George Whitfield and Fuller himself participates in debates within Baptist circles over that very question and I don't think he resolves it C.H. Spurgeon resolves it by being committed to closed membership open communion which is probably where most what a lot of Baptists are today that membership in a local church is

[00:31:08] restricted to those who have been baptized as believers whereas participation on the table is open to all now there are hints of others before this people like Benjamin Bedham and I think he's right where they talk about if a Presbyterian comes into your church on communion Sunday and partakes of the table of the of the

[00:31:39] table and this is their church and so I am committed to a closed communion position but I would have no problem with Presbyterian coming into the service partaking on the table on any given Sunday but my problem is with people who are not baptized as believers who basically this is the church they attend for years and I've been in I have been in a context where this was the case

[00:32:09] where we had significant numbers of Dutch Reformed people who could never overcome their heritage of infant baptism and they were in the church for 20 30 years and they were never actually baptized and that meant that they couldn't serve in the churches in terms of their gifts it creates all kinds of problems in my mind and now Fuller himself never spells it out exactly like that

[00:32:38] other Baptists did like Benjamin Bedham for instance he wouldn't quibble at say a Presbyterian or a Methodist coming and partaking of the table on the isolated Sunday but his concern was people in who basically were not prepared to commit themselves to the Baptist way but this was their church so you find in the 18th century this is the reverse of what happens in churches today particularly in

[00:33:08] parts of America and particularly the South you'd have a church of like Bedham's church had about a thousand 800 to a thousand people there on a Sunday morning 150 members the same with Fuller Fuller's church was upwards of a thousand on a Sunday morning and about 150 to 180 members interesting and these people were regularly coming

[00:33:38] Andrew Fuller was their pastor but there was a sense in which the very real sense that yeah this was their church but they weren't prepared to commit themselves to their brothers and sisters well I appreciate the way you dove into that lively debate about open communion open membership closed communion and all those types of things and on a personal level our church does do open membership open communion

[00:34:08] and it is hard for me to think I know you mentioned how I think Fuller was worried that you were downgrading the sacrament of baptism by doing an open table it seems to me though you either have to downgrade baptism or you downgrade the Lord's supper by making it no longer a sign of excommunication or disfellowship I mean it seems strange to say you're my brother Presbyterian over there but you can't take the Lord's

[00:34:37] supper even if you're regularly attending our church brother almost seems to it it it it kind of related to this is when we talk about you know a Baptist sacramentology

[00:35:08] to me it always in the back of my mind is that idea of continuity I think you mentioned that you mentioned the landmark folks I think who were they the ones who kind of wanted to restore sort of the early church or am I thinking of somebody else yeah they have a landmark is basically argues that when Jesus says in Matthew

[00:35:37] 16 I will build my church and the gates of Hades should not prevail against it that the word church there is the local church and therefore there has to be examples of local Baptist churches throughout the Middle Ages and therefore the Baptist movement does not owe the Reformation for being the for being its matrix but the Baptist movement predates the Reformation goes all the way back through the Middle Ages and so they

[00:36:07] end up cobbling together all kinds of interesting and frankly some of the heretical groups like the Paulicians the Bogomils the John Wycliffe and the Lawlords Jan Hus and the Hussites anybody who stood against the Roman institutional church of the medieval period gets lumped into well these people are all but number one what did these people believe on

[00:36:36] more fundamental ideas like the Trinity the deity of Christ etc and so the landmark movement is interested in continuity it almost seems to be a kind of 19th century Baptist version of the Roman Catholic doctrine of apostolic succession interesting so did the early Baptists view the Lord's Supper as a sign of the unity of the local church or the universal church because it seems like that answer really

[00:37:05] weighs in on open and closed communion yeah they would see it as obviously the unity of the local church but they also would be very committed to the idea that there is an invisible body of believers which we call the universal church all those who have trusted in Christ whatever their ecclesiological context is but they would not extend the Lord taking communion together as a because it seems like if you'd grant that you'd have to grant open communion yes

[00:37:35] the two might logically follow but they did not see that their commitment to well in the second London confession they they actually put in an appendix that they did not have an agreement on this issue and so they leave it right I noticed that yeah that's the first the first London confession in 1644 second edition 1646 specifies closed communion but

[00:38:04] after the debate between Bunyan and Kiffin William Kiffin who was a key leader in London of the Baptist closed membership closed communion after that debate the 1689 leaves it with those who would be open communion open membership like

[00:38:34] John Ryland John Ryland church had both pedo baptists and baptists in membership Andrew Fuller would never have tolerated that but they're the closest of friends well help me with this on baptism I'm credo baptist you know but one of the hard pills for me to swallow is if you kind of clamp down on it it seems like you have to say let's just grant the first 400 years

[00:39:04] was credo you still have a millennia where there's virtually almost no baptisms and that you have unbaptized reformers and improperly constituted churches for just a really long time now I think as a Protestant we have to have the gumption to say that the church can err in severe ways for a long period of time I

[00:39:35] feel like it's a hard sell sometimes when Baptists try to play up Catholicity and continuity when that seems like a logical conclusion so how do Baptists give a sense of how do they maintain their distinction but also have a sense of continuity when they're essentially changing a practice of baptism or turning it back however regardless it's historically the minority position in terms of

[00:40:04] length of time how do we square that is there a limit to how much Baptists can claim continuity when you're talking about one of the initiatory right right right christianity there's a divergent practice from the majority yeah the very fact that they in the second london confession do not make it clear and leave it as a matter of conscience and liberty indicates

[00:41:33] as being genuine believers and actually forming genuine churches but they wouldn't they would have to deny that they were baptized yeah they're not baptized properly in their minds but then within their orbit of churches with whom they have close association there are churches like you know St. Andrew's Church in Cambridge where Robert Robinson was and then Robert Hall and

[00:42:03] Northampton where John Collard Ryland was and then John Ryland Jr. and the New Oxford Street Church in Oxford where James Hinton was and all of these are open open membership right yeah I guess they're disorderly sure from the point of view of closed membership closed communion but these churches are recognizing no these brother these are brethren with whom we agree on

[00:42:32] a vast array of other issues and these people aren't baptizing babies but they are allowing to come to the table people who haven't been properly baptized so if they can recognize these people as fellow brothers they can extend it to the reformers they can and they did extend it then to various pedo-baptists with whom they disagreed about the relationship of the ordinances I guess I'm making a broader

[00:43:02] point though not about whether they recognize them as believers or even as valid churches or it's more that it seems like you just would have to say that for a thousand years there were very few valid baptisms right yeah they probably would admit that but then you know congregational singing is lost hmm interesting you go you go who's doing singing well it's choirs of trained

[00:43:32] musicians the medieval singing is fairly complex and first of all there weren't tune books and these people who are in the congregation don't have the time to learn these tunes and so they're listening to people singing and that's pretty well lost for a thousand years yeah so there's an example of something that we would see as necessary that just has been lost and

[00:44:02] I think it's helpful you know I think there's this protestant retrieval movement and you know retrieving doctrine of God and retrieving Christology and the language of Nicene and all these types of things but I think it's just an inevitable conclusion that any Baptist has said yeah they were wrong for a long time but I think any Protestant would have to say that too in some respect you know one thing with baptism I've also struggled with

[00:44:31] is to I do think there's a lot of examples in the church where they are talking about delaying baptism and then you have Augustine doesn't seem to have been baptized as an infant and which is funny because he's the main proponent of infant baptism but then you have some of the fathers and the like so I agree in

[00:45:13] maybe not to the full extent as today but certainly language that I feel like most Baptists today would be bothered by and even just thinking about post baptismal sin you know that's part of the reason some of them delay baptism so some of the theology attached to the practice even if the early church

[00:45:43] how do we reconcile the intense doctrinal difference that seems to be there yeah so none of the key writers in this period affirmed post baptismal you know the delaying what was known as clinical baptism where you're basically in your deathbed clean a being the word for bed that never gets kind of official endorsement

[00:46:14] when you read excuse me when you read you know somebody like Basil of Caesarea and his on the holy spirit if you're thinking in terms of baptismal regeneration some of his language might sound like that but I think what you've got in the early church is the recognition that baptism as is laid out in the new testament you know arise Paul and I says and wash away your sins baptism now saves us

[00:46:44] it's not the actual physical washing but what does he mean by that yeah in other words again as with the lord's supper

[00:47:25] problematic in the long term because it gives you the idea of something ex operata, you know, just automatically taking place. But they ascribe to the physical experience the gift of the spirit. It's the spirit that gives life. Cyprian, actually, who can sometimes be read as affirming baptismal regeneration, he can

[00:47:53] say at one point, if you come to the water without faith, it benefits you nothing. So if you look at these authors as a whole, both individually in all of their writings and then as a large group, I think what they're affirming in the realistic language about baptism, that baptism has a saving element in it, is the fact that the baptism, the gift of the

[00:48:20] spirit that saves us, the step of faith, all these three things belong together. Now, what happens with Augustine, Augustine separates them. And he separates them because he's got a pastoral question. And the pastoral question is, what do you do with infants who die before the age of accountability? And so Augustine's answer, because they've got original sin, which will damn them.

[00:48:50] So Augustine's answer is, let's baptize them, which cleanses them from original sin. They still need to be converted down the road. But what he's done is he's separated baptism from the confession of faith. So you're baptized as an infant at eight days old, or seven, whatever. And then down the road in your teens, you affirm the faith after catechism and make confession of faith.

[00:49:20] But he separated those two events that up until that time were always joined together. And so the medieval period and the reformers inherit that separation. What did the early church... So, I mean, they were certainly dealing with infant mortality before Augustine. Did they just leave it as an open question on whether they... Well, it strikes me that the early church prior to that would say that those babies are automatically saved. Somehow they're covered by the blood of Christ.

[00:49:50] I mean, it's still a theological question for us. We've rejected Augustine's view, and we basically say somehow the death of Christ covers their original sin, and we don't have to worry about it. Yeah, so you're saying that originally they kind of had it all as one compact thing. The reception of the Spirit, repentance, faith, and then the washing of water. Correct. How do you... How can...

[00:50:16] In trying to reclaim sort of this Baptist heritage of sacramentality that seems to be rooted in church history, should we try to reclaim that language? Yeah. I think if you said today, you know, you get baptized, that's when you receive the Spirit, you would... People would ask questions. Well, yeah, because... Because... First of all, the...

[00:50:41] There is this rationalistic downplaying of the Lord's Supper, and baptism becomes simply a step of obedience. When I was baptized as a believer, you know, I asked the question, why do I need to do this? Well, Jesus did it. You need to be obedient. Nobody said to me that this is a... This is the key place where I declare myself a Christian. It is. And nobody told me any of that. So...

[00:51:12] So... So... So... It's only later as I began to read the early church and early Baptists, that I began to realize that they had a richer understanding of baptism. And... So we've been influenced by the rationalism of the Enlightenment, but we've also had to fight Campbellism. Hmm. And the Campbellite movement or the Christian church movement in the 19th century, which affirms baptismal regeneration... Yeah.

[00:51:42] The reaction to that in Baptist circles has been, no, no, baptism is simply a step of obedience. It doesn't do anything. But if I'm going to affirm that the Lord's Supper is a place where I meet the risen Christ, then surely baptism, the other ordinance, is a place where God is doing something. And that's interesting. I mean, that does seem to follow because you mentioned that the Baptists had a sense that God,

[00:52:09] that Christ was present in baptism in a way that's analogous or similar to... Yes. ...the Lord's Supper. And I read Stanley Fowler's book on this, more than a simple... And he kind of talks about it. And what struck me was, it seems like if you really want to be Credo Baptist, I mean, should we just start saying, yeah, baptism saves you with the asterisk of don't be a Campbellite, but this is when you receive the Holy Spirit.

[00:52:38] And it seems like, is baptism really a... I've always heard it's like, you know, it's a... Baptism is saying that you have been saved. It's sort of like it's looking back at a past event or, you know... But it seems like what you're talking about is a... In a sense, a simultaneous event where you're like... You're not waiting for them to receive the Spirit, be saved, repent, show fruits, and then you give them this sign.

[00:53:08] It seems like it's all one thing. It is. Yeah, I think the New Testament sees it as all one thing. How do we... The New Testament doesn't know of unbaptized believers. Romans 6 is clear. Paul has never been to Rome. He doesn't know most of these people. He knows about 25 of them, as he indicates in Romans 16, but a lot of them he doesn't know. And yet he assumes all who have been baptized are in Christ. So how does that... I mean, that seems like it would shake up modern Baptist practices.

[00:53:36] I mean, a lot of times, either Baptists, they'll be very... They'll wait a long time to baptize people to kind of, you know, make sure that they're regenerate. But that just seems to fly against the face of what these other church folks are talking about. Again, I think that it's not inappropriate to have a waiting period, given our lack of biblical knowledge in the larger culture.

[00:54:01] Somebody being converted out of a completely pagan environment, I think, needs to learn. This is what you're committing yourself to. But I don't think years need to go by. I think you need a catechetical process, which the early church does have. So the early church has this idea this is a package. But there is nonetheless a catechizing that takes place. And I think we need to restore that. And you were saying that the... Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Don. That's a...

[00:54:31] You were saying that the idea that once you get baptized, you can't mess up again. That's not... No, nobody gives official endorsement to that. Okay. Man, that's fascinating. Because the more I've thought about, like, what would a Baptist sacramental church look like? You know, that took seriously credo-baptism, that took church membership seriously, that adopted... Or not even adopted, but just drew upon the liturgical tradition of the Baptists.

[00:55:01] What would that look like? And it seems like a kind of refocus even on baptism as, you know, it's... I think... I forget who mentioned... It might have been Stanley Fowler or someone who mentioned how baptism is one of those things that Baptists... They know really well what it doesn't do. Most of the writing is... It definitely doesn't do these nine things. And very little attention to what it actually does do.

[00:55:31] Exactly. Yeah, on a practical level, you know, just as a churchman your whole life, as a scholar, as a man who loves the church... Where do you see this going? How do you think that Baptist churches can reclaim this kind of sacramental theology? Well, I think it does have to start with the leadership. I think being intentional in thinking about their history as Baptists... I think this is where retrieval... There's a lot of talk about that today.

[00:56:01] It's a very positive thing. I think we need to go back to the early Baptists and work through... And in their various works, in their prayers, in their hymns... How did they conceive of baptism at the Lord's Supper? And so, yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for being aware of our history. And that's the challenge.

[00:56:29] Because for most Baptists, you know, they've embraced, in my mind, a worldly perspective. Which is tradition is... It's dead, gone. You know, the way our grandparents worshipped, it's stodgy, it's stuffy. You know, they can teach us nothing about these issues. And I think we have to shed that antipathy to tradition.

[00:56:54] And start to rethink about, okay, this is the way our Baptist forebears thought about these issues. Is there material here that's helpful for us today? We don't live in the past. So we can't recreate, in some minds, you know, an 18th century congregation. But these men and women had wisdom that we need to be tapping into.

[00:57:17] But that raises the whole question about, you know, the fact that Baptists have very little contact with anything to do with history. The last major contact was our hymnody. But the shift to the kind of contemporary Christian music has cut all that off, too.

[00:57:39] And so you have to have leadership that recognizes, okay, we're going to have to fly in the face of the traditions that are developed by people of my generation, baby boomers, who thought they were being cool and relevant, and they junked the past. And we need, the leadership needs to say, okay, those were wrong moves. There is material back there that can be very, very helpful for us.

[00:58:10] As I said, we're not recreating the 18th century. We can't. We need to live in the present day. Not everything the 18th century thought was great. To my mind, it's a period almost like a golden age in some ways, but it's not. They had their own issues and problems. But there is wisdom there.

[00:58:32] And just as a mariner sailing the Atlantic doesn't take his boat to Cape Cod and get in it and hope to reach England, he's got maps. And those maps are the result of close to 600, 700 years of mariners sailing the North Atlantic. Likewise, we have an ultimate map in the scriptures, but we also have the map of Christian wisdom down through church history.

[00:59:02] It's well said. Dr. Hanken, thank you so much for joining us on the show. And this was very informative. I think your book, your books, plural, many of your books on church history are a great place to start, to view the church today and continue with the past and also to learn about those who have traveled those seas before us. I think that's a helpful vision. Thanks for being on the show. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, great. Thank you.