John Piper once beautifully articulated what has become for me a rapidly growing conviction: “Before assessing an author’s position, express an understanding of it in a way the author would approve.” Piper calls this “that great principle of good criticism.”
In the world of theological debates (as in all debates), some are just riddled with bad criticism. What could be healthy dialogue between two sides ends up becoming two sides growing further apart through misunderstanding. When this happens, people are no longer talking to each other, but at each other or over them. Here are three such commonly misguided debates among Christians.
1. Protestant Paedobaptism (Infant Baptism) vs. Credobaptism (Believers Baptism)
The doctrine of baptism is the marijuana of theology. It’s a gateway doctrine. If you’re studying it well, you’ll find yourself studying doctrines that you never thought you’d touch or that you ever dreamed were relevant to baptism. You’re not studying it well unless you find yourself also studying God’s covenant with Abraham, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the nature of the Church, the role of Israel in the world, and eschatology (to name a few).
This argument isn’t at all about whether or not people should get baptized when they profess faith in Christ. Both sides agree on this. The question concerns what to do with the infants of believers. The Presbyterian church sees baptism as the New Testament version of circumcision and thus to be patterned after it. Just as Abraham believed, was circumcised, and then commanded to circumcize his infant son, so believing adults who have been baptized should baptize their infants. The real debate here is how much continuity and discontinuity there is between the Old and New Testaments, and thus it demands that we bring in all of Scripture, not just those verses in the Gospels and Acts that show adults believing and then getting baptized.
To say it another way, the debate isn’t about who we should baptize but rather the very meaning of baptism, knowing that the meaning will take care of the who. Both Presbyterians and Baptists acknowledge that an adult who is not a Christian and becomes one should be baptized. So quoting verses like Acts 2:38 where Peter tells a bunch of unbelievers to “Repent and be baptized” isn’t the way to argue for believer’s baptism because it doesn’t contradict the Presbyterian position.
2. Calvinism vs. Arminianism
If I were to say the word “predestination” and ask which of the above camps the doctrine belongs to, I’d be willing to put money on 99 out of 100 people would say “Calvinism.” And that’s the misunderstanding of this debate.
The debate between Calvinism and Arminianism is not about whether God predestines some to everlasting life and not others, nor is it about whether God is sovereign or not. It’s also not about whether or not we must choose Christ. Calvinists will quote Ephesians 1:4-5 as a proof-text for their position, forgetting that Arminian Bibles leave those verses in. Arminians in turn will quote John 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2:4. Now I’m not saying that these passages are unhelpful in the debate (because they are). What I am saying though is that if you’re just lobbing Scripture grenades back and forth at each other to make your point, you’ve missed the point.
The truth is, both camps uphold predestination, sovereignty, and human choice. Why? Because the Bible affirms all of them. You can’t say that you don’t believe in predestination, because it’s in the Bible (Romans 8:29). If you’re not a Calvinist, say so. But don’t ignore the fact that Scripture clearly says that God predestines people for salvation. And if you’re not an Arminian, say it. But don’t minimize the verses that talk about human choice.
The debate isn’t whether God predestines but the basis on which he does so. Calvinists will say that he predestines solely for his own glory and will, and not in anything in the person himself. Arminians will say that he predestines because he foresaw that they would believe in the Gospel when presented with it. As far as sovereignty goes, that God is sovereign is not a Calvinist doctrine. It’s a biblical one. The question is: which side better understands what sovereignty means? Is God in control even of our decision to trust in Christ? As far as human choice goes, both sides acknowledge that man must choose Christ in order to be saved. The real question is: is man able to make that choice all by himself? Or can he only make it because God first chose him? How man chooses Christ is the key to this debate, which demands that we study the doctrine of humanity and the fall.
3. Spirit-Filled vs. (I dunno…Not Spirit-Filled?)
Earlier this year a friend of mine who I went to church with described two other churches in our area as being more “Spirit-filled” than ours. It wasn’t said as a criticism but more as just a way to describe the differences in local churches to a friend of hers. I asked her to clarify what she meant by that even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. While the church I was at during this time leaned more on the cessationist view of the “miraculous” spiritual gifts like tonuges, prophecy, and healings, the other churches did not believe those gifts have ceased.
The real debate is whether or not those gifts have ceased, not whether churches should be “Spirit-filled” or not. Like with the Calvinism/Arminianism point above, you can’t assume all Christians have the same definitions for terms that we’re all using. Otherwise understanding just won’t happen. To be full of the Holy Spirit is a good thing (duh). Every sincere Christian and church wants to be full of the Holy Spirit. After all, it’s the Spirit’s presence within us that causes us to grow in holiness and to sin less and less. So to say that one Christian is less full of the Holy Spirit than another is a pretty serious accusation, especially if your basis for saying that is your stance on an issue that very godly people disagree on. To discern what churches are Spirit-filled or not, we must first agree on what that phrase even means.
If a church is more charismatic or less charismatic than others, that’s what we should say. We shouldn’t couch it in terms of personal holiness. Otherwise it’s a back-handed slap, like saying “Why yes I recycle, because I actually do care about the environment…” God wants us to be Spirit-filled, so using a Spirit-filled/Less Spirit-Filled lens when talking about Charismatic/Cessationist churches is another way of using a Godly/ Less godly lens.
#1 by Paul Rutherford on January 4, 2012 - 10:51 pm
Good points, Scott. Thanks for posting. I agree that a lot of discussion is wasted, relatively speaking, when a simple clarification would have prevented minutes, if not hours of reading, preparation, and speaking.