A Conversation Between Baptists and Anglicans | Theocast

What do Baptists and Anglicans? John and I recently had the opportunity to be on the

Doth Protest podcast with our friends, James and Drew, who are

Anglican. And we talked about pretty much everything, guys. We talked about the Reformation, where we hail from, and we talked about what we believe and what we have in common in particular was the emphasis of the podcast.

And that all centered around Jesus and God's grace and the sufficiency of our

Savior. We were encouraged by the conversation. We trust that you will be too. Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word.

It's called pietism. You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

Christ has done for you? It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes

Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it. And we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism,

Reformed theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when

Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website.

Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Doth Protest, a podcast of historical theology and Reformation theology and practice.

And we are here today. This is not Drew. That's why I stumbled through that.

But I'm here with Drew and with the gentleman from Theocast, a well -renowned podcast that, as they say on their website, seeks to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom from a

Reformed and pastoral perspective. We're here today with the co -host of that podcast,

John Moffatt. John was born and raised in the sunny desert of Southern California.

As his church website says, he is married to Judith and they have four children. I don't wanna mispronounce your first child's name,

Karis, I'm assuming. Very close, Karis, very close. Karis, Karis, Titus, Jane, and Knox.

John's father was a pastor for 25 years in California before moving to Utah, where the Lord took him home in 2002 after graduating from college in California.

John spent several years working in a small church as a youth pastor in Utah. It was while ministering there that he began to feel the need for more theological training and moved back to California to attend seminary.

While in seminary, he became involved in a local church as the college and young adults pastor until graduating in December of 2011.

30 days later, with his wife and three kids, John moved to Nashville, Tennessee to become a young adult pastor at Community Bible Church.

In 2017, John was sent out to Plant Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill. John is one of the founding members and director of Theocast Ministries.

And with Justin Perdue. Justin was born in Newport News, Virginia, but grew up in Asheville, North Carolina.

He graduated from T .C. Robertson High School in 2001 and went on to Furman University where he got a

BA in business administration and played football for four years, likely against my alma mater,

Appalachian State. Although he had been from a fairly young age, the

Lord brought Justin to a fresh appreciation and understanding of his gospel and his word beginning in 2001, or 2007, excuse me.

In 2011, Justin moved to Washington, D .C. to begin the pastoral internship program at Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

During that time, he met his wife, Michelle. They were married in December of 2012. He began his studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2012 and continues to pursue the

Master of Divinity degree. In 2013, Justin took a position as Mark Devers Pastoral Assistant at Capitol Hill Baptist Church and served in that capacity until he and his family moved back to the

Asheville area. Justin has served as lead pastor of Covenant Baptist Church since it was constituted in August of 2015.

He and Michelle have four children. That's quite a mouthful, gentlemen, but we are so glad to have y 'all on the podcast.

That is quite a mouthful. I forgot that was even on our website, so thanks for reminding me to update that.

Yeah, those are like website bios that sound a little dated, and there we go. Well, you know, anything you wanna update from there?

It's not the purpose of today's show, brother. No, we're good. And you did a good job with the intro,

James. I mean, I feel like one third of the episodes we do, I stumble through the intro because I forget what our podcast is about, apparently.

Well, and that's okay, because as we're going to talk about quite a bit today, we are all miserable sinners constantly in need of God's saving grace.

But we are so glad to have you all on, and especially because y 'all represent a very particular brand flavor of Reformed theology being

Reformed Baptists. And before we get into that particularity,

I wanna just get a little bit about Theocast on here for our listenership.

Sure. From what I've done, I've gone into your podcasts and listened to a number of them and I have to say,

I was telling my wife this morning, when I listen to Theocast, I just find myself at peace.

And I know, obviously, the subtitle is Rest in Christ, but that's something that in the midst of the tumult, just a constant reminder theologically of the need for and the beauty of resting in Christ, trusting in God's grace and mercy.

It's something that affects people not just from the Reformed Baptist bin, it affects us here in the

Anglican world. So I'm very appreciative for that. But Theocast, in some ways, it seems like it's kind of a response to and a corrective to pietism.

And we talk about pietism on Doth Protest often without mentioning the term.

You know, we may talk about it as legalism or as, you know, you might hear me say being overly law -heavy, that kind of thing.

But can you explain briefly what pietism is and why

Theocast sets out to encourage Christians to rest in Christ? Go ahead,

Justin. A simple way to talk about pietism is that it is an overemphasis on what we like to call the interior of the

Christian life. So what pietism does in some way, shape, or form at the end of the day is point the believer back in on himself, on herself, to know that you're legit.

So I'm going to be inspecting my discipline, my fervor, my devotion, my dedication, my sincerity, my performance, you fill in the blank.

And that's where ultimately peace with God is found. Now, it's not that the gospel in a pietistic context, it's not that the gospel isn't preached, it's not that Christ isn't held out, but it ends up being this kind of Jesus and you dynamic.

And I think any sane person listening to this is rightly thinking, if I'm responsible for any of this, that's not good news, that's not a good word.

That is a burden and a weight that I cannot bear. If my peace with the

Lord and my standing with God is contingent upon anything other than Christ for me, then what are we doing?

And so that's effectively what we're trying to get at is we're trying to pull people out of pietism, which we may get into this in a minute, but I know before we recorded, for us certainly as Baptists, the

Baptist tradition in the United States has been routed by pietism and revivalism.

And those two things typically go together. And so for John and myself, we're trying to pull people out of that.

We're trying to help people see the environment they're in, help the fish understand the water it's swimming in.

Like let's describe some of this and put some words to your experiences and so that you see what pietism is and what revivalism is.

And now that we've described some of that, let's pull you onto something better, namely the rock that is higher than you, who is

Jesus Christ and everything that he has accomplished in our place. And he is actually better than you think.

He's done more than you think. And so that's really the ethos of what we're trying to accomplish is to encourage us all.

I mean, John and I are encouraged as we have the conversations because we're all inner pietists, we're inner legalists.

We always tend to want to look back to what we're doing or what we're producing to know that we are legitimately in the faith.

And it's really good to be pointed outside of ourselves that cry of the reformation, right?

Extranos, to be pointed outside of ourselves to Christ who has accomplished our salvation and the work that he's accomplished is not changing.

It's not going anywhere. And the father always sees it. And so we're secure. Yeah, that's beautiful.

Very well put. Yeah, within the Lutheran sphere, we're all opinion legates.

We're all of the opinion of the law. We all are law creatures. It's just our natural proclivity.

Within the lectionary that we use on Sundays, this week we're going through John 15,

I am the true vine. And so the refrain for my sermon is we are not fruit inspectors.

That is our natural inclination is to sort of look and see what we've done and to try and judge whether it's worthy, whether it's enough.

And ultimately that's only going to be devastating. Yeah, exactly.

And that's the problem that I think, Protestantism has in general, not just the reformed

Baptists, not just Episcopalians, not just Lutherans, but we've all got, as you were saying,

Justin, that tendency to, well, to use my own language or Paul's language to sort of be shackled again to the law instead of being free in Christ.

If I may really quickly, James, sorry, Drew. The question, like you said it, we're always looking at what we've done.

We're inspecting our fruit to determine if it's enough or not. And the answer to that is, well, of course it's not enough, but Christ is enough.

Right, we always think that what we have done, it's like, okay, well, let me do this. Let me achieve this and that will do.

It's like, no, it won't, but Christ will do. That's the answer, right? Well, and just to even jump on the illustration of the vine, we miss at times, when we talk about fruit inspection, we miss the picture.

So for instance, the tree that produces the fruit, that fruit's not for that tree.

If you think about it, right? It gets its sustenance from the ground and from the rain and from, but the fruit is for others, is for to be consumed by other people.

And we often somehow attribute that God needs our fruit. And so we better be inspecting our fruit that is sufficient.

And it's not other people need our fruit because what are fruits of the Spirit? The fruits of the Spirit are to be experienced by other people around us, right?

They're the ones consuming the fruit and it's produced by the Spirit. So, you know, there are times where, at times when we, when people hear theocast, they assume, oh, well, you guys don't care about the fruit of the

Spirit. I'm like, oh, we care much about it because it's beneficial for other people, but it's of no value for your relationship with the

Lord. He does not look to your fruit for that. Other humans who are sinful, they can consume, you know, okay fruit, but God can't.

He rejects it. And that's how, the whole illustration is really healthy to remember yourself by, because like the fruit of the

Spirit is vitally important, just not for your salvation at all. And it's fruit beyond the

Spirit. Yeah, one thing I was, that was on my mind, sometimes I do,

I like to throw in, I like to try the best I can play a devil's advocate with, sometimes in just so we can fully hash out.

There always has to be one, Drew. Well, no, I, so I fully, obviously

I fully hear you all out because the point, I mean, one of the main points behind what James and I do with this podcast of Doth Protest is, and I touched on it in our pre -show conversation, is that we thought, we think the magisterial reformers were really onto something when they did the work that they did 500 years ago.

And we tried to keep their message alive and we stand on their principles on this podcast as much as even the magisterial reformers themselves maybe diverge between one another.

And you heard me say before, like, you know, we're kind of, we can sometimes feel like alone, this reformational mindset can kind of seem like a, we can often seem very lonely in a sea full of later, of greater

Protestant landscape that was developed, that was influenced by the later developments you both just spoke to, revivalism, pietism, you know, and I think all you have to do is go back to Luther who, so much of his early life was him fretting because he was always looking within and he found the comfort and freedom from seeing that the salvation comes from outside yourself.

And it's that anchor that will not change. You just cling to that. It's not based on how much you're feeling inside.

But, you know, I always try to see like what, you know, I try to see, was there a genuine good impulse behind some of these later

Protestant developments like pietism, for instance? Is there, you know, in the century following the reformation when they had a whole lot of councils and diets, and they, where they were trying to get very, to very precisely hammer out confessions to as to what we need to believe.

Was there a point, and especially when you, when you get the scholastic period of the 17th century, was there a point where Protestantism did, especially, because we all know there is a type of confessionalism out there that is very much about intellectual assent to propositions regardless of that person's,

I don't want to say that their character, but just like, you know, there is such,

I mean, scripture speaks of dead faith, obviously. I mean, obviously, James writes a lot about that, but even

I would say Paul, when he talks about the fruits, I guess what would, is there a good impulse to recognize behind these later things like revivalism and pietism, which have seeped so much into, especially

American Protestantism, as much as we, and I agree, I feel it is gone.

It is just gone. So it becomes so excessive and dangerous. Yeah, I'm happy to respond to that.

We say this a lot, and we even try to do this in our writing. We never want to impugn motivations.

We assume well of our brothers and sisters and thereby assume that the intentions are good behind a lot of these things.

And even in our present moment, I have a number of friends who, I would say, are pietistic evangelicals, revivalistic evangelicals, maybe even in some ways, who are sincere, love the

Lord, love their neighbor, and mean well. And so never want to impugn motivations.

I do agree. So I mean, effectively, what you're pointing to, Drew, is the reality of dead orthodoxy.

That does exist. I mean, that's one of the pitfalls in confessionalism is dead orthodoxy.

So then you have to ask the question, all right, if pietism and revivalism were well -intentioned, we still want to evaluate the doctrinal underpinnings and even the methodology on their own merit.

And that's where I think I would begin to have some concerns. And rather than outlining what all those are,

I would ask the question, what's the better way? What is the antidote? Like if what we're concerned for, rightly, is that people do experience real

God -wrought transformation of life. If what we're concerned for is that sanctification happens amongst

God's people and that the church grows and that we're loving our neighbor and we're seeking to honor the

Lord in our lives, amen to all of that. And so the question is, how do you rightly attack that?

How do you rightly go after it? And I think the answer is quite simple and it's in the scriptures.

And my last, I could talk of many of these, but my last line of defense on this is always Romans chapter six, where Paul is dealing with, there he is anticipating the objection of effectively antinomianism and licentiousness, but it still is a different kind of dead faith if we want to use that language.

And he asks the question, should we go on sinning so that grace might abound? And he says, by no means.

But then he does not say, by no means, here's what the law says. He doesn't say, by no means, if you are a legitimate

Christian and would prove yourself to be legit and not a faker, here's how you'll live. He says, by no means, we have been united to Christ.

We've been baptized into Jesus. We have been justified from sin's guilt and thereby have been set free from sin's dominion and have become obedient from the heart.

And so now let's live accordingly. And of course, he's gonna go on and say a number of other things about the internal war that we fight, the internal security that we have, how

God saves all of his people, and then he pivots in chapter 12 to talk very specifically about how we live. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, present yourselves as living sacrifices.

So I think that's a better way to go at it is to not introduce this kind of false dichotomy.

It's like, well, and not that you're saying this at all, Drew, where it's like either we emphasize the objective realities of Christ for us or we emphasize godly living.

It's like, no, we preach Christ and his sufficiency in union with Christ for not just justification, but also sanctification.

And we trust that the Lord is going to use the preaching of Christ, the means of grace, the fellowship of the saints, life in the church.

He's gonna use all of those things to produce fruit in us and to transform us. Right. And just so y 'all know, it took a lot for me to try to articulate the counter -argument there because I was really struggling with it.

No, brother, you're good. I don't buy it at all. Well, here's the - But I like to - But here's the instinct, right?

It's that objective. Yeah. Right, we want religion deep down.

It needs to be real and sincere. People feel this. And there needs to be something authentic about it, including the transformation of life.

And that is, I mean, that's the methodology of revivalism, right? We're going to go hear a fiery preacher and we're gonna have this conversion experience.

And then it's about the transformation of my life thereafter, right? And what pietism and revivalism represent, and I'm gonna try to use these words precisely, it is a subjectivizing of religion that is unhelpful, right?

Where it becomes so much about me and my experience of the divine, my conversion moment, my transformation.

That becomes the emphasis. And at least becomes, it's woven into the fabric of my salvation.

And I have to look to it somehow. And that's what we're trying to argue against, is that it is always and only

Jesus when it comes to salvation. And then there are all kinds of consequences and outflows of the fact that we've been vitally united to him.

Amen. And isn't sanctification, it's really rooted in gratitude. I mean, to speak of,

James and I, a big important person for us in our Anglican tradition is, of course, Thomas Cramner, the

English reformer. Principal architect behind the book, A Common Prayer, of which even modern prayer books still retain a lot of what he gave us.

And he speaks so much of transformation of life. And it's not in the context of putting the onus on the believer, but just that is, like you said, woven right into the tapestry of what

God through the Holy Spirit does in us, right? So it's all out of gratitude and giving thanks for what

God has done that we could not even begin to pay back or as much as that's the human temptation, so.

Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. So where do you go?

How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

Theocast Community. We're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions.

You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. This is, I think, really helpful to give us kind of a perspective and give our listenership and hopefully y 'all's listenership a good idea of where we are simpatico, we're in agreement about the essentials, right?

So I would like, if y 'all could, to give us, and I know this is always hard to sort of distill what it is to be

Reformed Baptist into a short time, but could you give us a picture of what

Reformed Baptist theology is all about, where it comes from, what its major foci are, and then perhaps even how it might differ from Presbyterian Reformed theology?

I know y 'all have done some episodes on this, so I'm hopefully teeing you up for something you've been talking about recently.

Yeah, I could probably summarize it in like five seconds. Reformed Baptist is biblical and it comes from the Bible.

So next question. Oh my goodness. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Don't you love it when people do that? As if you don't believe you come from the Bible.

That statement is not endorsed by Theocast. Those thoughts are the thoughts of John and John will not believe it. Oh, I love it when

I get into a discussion with somebody on a theological difference, like we're talking about now, and their phrase is, well,

I just believe the Bible. And it's like, well, yeah, I believe the Book of Mormon. So that's how we got here. So, you know, whatever. Yeah, what's interesting about the

Reformed Baptist faith that Justin and I often allude to is the historicity of it is not very short.

It's not a short history. It's a very long history. It is rooted in the Reformation. And so we find a lot of comfort in that.

I do know that there's a resurgence in the history of this particular movement in that, which is good.

There was some confusion that we were a part of the Anabaptist movement, which we weren't.

And there's a lot of radicalism and just heresy that comes out of that movement. We really do herald from our

Presbyterian brothers. So our confession, which is the London Baptist Confession, there's a second one.

So there's the first one from 1644, and then this is the 1677 printed in 1689, is really a plagiarism and pridefully so.

We're so thankful that we plagiarized both the Westminster Confession and the

Savoy Declaration. And a lot of the men and women using these confessions were raised on them.

They found a lot of deep affection for them. But as they studied scripture in their conscience, they were finding a harder time applying.

This is why the Savoy existed, because there was a polity disagreement. And then on top of the polity disagreement, there was a disagreement on the administration of baptism.

Besides that, there is so much unity and harmony when it comes around the primary doctrines of the faith.

And I'll throw this over to Justin here for a moment, but just kind of like as a high -water mark. What we did, we did a three -part episode kind of really walking through the history of explaining this, in that there's a difference in covenant theology, meaning there's just a difference of understanding how the covenants unfold and play out, and it will influence your understanding of, ultimately in the end, your understanding of the new covenant and who the new covenant is applied to as far as those are professing faith or those who are brought into the covenant by baptism.

So we did a long, and we can talk more about that if you want. But from a historical standpoint, Justin and I come from what's called 1689 federalism.

When the writers of the 1689 were putting the document together, there was some disagreement on certain parts of theology.

So you had some variants a little bit on, and this is even true of the Westminster, so there was some disagreements on how the

Westminster were put together, but disagreements a little bit on covenant theology. And so the document is a little bit broader, thankfully, to allow some variant views on the covenant of grace.

And so in that line, when someone says they're 1689ers, like I hold to that confession,

Justin and I are thankful for that, but then there's still a little bit of a clarity of, great, but what does that mean to you?

And then I won't do this now, Justin, I'll save it later. I can let you add to that. But there's another aspect of being

Reformed Baptist is not just being confessional, but it's really emphasizing to understand the reality of the ordinary means of grace in the life of the believer in the church, which is very important to what it is to us, to understanding of what it means to be

Reformed Baptist. So Justin, I'll throw it over to you. I might just put it in my own words a little bit, just so that people are crystal clear on where we come from.

So as the Protestant Reformation happens, there are two major traditions that flow out of it. One is the Lutheran tradition, one is the

Reformed tradition, broadly speaking. And so then in the Reformed tradition, broadly, you have the

Continental Reformation and then the English Reformation. In the Continental Reformation, many out there know,

I mean, the three documents there are referred to as the three forms of unity in terms of the ties that bind, and that is the

Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, and Canons of Dort. But then in the English Reformation, you have the

Anglican tradition and the 39 Articles, but then you also have those three major confessions that are comprising the

Puritan tradition, right? So it's the Westminster Standards, which everybody's familiar with, the

Presbyterian Confession that pretty much all Presbyterians use these days. And then you have the

Congregationalists, the Independents come up with the Savoy Declaration, the Savoy Platform in 1658.

And then we subscribe to the Second London Confession, which John has already said, well, there's 90 to 95 % overlap with Westminster.

And the real differences are simply polity. And then what our understanding of covenant theology means for the administration of the sacrament of baptism.

And so that's where we differ. So our forebears understood themselves to be planting their flag firmly within the

English Reformation and the Reformed tradition. And so that's where we understand that we come from, and we have nothing in common with Anabaptists and the

Radical Reformation, save the way they administer baptism, but their understanding of baptism is not what ours is.

And it's not coming from a covenantal place at all. It's a very different thing. And so don't think

Anabaptists when you think confessional Reformed Baptists. I can speak more on anything you guys have particular questions about, but I'd rather you guys tee us up so that we're talking about what you wanna talk about.

Yeah, and I just wanna add one more thing to that. So when people come to our church and they say, what does it mean to be

Reformed Baptist? I wanted to give the historical answer, but these are the five areas that I always tell them.

I said, there's five points because every good Reformed Baptist Calvinist has five points. So five points, but we have three

Cs, right? So that's right. We have three Cs, so we're gonna definitely be, that's right,

Calvinistic, covenantal, and confessional. And it's important for us to help people understand that those, because sometimes when people say they're

Calvinistic, that's about as far as they go. But those three are important for us as a Reformed Baptist. And then the other two points that we emphasize is a law gospel distinction in our hermeneutic understanding of scripture.

So when we read scripture, we understand how to divide the law from the gospel in our applications. And then the last would be a proper emphasis on the ordinary means of grace.

So the preaching of the word, preaching, teaching of the word, sacrament, fellowship, and prayer. So that's what really, what historically make up a

Reformed Baptist is an emphasis on those five theological distinctions. Yeah, and we've done an episode,

I know, that's entitled, What is Reformed Theology? And we kind of answered it with those five prongs.

And so I say the same thing whenever people ask, like, what does it mean to be Reformed and particularly to be a Reformed Baptist?

There it is. We're covenantal, confessional, Calvinistic. We distinguish between the law and the gospel. And we are committed to the ordinary means of grace as the way that the

Lord imparts, sustains, nourishes, and strengthens faith. Yeah, and I would say you're a typical evangelical

Baptist. Might get a hybrid of one of those, maybe. You would get Calvinism, and then that would be about it.

Maybe, it depends. Yeah, I mean, for many Calvinistic Baptists in America, that's the case.

Yeah. Yeah, so growing up among the Carolinas, of course, the primary form of Baptist theology that we got would be sort of an

Arminian Southern Baptist. So, yeah, Decisionist theology would sort of be the direct opposite of what y 'all are talking about.

You still talk about, of course, God's predestinating electing grace. And so that would be where they sort of break off and tend, although I don't mean this to be mean or rude, but they would tend more towards the enthusiasm of the

Anabaptists. Yes, for sure. Or looking within for God and looking within for, as we were talking about earlier, for assurance and whatnot.

And so, y 'all have, of course, had to sharpen your edges a bit in the way that you think about and talk about what it means to be

Baptist because of the differences within the broadly speaking

Baptist umbrella. Although you have rightly pointed out that Baptists and Baptists don't mean the same thing.

And so, you even come from two different places, two different seeds, two different theological camps, which, again,

I think is very helpful for our listenership to understand. And we understand what it means to be distinctive within the

Reformed tradition. We're the only Reformed tradition that maintains bishops, for instance. So, that's something that we would have more in common with Scandinavian Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholicism.

So, more so than Presbyterians or other Reformed folks.

Some of the distinctives of the 1689, or rather, as John was pointing out, 1677, technically printed in 1689.

Yeah, publicly adopted in 1689 because of persecution. I mean, it was not safe to adopt it in 1677.

Yeah, on behalf of all of Anglicanism, my bad.

Hey, man, we could talk about the Great Ejection of 1662, but we won't go there.

Good, good. So, back to what we were talking about. So, some of those distinctives are areas where we would differ, right?

And we talked about this in the pre -show. This is, we are pedo -Baptists within Anglicanism.

In one of our articles, which Drew and I would refer to as our confession or formulary, but many

Anglicans, many Episcopalians would turn their nose up at that and say that this is not only not our confession, but we really have a hard time with any but the

Catholic articles. But we would say otherwise here.

But in the article on - And he's referring to the 39 articles for listeners, yeah.

Right, right. And of course, as I was adding that caveat,

I completely lost what I was trying to say here. Baptism, yeah, so article, my

Roman numerals stink, it's been a long time, 27, there we go. The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the church as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

That's one of the things that we say. And by no means do I want to get into a debate or even really an extensive conversation about this.

But this is one area where I think Anglicanism and reformed

Baptist theology disagrees and perhaps correct me if I'm wrong here, but maybe this stems from the reformed tendency towards what you would call the regular principle in worship.

So if it's something that is directly ordained in scripture, then it's fair game.

And therefore, it's actually really to be enjoined almost upon the church. But if it's not, then depending on how you take that, either you shouldn't do it or it shouldn't be required of the conscience, that kind of thing.

Whereas Anglicans come from, in this regard, a more Lutheran perspective of, unless it is directly opposed in scripture, like a

Roman Catholic practice, unless it's directly opposed, then it can be retained and there's no issue with it.

And that perhaps is even a difference in generation.

So we would probably land as Anglicans in sort of late first, early second generation

Reformation theology. And the London Baptist Confession would probably be late second, maybe early third generation of Reformation theology.

And so we were dealing with different issues, right? We were still trying as Anglicans with the 39

Articles in 1571 to keep the

English church together, the Romans who remained, and of course the evangelicals to the end where you might find

John Knox on the Presbyterian end, right? And so that's where we're coming from.

But would y 'all agree that that's perhaps what's undergirding some of the Baptist theology about baptism?

Very ecumenical, James. Good job. I mean, in terms of the regular principle of worship directly,

I mean, it's an interesting observation. I mean, for us, I will say this, and this is just an observation, not me also wanting to introduce a debate.

So one thing that you will notice about Baptists and Presbyterians, and I would argue just P and R, Presbyterian and Reformed church folks, is that we are going to appeal directly to scripture for even polity.

Whereas I think as you've rightly pointed out, Anglicans, Lutherans tend to not feel the burden to do so in the same way.

And you guys are much more comfortable to appeal, I think, to the light of nature and Christian wisdom directly when it comes to some of those things.

Whereas for us, I think there is an impulse to appeal to scripture first, and then underneath that, our confession certainly makes room for the light of nature and Christian wisdom when it comes to governing the church.

So that's maybe an observation for me as well, where maybe you're onto something in terms of how we seek to look to the scriptures and what we look to it for, how we all would understand its sufficiency, because we all would understand that scripture is sufficient and we're gonna agree on that.

We may have some points of disagreement on exactly what the Lord has prescribed or know in His word.

Now, when it comes to how we administer baptism, that is really downstream of our understanding of the biblical covenants and how the

Lord is working redemptively through those covenants, and how we would then understand the covenant of grace to be promised and revealed, how we would understand that baptism is actually not the fulfillment of circumcision, but actually the fulfillment of circumcision is the circumcision of the heart.

And so we would then connect those things in terms of the covenant sign of the new covenant, et cetera, et cetera. So our administration of baptism is downstream from our view of covenant theology.

Having said that, you're not gonna hear most Baptists talk that way. This is where we're getting back to observations we've already made on this podcast.

Some Calvinistic Baptists will talk biblically and will even cite the Old Testament in good ways.

But then many Baptists in America are kind of like, well, baptism by immersion is the clear pattern in the

New Testament, and that's about all they have to say about it. And that's lamentable. So I've probably said enough here, but I'm kind of agreeing with you,

James, that I would have to give it more thought on that regular to principle observation that you made. Okay.

Yeah, I don't know if I would have made the argument from a regular to principle. I can see how it could be made.

I don't know if I would, I personally would have ever done that. But I would, just to add to Justin's perspective is that, being baptism is one of the two sacraments instituted by Christ, and that they are means of grace for the believer and for their faith and encouragement of their faith.

And so that being said, it's hard to administer that with all the benefits and promises that are attached to the sacrament to one that we cannot guarantee that to.

And so we made that, I think, we tried to make that clear in our episode, but I think that's, yeah,

I think that's where, if I want to say anything about the debate between Credo versus Pedo, most of the

Credo arguments that I have seen, I cringe at because I'm like, wow, those are really weak.

They're not thought through. And then when the Credo guys to describe the Pedo Baptist position, it's lamentable.

It's like, that is a straw man shaming. It's horrible. That is not what they believe.

And it's really, really sad. Can you give an example of what that argument, I'm just curious, like I can imagine, but I'm just, yeah.

Yeah, it's most, yeah, most non -Reformed Baptists don't understand covenant theology. And because they don't understand covenant theology, they don't understand what they're trying to do in the covenant in that, like for my brothers that I've interacted with that are, you know,

Westminsterian, they're gonna approach it from the perspective of God, including children in the covenant promises, right?

So they're not understanding that faith is being imputed into the child.

And now they are regenerate by faith because of the baptism, but they are included into the covenant community and receiving its benefits because of God's promises of the old.

So one covenant, two administration. So it's been administrated in the old through circumcision. And then in the new, they're gonna be included in the covenant of grace, this new covenant community by baptism.

And that's where we step in and say, the struggle that we're gonna have with the inclusion is that the promises in the new covenant are different from the promises of the old.

And those promises is what we wrestle with saying, I don't, I cannot say that this child that has received the sign is now receiving

Christ as his great high priest and mediator, that they are a living stone as Peter says.

And so they, because Paul says if you've been baptized in the new covenant, you've been baptized into Christ, which means you've put on Christ.

So can I really truly say that a child is wearing Christ as I am wearing Christ? And our answer to that is no.

So that's where I feel like we're trying to represent our brothers well. Like we know what you're saying.

We embrace your position as a, I think, I don't think it's a heretical position.

And I think it's a well thought through, obviously a very well thought through and well written on position. But it's just one that we would say, here are the holes that we can't seem to fill.

So we're gonna adjust the position a little bit. And we wanna rightly distinguish between like a

Lutheran view of baptismal regeneration and like a Presbyterian understanding effectively of covenant baptism.

And then obviously we have our perspective. And like we were clear on our podcasts about these things, these are not primary matters of doctrine, they're secondary.

Meaning we need to agree on them to have a church together, but we can disagree on these things and all be in the historical

Orthodox faith. And I think we need to, I'm using this word that is often abused and that's fine.

But I think we do need to kind of reclaim and redeem certain language that has been used historically.

So like we need to have more than one gear in our gearbox. So true and false churches, that's a vocabulary we need to use.

A true church preaches the gospel, right? And then a false church is heterodox, like at that most primary level.

But then you can use terms regular and irregular. And so like for us, what we would say about some of our pedobaptistic brothers and sisters is true churches, no doubt.

They are historically Orthodox, but we would say they are irregular in terms of some of their practice.

Whereas they would say the same about us, that we are a true church, but are irregular in our practice.

And I think that's just a better and more precise way to speak. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also not vindictive or confrontational.

Right. But we have fellowship together in the gospel and we're able to lock arms together for all kinds of good work.

And we agree on so much. Yeah. And I would say all Protestants are cradle baptists. I mean, if someone comes to faith in Christ as an adult, you're going to baptize them, right?

So let's not forget that. We all agree on that. It's, and that's like that part.

It's the infant baptism part. Yeah. And that part gets lost sometimes. It's not like you guys are saying, no, you should never baptize an adult.

That's ridiculous. So it's like, there's so much we agree on. It's like, hey, yeah, this is part over here we don't agree on.

And I think it's irregular on either side and we can be okay with that. I'm about to baptize a 29 year old.

Sorry, James. Go ahead. Sorry. No, go ahead. I'm about to baptize a 29 year old next month. Praise the

Lord. Amen. Yeah. And in our, even our, our prayer, our modern 79 prayer book for all the qualms that James and I maybe have had and spoke about on this podcast before the, when you go to the rite of baptism in it, the first form is to use for an adult, the next being a child say, you know, which maybe sends the message that, you know, the baptism of an adult is, you know, credo is primary in a certain kind of sense, but of course, you know, it's, so.

And, you know, this is an area where, as we've all agreed, we lovingly disagree within the historic

Orthodox faith, but there are so many other places where the 1689

London Baptist Confession and the 39 articles do agree. Right. And Anglican tradition do agree.

And for me, you know, one of the, I do some writing on occasion for the

Evangelical Fellowship of the Anglican Communion. And one of the articles I wrote was sort of, what is brass tacks?

What would you say is an evangelical? Sort of like baseline without which nothing else, you know, can be the case.

It's a sine qua non of being an evangelical. And for me, it's the solos, you know, and that's an area where we agree.

And especially sola fide. I mean, I buy whole hog, sola scriptura.

I buy all of them, of course. They're essential to my understanding of the

Christian faith, but really, you can't be a Protestant unless you adhere to justification by faith.

In the pre -show conversation, I was telling Justin and John about the fact that the reason why

I ended up where I am now on the reformational end of things is because I knew for me that the ditch

I was willing to die in was justification by faith. Justin, you were gonna say something?

No, I agree. When you threw that out there, how do you define what is an evangelical? And I'm thinking historically what that question is is what is a

Protestant? And so then I think, like you said, the five solos are a great place to start. And in particular, to hammer sola fide is

I think where we need to begin even speaking more precisely. Like the formal battle of the Reformation was sola scriptura, but the material battle of the

Reformation was sola fide, faith alone. And I think what we see from the Reformation to now, and this has existed throughout the history of the church, is there is always a tendency to hedge on sola fide.

To hedge on faith alone. And that is one of the things that we effectively are speaking against at Theocast.

And those are things that you guys agree with us about. We want to die on that hill of we are justified.

And I mean, and we're gonna go ahead and say, because this has been introduced lately, I mean, we are saved by Christ alone, but we are united to him through faith alone, apart from any work that we have ever done or will ever do.

Right. And we have unity in that, we can do a lot. Right.

And I think that's one of the most effective things, and this is where I think, I hope, I imagine, we're gonna agree even on this aspect of baptism.

That's one of the things that's most beautiful about the symbol of baptism is that it is literally coming outside of you.

It is done to you. Right. It's done to you by God. I mean, this is an area where I think we are in deep agreement.

So I'm gonna safely, sorry, James, I'm gonna safely assume there's no such thing as re -baptism in the

Reformed Baptist tradition. There is not. Praise God, that's good. That's good.

And to be clear, like when we say Credo Baptist, we don't just mean adult baptism. We just mean baptism upon a profession of faith.

And so there's no age requirement. Wisdom, of course, is required there. Just like wisdom is required to admit baptized young people to the table, for example.

In many traditions, right? So that's there. But yeah, there is no such thing as re -baptism. You're baptized once, that is something that is done to you.

It is a sign of God's faithfulness to you that you have been united to Christ, your sins have been remitted, and that he's gonna keep you and you've been sealed to the day of redemption.

Right. Amen. Right, absolutely, amen. Remember your baptism. That's right.

Yeah, right, right. So we are of like mind there, to be sure.

You know, I always go back to Jesus. No one can pluck them from my hand.

Amen. And that is something that I try and harp on quite a bit.

And for a long time, my refrain in my sermons was from Isaiah 43, I have called you by name, you are mine.

Yeah, that's good. So that's where we are, again, in deep agreement. And what we tend to talk about and what

Reformation Anglicanism tends to talk about is that the gospel is

God's promise book. It's his book of promises that he's made to us in Christ, from Genesis to Revelation.

Of course, within that, we have to necessarily rightly divide the word of truth from the law from gospel.

That's, of course, an essential part of what we do, but that's, again, a place of agreement.

Another place of agreement is that we believe that God predestines and elects his people to salvation. Drawing a little bit, again, from the 39 articles, predestination of life, this is article 17.

Predestination of life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby before the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honor.

Amen. As the godly consideration of predestination in our election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God.

And then, of course, it goes into carnal persons, as you might expect. But this is another area.

With the hesitancy to go into a double predestination, and I don't know if I'm gonna bring, right, that brings up another debate, but that is,

I think most scholars of the 39 articles, people like Gerald Bray, if I'm not mistaken, as they see the article, that article is not really going beyond the realm of speaking about the promise to the elect, nothing about the un -elect.

And the pastoral danger that they think that there is in focusing too much on, which, am

I, am I one, am I the elect, or am I not, am I not, you know? And that's why that article makes it abundantly clear that predestination and election are sweet doctrines.

They are there for comfort and assurance. They're not there, like Jonathan Edwards, to have us prove our election.

They're there as a constant reminder. Right, or Richard Baxter, yeah. They're there as a constant reminder of Isaiah 43.

I have called you by name, you are mine. And when God says you are mine, he doesn't say you are mine until you screw up.

Yeah. You're his period, that's the end of the story. And he loves you.

Romans 8, right, nothing can separate you. And that's just hard to hear because we always want to contribute, and God's like, listen, when you decide to contribute or think that someone else is contributing from removing you, there's nothing that will separate you.

And that's a great comfort in the midst of suffering. Well, even the parable of the prodigal son, right?

I mean, the prodigal son always had the love of his father. And even when the son comes to his senses when he's in a foreign country,

I mean, that's just him kind of assessing his circumstances. He's like, yeah, this ain't quite what

I thought it would be. And then he has this speech rehearsed. I mean, we all know it. He's got this pitch, you know, father,

I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But then he's got this idea, I'm gonna, like, let me work for you.

Let me work in your household. And he gets back. And of course the father sees him coming and runs.

And there's so many things that can be said there, but the son begins to give his spiel, to give his prepared comments.

And the father interrupts him. He can't even get to the part where he's gonna ask to be a slave in his father's house, a servant.

And he says, bring the robe and put it on him, put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. Let's tap the keg and let's have a party because my son is home.

Right, I mean, that's the imagery. Yes, right. That's a Reformed Baptist translation.

New living translation. And, but that's it, is that the father has always loved his children.

That's right. And it's a sweet word. And we don't need to do all these, we in our human reason paint ourselves into a corner theologically so often, where it's like, well, you know, then can we really tell sinners that Christ died for them?

Like, can we stop with that nonsense and that stupidity? Just like the law condemns everybody universally, right?

We all understand that intuitively. And so then Christ died. Yes, he died for his people, but he died for sinners.

And by virtue of the fact that you're a sinner, I am able to offer Christ to you genuinely. That's right. Right, and like this was all a part of the marrow controversy in the

Church of Scotland in the 18th century. And so we don't need to get into that.

That's a Presbyterian situation that I think is quite instructive for our day. But we herald Christ freely and wholly to sinners.

And we offer him and hold him out and say Christ died for such as you, right? And there is no reason to be hesitant to do that whatsoever just because we believe in God's sovereign grace and election.

And you know, when I've had conversations with people pastorally, because I mean, obviously this is all heady, but of course, this is deeply, deeply pastoral in the way that all of this plays out.

When I've had pastoral conversations with people who believe, for instance, that they haven't sinned, you know, then of course, the first thing that you can say is, if you haven't sinned, then

Christ didn't come for you. That's right, yeah, that's true. So, you know, gosh,

I'll never forget. And clearly you've never heard the sermon on the Mount. Right, exactly, exactly.

If you're not convicted by the sermon on the Mount, you know, when I talk about that with folks, I tend to talk about how

Jesus parses out the 10 commandments to like Philip K. Dick minority report thought crime level, right?

You know, like everything that you've ever thought is fair game and that you, you know, we're all miserable, horrible, miserable offenders is what we say in the traditional language of the prayer book.

So yeah, and you know, that's, that's, that's who we are. But, but you know, while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. So yeah. I want to add one thing, if you guys don't mind.

One of the parts that's really hard for us as humans is to look past the humanity to the divine.

We, we try and create a relationship with our divine father as if we would one with a human.

Humans, the best we try, we try to make our relationships unconditional, but it's really hard to do that.

They're always based on transaction, right? Even our marriages, there had to be, I don't know about you guys, but mine wasn't arranged.

I mean, by God's sovereignty, it was, but not by my parents, right? So there was a trans, there was a transaction between wife and I, like I gave her my time.

She gave me hers and there was an agreement there. And even in parenting, we want to say we love our children unconditionally, but we're sinners, right?

There are times where I'm like, I don't like you right now. I don't even question my love for you. But that is, we just assume

God does this to us. When we're struggling with our faith, we're struggling with our sin, there's no way

God could ever forgive me or love me for this. Well, yes, if God was a human, then yeah, but God came to be a man and in his humanity proved he's not like us.

Cause he laid his life down for us in a way that we wouldn't do. So Jesus is unlike any other.

And it's really important as we read the story of the gospel, that we read it as the divine father who is

God unlike any other is in a relationship with us, not another human that is frail and weak and faulty and transactional in his relationship.

And that's what helps bring the assurance to us and removing this transaction nature that we have in the gospel.

Absolutely. Well, I know that our time is starting to wind down. A couple of other points of agreement that of course, to bring these up without talking about them is criminal, but it's still worth saying that we agree that the human will is bound, that we can in no way turn ourselves to God without God's grace preventing us as the language of the 39 article says.

And that even in baptism, our tendency is still curved in on ourselves. We still have that natural inclination to do what we wanna do.

Paul, you were talking about in the, I believe it was in the baptism episode. I've listened to a few over the last few days, but you were talking about the baptism episode, the fact that, or maybe it was the

Arminianism episode. Anyways, you'll remember, whereas I might not, but that there's the argument that Paul was not regenerate when he wrote

Romans 7. Like that is, well, first off, how can you have the baptism chapter, the chapter before, and then talk about -

The union with Christ chapter. Right. Exactly. But then, Paul, of course,

Paul is regenerate. And of course, Paul is still dealing with that struggle. And you wanna know how? Just look at yourself because we're all still dealing with that.

It's just the reality - True words have never been written. Yeah. For me, that is a constant reminder when

I sin and fall short of the glory of God. And what

I will sometimes tell my parishioners, and perhaps this is not necessarily the most coo thing to say, but I'll say, I'm a better sinner than you a lot of the time.

I'm pretty good at it. I might even say I'm a professional. But thanks be to God, I'm saved by God's grace.

Otherwise, I'd be in big trouble. That's right. And then the other, of course, is the infallibility of the scriptures.

There are different gradations that you might find within that theology of verbal plenary inspiration of the scriptures to the scriptures are infallible when they are asserting, and all points in between.

But we would agree that the scriptures are infallible, and they have to be. In our ordination vows, we say that we believe that the

Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testament, contain all things necessary for salvation. If they are not infallible, then we can't trust what we just vowed.

Right. So that's where we agree. So to finish up, what would y 'all like our listenership to know about Theocast and your ministry?

And if there's anything that y 'all would like to know from us about our ministry at Doth Protest, this,

I think, will be a good way to sort of tie the bow. Yeah. Yeah, just in a nice heart is no matter what tradition that you're from, that you find that the

Lord is, you can taste and see that the Lord is good. He's worthy to be trusted. And that the outflow of the rest in Christ is to then lead others to rest in Christ, right?

Sometimes people hear rest, and they think, don't do anything. And that's not what it means. What it means is that Christ is sufficient for all of life and godliness, and that I have nothing else to do but rest in his sufficiency.

And then, as he says, my burden is, you know, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

We then carry the burden of suffering for the sake of the gospel to share this with others, right? And that's really the heart behind Theocast.

We have a book called Rest, if you wanna kinda read a primer on what we're trying to explain there. But yeah, if you're interested in really being encouraged, we'll take on different theological topics throughout the year.

But the majority of the time, if you wanna have a real quick dose of just an encouragement of who Christ is, then that's

Theocast for you. Yeah, I agree. I mean, our emphasis is that Jesus is enough.

And by that, we don't mean anything sentimental. We mean, objectively speaking, he is enough to save even you.

And his work is sufficient, and he's done more maybe than you ever thought he has done.

He has atoned for all your sins, and in him, you're absolved of all your guilt.

He's taken your shame upon himself. He has fulfilled all righteousness. So literally every requirement that God could ever have of you,

Jesus has met them in full. And then he has conquered the one who has the power of death. He has bound the strong man who is the devil, and he has set

God's people free. And in him one day, we will live forever, and we'll live with him and with each other.

I mean, this is what we talk about all the time, and mainly what we mean to do, even on our podcast. One of the reasons we say, from a confessional reform and pastoral perspective, is we're trying to just apply

Christ in the gospel to our hearts and minds, and how we think about living in this life under the sun.

Because everybody that we're talking to, and then ourselves included, we're sufferers. We're saints, we're sinners, right?

We've got all these things going on simultaneously, and we need to be encouraged in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we need to be reminded that, doesn't matter how I'm feeling right now, or how I might be feeling this afternoon, what he has done for me is unchanged.

And so I am eternally secure. And that does something for the soul. And then from that fullness, as we have received

Christ, then we go and love and do. And that's how John and I mean to pastor in our churches, and indirectly in this parachurch ministry called

Theocast, that's what we wanna try to offer and hold out to people too. Wonderful, that's good, that's good.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know that there's anything more to say, that's a beautiful way to wrap it up.

And that's certainly what we wanna do at Doth Protest, to engage with the historical theology of the

Reformation, but also to make sure that it's not dead orthodoxy, but rather that it is something that's speaking to the hearts of people and recognizing, of course, that we too are of the mind and of the belief and of the conviction that we are saved by the work of Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

And that's the very heart of our being, of our ministry in our churches and through this podcast.

Yeah, man. I mean, I'll interject real quick. These two brothers are both pastors.

If you don't mind, give them your first and last name and where you pastor and then where they can find your podcast because you guys introduced us, but we didn't get a chance to introduce you.

So please tell us, our listeners, about who you guys are and how they can find your podcast before we close it down. Sure, sure.

So I'll start off. Go ahead, James. Okay, Andrew Christensen, I'm a rector in the

Episcopal Church, like James is. I've been a rector at the, well, James is not a rector, he's an assistant rector, but we're both priests in the

Episcopal Church and I'm a rector of St. Michael and All Angels, Episcopal Church in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

And our podcast is, of course, Doth Protest. The subtitle is a podcast on Reformation history and theology where you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, pretty much any streaming platform.

So please listen to us. Yeah, for sure. And I'm James Rickenbaker.

I'm the assistant rector, the assistant pastor at Aquia Episcopal Church in Stafford, Virginia. And if you want to hear about Christ for you, come to church with us.

We've been worshiping in this building since 1757 when it was finished.

No way. That's awesome. It's a beautiful building. If you didn't get whiplash, I'd turn my computer around and show you, but yeah, it's a wonderful space.

And for our folks and for your folks, please know that even though we are of different denominations, we are one mind that we are all in Christ Jesus by grace.

Thanks for joining us today. Guys, thanks for having us on. Yeah, thank you. And we look forward to maybe continuing the conversation down the road.

Hey everyone, before you go, Justin and I first wanted to say thank you. And if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

But we also need your support. And it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

So the next time you consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about Theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.