July 5, 2016 Show with Michael Haykin on “The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement”

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converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County,.

Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live

streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this

fifth day of July 2016, and I hope that you all had a wonderful time

gathered with family, friends and loved ones yesterday for the last day of the Fourth of July weekend,

and I hope that you all are able to launch off into a new week all refreshed

and invigorated and ready to meet anything that God has in store for us, and

I am so delighted that we have back on our program a man who is certainly

quickly becoming one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Many of my fellow Baptists, especially those from a Sovereign Grace background,

Reformed Calvinistic Baptists, consider him a modern -day hero of sorts, and I may be

embarrassing him by saying that, but it happens to be true, and I'm speaking about Dr. Michael Haken,

and he is Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality and Director of the Andrew Fuller

Center for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

He's also the author of many books, including a book that we are going to be focusing on largely

today, The Baptist Story, From English Sect to Global Movement,

and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. Michael Haken,

and in studio, my very frequent co -host, the Reverend Buzz

Taylor.

It's great to have you back in studio, and why don't you greet Dr. Haken today?

Dr. Haken, it's so good to be on with you.

Thank you.

It's good to be with you as well.

And today is one of those moments that I relish in because the Baptists outnumber the

baby sprinklers today.

We have two Baptists to one baby sprinkler.

Well, we have days like yesterday though where we outnumbered you.

Yes, yesterday we had the honor of having my dear friend Pastor Jason Wallace of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt

Lake City, Utah discussing Mormonism yesterday, and I hope that you all enjoyed that MP3

as soon as possible, especially if you missed the live show.

But Dr. Haken, if you could briefly let our listeners know who are perhaps

discovering this show for the first time, they're not very familiar with the Southern Baptist Theological

Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

It kind of does, maybe not even kind of, it certainly does stand out

among the major Southern Baptist seminaries in the nation, and

of course the current president is Dr. Al Mohler, who God used to bring great

transformation to that institution.

If you could tell us something about the Southern.

Baptist

Theological

Seminary.

In 1959, many

of the

faculty in

the 1980s

and 1990s,

you

know,

it's a

faculty -wise

century,

and

we're deeply shaped, and so for

the sesquicentennial

of the school, he concluded

the account by saying

that

the, and we've gone back to those, to use a biblical phrase, those old

paths that have been such a...

Yes, and I have interviewed.

Several of the faculty members at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, not only you,

but Dr. Mohler himself, had the privilege of interviewing him on his most recent book on the

homosexual controversy, and I've had, now retired from the

faculty there, Dr. Thomas Nettles on many times, and other brethren as

well, and in fact I did a program on the biography of J.

Pettigrew Boyce, so I thoroughly enjoyed that and know something about him.

And you are director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Andrew Fuller has been claimed as a hero by both Calvinist

and non -Calvinist Baptists, and some of our non -Calvinist Baptist friends

insist that he was not a Calvinist, and some of our even perhaps

more strongly sectarian Calvinistic Baptists say that he was not a

Calvinist.

Tell us something about Andrew Fuller.

A deism, Sasanianism, Sandemanianism, which is really what we call easy belief,

Arminianism,

antinomianism,

and

Fuller

had a

deep,

deep above active figure.

He was Anglicans like

John

Newton,

William Belogian

in Scotland, regarded him as one of the most preeminent

in a review of his work in the 1840s.

His theology in

the 19th century,

on both sides of the Atlantic, the formation

of Baptist missions in America, the Triennial Convention, and then the Southern Baptist Missions,

were deeply shaped by men who had imbibed a lot of Fuller's theological convictions about the

sovereignty of grace, but also the responsibility, human responsibility, and that's where the necessity of missions.

And so there's much that is very, very likable about,

and important about Fuller.

Now would you say that's, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Fuller has recently emphasized that Fuller may well be one of the 18th century, because of

his...

And William Carey was indeed a thoroughgoing Calvinist as well, was he not?

...of

the

Bible into a multitude of work.

One of the need is for somebody to do a solid

study of William Carey as a Calvinist.

It's never been done.

Huh, really?

No, amazing.

You mean just on him, because I know by his grace and for his glory...

Just on him.

Yes, right.

Would find that he's a solid Calvinist out there.

Reverend Buzz wants us to ask a tale...

I don't want to get too far away from...

I just actually want to ask one more question about Andrew Fuller before you derail that.

You can just hold on for a second.

Oh, okay, I'll try.

Is one of the reasons that some, maybe perhaps more sectarian Calvinist

Baptists have a problem with Fuller's Calvinism is because of the way he explained definite atonement

and the sufficiency of the atonement.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Okay.

Yeah, that's one reason why...

Well, Reverend Buzz, I'm sorry.

Yeah, before we get too far away from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the way you're describing it, that

is a rarity in church history for a group to start going, shall I say, the wrong direction,

liberal, and then coming back.

Could you tell us a little bit more about how that happened, and if you know of any other groups that have done that?

Well,

that's where

the

resurgence began,

because when they had the annual conventions,

the way that the Southern Baptist Convention is structured, very simplistically, is that

they have a committee called the Committee on Committees, and the Committee on Committees, the membership,

appoint the various boards,

the International Mission Board,

etc.,

eventually be able to turn

up the Committee on Committees

and begin to turn around the membership of the various boards.

For 15 years, they

were a

complement of delegates to the annual convention, and so you were getting conventions in the

1980s and 1990s, where you might have 14 ,000, 15 ,000 delegates, voting delegates.

And generally speaking,

except for this period of time in which these large numbers came out, voted in a

conservative president in...

It might have been Adrian Rogers, I think, in 1989.

I may be wrong on that, but from that point on, all through the 90s, they were a conservative president, and they began

to turn around the various...

They, first of all, replaced the Committee on Committees with a conservative membership, and then they began to turn around

the boards.

And that's what led to Dr. Mohler's being voted on to become the president

in 1993.

The faculty was 95 % or more against him.

Wow.

And they had a vote of non -confidence when he came, and basically, it was

like 95 basically voted against him.

At his first faculty meeting, when he gave his address as to where, only two men

came up to shake his hand and thank God that he had come there.

They could then control the seminary through the board, and I think that's the best way for...

I think seminaries need to be controlled by denominations.

It has its...

If the denomination goes, then the seminary is probably going to go too, but in this case, it was a blessing.

If the board had been a self -perpetuating board, not voted in by the churches, then

there would be no way of recovery.

Yeah, yeah.

And you

also, you mentioned there Adrian Rogers,.

So there was obviously another transformation in regard to the doctrines of sovereign grace, because

the late Adrian Rogers, although a Calvinist now in glory, I'm sure, was not a fan of

the doctrines of Reformed theology or Calvinism at all, am I correct?

Calvinism.

Yeah, that would be the majority, wouldn't it?

Wow.

Yeah, and I know that one of the reasons we have what is called the Founders

Ministries, the Founders Conference, a group of sovereign

grace -believing Southern Baptists, the reason why they call it the Founders is because all of the Founders were Calvinists,

weren't they?

In the 1800s?

You just have to do the arithmetic.

Yeah, well, praise God for that.

And let me give our email address to those listening who would like to join us on the air with a question of your own.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail

.com, that's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

And as I mentioned earlier, one of the primary focuses that we

have today is the book The Baptist Story, From English Sect

to Global Movement.

And before I even go into that, we already have a question that I think is relevant

to bring up from a listener before we even get into that very title,

because I don't want to steal the listener's thunder here.

The question is, can we trace the Baptists

all the way back to John the Baptist in the Bible?

And there is, as you know, Dr. Haken, by the way, it's Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania.

I'm sorry, Susan.

That was Susan's question.

And that is a very good question because there are a considerable number, perhaps a

minority, but there is still a considerable number of Baptists who do believe that.

Landmark Baptists is what they're typically known as.

But if you could comment on that.

The thinking

about Baptists, they

don't

emerge out

of

the

Protestant

Reformation.

And

they

deny the

reality.

The statement is to be seen as a faithful local church in every

generation,

largely in Ephesians

and Colossians

interpretation.

Get beyond the Reformation until you get to the early church era, the Patristic period, definitely before

Constantine and definitely before Augustine.

If you argue for Anabaptist

church

in the medieval

period, it doesn't make you a

Baptist.

Right.

Yet it's ironic that some of the very, very sectarian and

isolationist fundamentalist Baptists would claim the Anabaptists as a

part of their lineage, and yet they would probably never let an Anabaptist join their churches today,

because of some of the other things that they believed.

Some of the groups, the politicians, are just outbound heretics.

So this was a group, this was not a monolithic group, the Anabaptists.

They come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but they all have in common the nickname

Rebaptizer Anabaptist because they believed, for the most part, in adult or believer

baptism, and some of them even did it by effusion and not by immersion, correct?

Immersion.

Okay.

Anabaptist baptism.

That's what a lot of the Roman Catholic priests do, I believe, today, don't they?

I'm sorry?

I don't know.

Oh, okay.

I'm not sure either.

Yeah, well, I think that I've seen them do that when I've been to a christening, as they call it.

Oh, by the way, Susan, you have won a free copy of The Baptist Story from English

Sect to Global Movement.

We thank you very much for your question, and we look forward to sending that out to you.

And that's being sent out to you, by the way, by our friends at CVBBS, Cumberland Valley Bible

Book Service, who are sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron, and ship out all of

our giveaways for us at no expense to Iron Sharpens Iron.

And we also obviously have to thank B &H, Broadman and Holdman, Academic

Press for giving those to us to send out today.

Now, just a question about this, I don't want to belabor this issue, but if

you believe as a Baptist, and I am also, as you know, a Baptist, if you believe that our

beliefs are not inventions of men, that they are not something

that were developed and, you know, invented by

modern writers outside of the New Testament, and

we believe that everything that we teach is based on Scripture,

why isn't there some validity to thinking you can trace Baptists all the way back to New Testament

days?

Where does the disconnect come in that logic if you believe that

what you do is based on Scripture in your polity, in your view of

ecclesiology, in your view of the ordinances, in your view of missiology and

soteriology?

How come a Baptist couldn't rightly say, we can trace ourselves all the way back to the Bible?

The position,

essentially, but

some

truths

have,

some

of

them

might, is where they confuse

primary issues with secondary,

share the gospel, and to see men and women reconciled, brought into a living

faith, before it makes its

emphasis, and I primarily make men and women Baptists.

We miss, to

make men and women,.

So are you, okay, I'm sorry.

Because initially, many of the

Baptist leaders stood aloof from the revival, even though their churches were desperate.

Because in his mind, if the revival

was

truly,

they

may not

have gone

faster, is again, the driving, the

landmark position is this idea of the church, probably find people in

the medieval period, who may have held to immersion of believers,

there's

not going to be tons

of them, the Lord Jesus Christ.

God has his church all through the medieval period, even if there aren't significant numbers of

Baptistic believers, been building his

church, real decline comes

in the 700s, and runs to about the 1300s, before the rise of Wycliffe,

long period of time, though.

Why?

Well, providentially, that's the way God ordered his history of it.

And yet there were believers in that period.

Mm -hmm.

And they may not have been Baptistic believers, but they were...

Now, let me see if I can gather this together and summarize it, and you can

let me know if I did a good job or not.

So you're basically saying that Baptists, and of course, there are all different kinds of Baptists, there are

Calvinist Baptists, freewill Baptists, there are liberal Baptists, there are conservative Bible -believing Baptists, but

let's just take for the sake of argument that we're talking about sovereign grace -believing Baptists.

Although we believe all of our beliefs and doctrines can be traced

and verified in the scriptures, we do not

believe, or you are saying, that as a movement, all of these

collective biblical views were not present for great lengths of

time prior to the 17th century, where you could

actually say that these people were Baptist in the same way they were after the

17th century.

Is that basically what you're saying?

That over the centuries, some things, just due to the

traditions of men being dominant and smothering, and some things that may have been

lost that are distinctively found among the Baptist people, even

though there were obviously Christians ever since the first century,

there hasn't been necessarily a lineage of people

that held on to all of the distinctives of the Baptist people throughout the ages.

Is that basically what you're saying?

Okay, great.

And I'm not as dumb as I thought I was.

We're going to a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air, and I thank you who are waiting patiently to have your questions asked and answered on the air.

We'll get to you when we come back from the break, God willing, as quickly as possible.

But if you'd like to join them with a question of your own, for Dr. Michael Hagen, our email address is

chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please give

us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the United States.

Don't go away.

We're going to be right back with Dr. Michael Hagen and the Baptist story.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Michael Haken, and we are addressing

his book, primarily, that he co -authored with two other authors, and it is

titled The Baptist Story, From English Sect to Global Movement.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

We have David in Midland, Michigan, writing, and he says,

Thanks for your faithful service at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

A few years ago, Southern Baptists debated and approved a name change for their denomination.

That name, Great Commission Baptists, didn't seem to take.

What are we to make of that?

That's news to me, I haven't heard of that.

Dr. Haken, can you explain?

Well, thank you, David, and guess what, David?

You've also won a free copy of The Baptist Story, From English Sect to Global Movement.

Right now, we just have your city and state, if you could send us your full mailing address, we'll get that out to you

as soon as possible, God willing.

And we have Tyler from Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York,

who asks, Do you think many modern evangelical Baptists don't look

into their rich Calvinistic history, particularly the 1689

London Confession?

Well, my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor can tell you that that's true, because you have told me

on many occasions, Reverend Buzz, that when you were a Baptist pastor, you knew very little about Baptist history.

And when I speak with Baptists about Calvinistic theology, I use

the 1689 Confession to show them the roots there.

Even though you're a Presbyterian, you obviously know that that's nearly identical to the West.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I've read it.

As a Presbyterian, I've read your confession.

And if you could, Dr. Haken, comment?

Yeah, I think

that's true,

as I indicated.

Now, the thing that's true...

I think it's a

burden

that

a

lot of...

Well, I came to Christ in a...

Actually, it was a GARB church.

And of course, like I said, my first pastor, it was an independent fundamentalist Baptist

church.

The General Association of Regular Baptists.

Right.

And of course, my church was an independent Baptist church.

We were totally alone.

Well, some of my other fundamentalist Baptist friends call it the GARB, the Grand Army of Rebelling Baptists.

Yes, yes, and brag backwards and all that.

But when my pastors in the past went to define what Baptists were,

they tried to define it more theologically than historically.

And they would use...

Like, you know, I remember one in particular that was an acrostic on the word Baptist, but you never really got into

the history of it.

Well, the thing that amazes me, though, Dr. Haken, is that, especially with a denomination like the

Southern Baptist Convention, you have such a rich history of Calvinism

that is easily proven.

And these leaders, many of whom are vehemently opposed to

the doctrines of grace or Calvinism, are not dummies.

They're very intelligent men.

It just seems to me amazing that they could not easily discover that this is the truth

about the heritage of their own denomination.

And the other argument...

They're

long

subverted

during the

Great

Awakening

in the

18th

century.

And

now the argument,

in fact,

of the

18th century is it's

different

from what he represented.

And I think you start to find that in the

United States, dies in 1928.

But by the time that he dies, you're starting to find a much more different mode of thinking about Christianity, which

is not as amenable to the Calvinism.

But the reality is that our roots as English -speaking Baptists are in.

Calvinistic...

The soil of Calvinism.

Mm -hmm.

Oh, okay.

...who aren't Calvinistic, that then becomes a problem,

because their forebears don't align with where they're at.

And the thing that I have found in discussing the doctrines of grace in

regard to the Baptist history, when I

have these discussions with Baptists that are either not committed

very much to either side of the coin, or at least that's what they would say, or they're

vehemently anti -Calvinist, it seems to me that very often what comes up

is that they...

The reason why they think that most of their Baptist heroes were

not Calvinist is because they assume, if you are a Calvinist, you have no passion to

evangelize the lost, and you don't really believe God uses means such as the

preaching of the gospel and evangelizing to save people.

So you have people saying, well, obviously Spurgeon wasn't a Calvinist, because look at the passion that he had

in calling men to repentance and salvation and so on.

Do you think that this has a lot to do with the reason why our modern -day non -Calvinist Baptists

cannot believe that their heroes, many of them, if not most or all of them, were Calvinist?

Mm -hmm. Yes.

Right.

And of course there are people that sadly live up to the stereotype that aren't Calvinist that...

Yeah, they do.

I mean, like if you were

Baptist in the

Appalachians, you know, like the

Netherlands are formed.

Yes, right.

The charge in America today is really false.

Yeah, because most of the time the term, the pejorative term is being used against

anyone who is a Calvinist of any kind.

Yep.

If you really believe it, yeah.

And the irony is that there are many Armenians or non

-Calvinists who live exactly like hyper -Calvinists in regard to their lack of

zeal or passion to evangelize.

They're just lazy or they're frightened or embarrassed and do not want to make a

spectacle of themselves by evangelizing or, you

know, having arguments or debates with their family friends and loved ones over 4th of July barbecues.

They would rather, you know, be liked than see their loved ones saved.

But that is something that is a universal sin amongst people of many different

theological backgrounds.

We do have, I believe she may be a first -time, at least, questioner.

I don't know if she's a first -time listener.

We have Nancy in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

Do you think conservativism is not enough to

stern the tide of liberalism?

Is there a link in history within the Southern Baptist Convention with the strength of

Calvinistic teaching and some compromise when sound doctrine is held

not to matter or Arminianism is equal?

Since Albert Moeller, some strange things have happened.

Muslims entering seminary without conversion, easy believism tactics,

questions may have just been answered but wondering if history of Southern

Baptists verify this.

I don't know if you can make out the intent of that question.

It sounds like there's not.

There

needs

to

be

more into

the seminary.

Two years ago, and

Southern itself,

definitely

the Spirit of

God's

been at work.

We desperately need the presence and blessing of the Father.

Amen.

Well, thank you very much for writing, Nancy.

And although we have run out of copies to give away of the Baptist story,

providentially, Crossway has sent us copies of another book that we are sending you a free copy

of for writing in today, Eight Women of Faith that has been co -authored by our guest,

Michael Haken.

So we hope that you enjoy Eight Women of Faith.

But I also need your full mailing address, Nancy, because the only thing that I have here is Chippewa Falls,

Wisconsin.

We're going to another break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Michael Haken, our email address is

chrisarnson at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

Don't go away.

We are coming right back, God willing.

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do

than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostle's priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our and to be

vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and

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You can call us at 508 -528 -5750.

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Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled,

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Dr. Michael

Haken.

And today we are primarily addressing his book, The Baptist Story.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email

address here is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

If you live outside of the USA.

Before we go into something that I wanted you to address, because it seemed to stir up a lot of fascination

with our fellow Calvinistic Baptists on the internet, the issue regarding

antinomianism, which you discovered new things in regard to

that heresy in Baptist history or in church history

while you were studying Andrew Fuller in greater depth.

Before we go into that, I wanted to find out from you, what is the first church that you are

aware of that actually officially, by name, identified itself as a Baptist?

And where do you actually trace what is called this movement known as the Baptists?

If you can't, as a landmarker, trace it back to John the Baptist, where do you trace it to?

They

needed

to

separate in

London

where...

Did you say Spiddlefields?

Spiddlefields, yeah.

Yes, so our origins are in Spiddle.

And did they actually use the term Baptist as a way of identifying their church

name?

No, they weren't

Baptists.

It was in 1638.

They did not use the

term

Baptist.

It would be interesting to know if it starts to be used positively.

Hmm.

I had a very comic experience years ago as a

person who has been involved in radio for 30 years, approximately, and Christian radio for most of it.

I was at a meeting of pastors who were from independent fundamentalist Baptist

background, and they were all cooperating on a program

that I had sold to them, being a salesman for the Christian network I worked for.

And this program was one where all of these independent fundamentalist Baptists

were taking turns hosting the program and helping to pay for it.

And they were having a meeting to set the ground rules, and they had a big disagreement if they should

allow Bible church pastors to participate.

They were wondering if this was appropriate and if they had to make an

insistence upon the word Baptist being used in the title of the church.

And one of the men who was adamant that a pastor must call his church a Baptist

church said, it's time for us to stop arguing about all this

nonsense and just stick to what the Bible says.

And everybody just fell silent there, and where in the Bible does it say we have to call ourselves Baptist?

But anyway, and I hope that pastor is not

listening right now as we laugh at his comment.

But now, just recently, you on the internet

were saying you were fascinated by some discoveries or a discovery about

antinomianism in Baptist history that surfaced while I believe you were doing

some more research on Andrew Fuller.

And before we even go into that specific discovery, if you could define antinomianism, I know it

means against law is what the word actually literally means, but it has

taken on different forms of usage throughout the centuries.

And some, as we were saying before the program, some of our brethren, even many from

my own Reformed Baptist background, I think, misapply it

and perhaps even border, if not crossing the border of slander when they apply that to, for

instance, New Covenant Baptists who believe that the Decalogue has been fulfilled in Christ and so on,

so they have been labeled against the law, antinomian.

But what does that word actually mean?

And is that a misapplication of the term?

Yeah,

it's

a misapplication, which

is

that the

Old Testament law

states that

they believe that the New Covenant contains salvation.

They strongly believe in what is known as lordship salvation, that repentance is necessary and so on.

Exactly.

It really is a misapplication.

It's

usually yoked

out.

When, if

you argue that

position,

then you

can see

that

you could

easily argue what is a genuinely antinomian position afterwards.

Sin.

It

was

reputed

that

he

said, he'd be

violating the law of God, that he

refused to answer.

And there's an

eternity

past,

genuine

antinomianism.

Hyper -Calvinism.

Well, I guess those that would be in the easy -believism camp and the

cheap -grace camp who will say, hey, if you go up to that aisle and recite

that prayer, you're in.

And as a Roman Catholic friend of mine, Bob Posh used to say during

arguments with me, because he would always broad brush me with all other Protestants on the

face of the earth, and he would say, yeah, you believe that you could go up and just say a prayer, like a

magic spell, and then you could look up to heaven and say, you're stuck with me now, God, there's nothing you can do about it.

And I would tell him, obviously, I don't believe that at all.

And that Reformed Baptists are very strongly adhere

to the concept of lordship salvation, that repentance is a necessary aspect.

Right.

But other than that, obviously, but you know, there was, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Probably.

Right.

Yeah, and that would be predominantly non -Calvinists doing that.

Yes, yes.

Now, just to do a little bit of damage control, when we were bringing up Hyper

-Calvinism before and applying it to Primitive Baptists, I do know that they are not necessarily

monolithic, and there are some that actually adhere to the 1689 Confession.

I know that a number of years ago, my friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries actually

was invited to preach at a conference at a Primitive Baptist church.

So they're not all uniform, but I do know what you're speaking of, because I've heard a

debate with a Reformed Baptist and a Primitive Baptist, where basically

any use of means, preaching of the gospel, or handing out a tract, or

any use of means that a person, a Christian believes God

utilizes to bring about the salvation of a lost sinner, they view that as a false

gospel.

That they would say that they almost equate election with regeneration.

It's just a very bizarre thing that the preaching of the gospel only comforts the sheep, it doesn't really bring about

the rebirth.

God doesn't use it to bring the rebirth of the lost.

But obviously, as you were agreeing, that there are some who are Orthodox.

Yes.

Now, the issue of hyper -Calvinism, so just so

we are more clear to our listeners who don't even know what we're talking about, that is a part of it.

But obviously, that is an opposite extreme to some of the hyper

-Calvinists from the Netherlands.

Because you have on one side, you have hyper -Calvinists who are Primitive Baptist and other types of

Calvinists, who have a wider view of who

the elect are.

The gate to heaven is a much wider gate.

But then you have those from the Netherlands and other places who have a much, much tinier view of

who the elect are.

And I have heard that in some of the Netherlands Reformed congregations, you could have enormous congregations

of over a thousand people.

And then when they have the Lord's Supper, only a tiny handful of people partake of it because they're the

only ones who think that they're the elect.

So those are two extreme opposite ends of the same problem, aren't they?

Native language was William

Huntington.

People like Fuller had to fight.

And of course, those of you who may be scratching their head, because they have a book written by a friend of

mine, Dr. Joel Beakey, and they'll see in the book, hey, wait a minute, Dr. Joel Beakey is from the Netherlands Reformed Church.

Well, he actually left that denomination when that was one of the primary reasons he left.

It.

And he and other like -minded brethren who left that group formed a different

denomination.

So you can, you know, do not, please do not, those of you listening, please do not associate Dr.

Beakey with hyper -Calvinism because he is not at all a hyper -Calvinist.

I'm going back to something that you had mentioned during the very first part of the

program today, identifying the Southern Baptist Convention and Baptists in any

way, shape, or form as a part of a denomination.

But there are Baptists who militate against the use of that term.

In fact, I am a part of a group of Reformed Baptists who

belong to ARBCA, the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches

of America, and they would say this is not a denomination, it is a fellowship of churches.

And then you have other groups that are similar, that are fellowships and not denominations.

Do you believe that that is a realistic distinction, or what's your opinion on that?

You know,

when you're

dealing

with, which means

you're

not talking,

you're

more

spreading to know people in these churches.

I mean, one of

the things

that, part of the genius of the SPC

has been

the, you know,

the use of

association, but

the associations of churches

where

you have maybe, yeah,

it's, part of the

New Testament, you know, denomination,

even in view of the New Testament.

Now, yeah, well, I think the primary distinction between an association or a fellowship and a denomination

is that, am I correct in saying that Baptists historically do not believe there is

anyone who has authority over the local congregation other than Christ?

So the only men that have authority over that specific congregation are the

elders of that congregation.

Yes, denomination.

Basically only,

but

even the

rule of

denomination.

But it does help though, when you think about chaplaincy quotas and missions.

The denomination is identified by a significant amount of...

I'm sorry, what were you saying, Bob?

Well, when you think about chaplaincy quotas and missions...

Chaplaincy quotas.

Right, you know, a lone church isn't going to get too many people into the, like, for example, chaplaincy and things like that.

I've heard that associations help in those areas.

Right, right.

But it's interesting that, and perhaps Buzz even knows of this as a Presbyterian, I do know

Presbyterians who though, in theory, agree with the denominational

aspect of Presbyterianism, they have yet to find a Presbyterian denomination

that they as a congregation want to join.

So they remain as independent.

Having a plurality of elders, just like a Reformed Baptist congregation would, but not having

a Presbytery outside of the local group.

And it's interesting, do you know much of the...

I have developed some friendships with the Free Presbyterian Church who seem to combine

Baptist views of the ordinances with the Presbyterian view of polity and ecclesiology,

although they would leave it up to the

convictions of individual pastors as to whether or not to baptize infants.

Do you know much about the Free Presbyterian denomination?

Is that a question to me?

Yes, yes, I'm sorry.

Of North America, of Free Presbyterian Church of North America, also known as the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster.

Good friends in that body.

Yes, in fact, Reverend Buzz...

Yes.

Infant baptism as well as believer's baptism.

Yes, yes.

And from what I understand from my friends in that group, if you are a member

of a Free Presbyterian Church and want your baby to be baptized, if the pastor is

Baptistic, he must allow another Free Presbyterian Church with Pato

Baptist convictions to perform the ordinance.

Yeah.

Right.

But he is not compelled to do it himself if he doesn't believe in it, which obviously would be ridiculous for a

man to be doing something he didn't believe in.

But we're going to our final break right now.

We do have a couple of people waiting with their questions that we hope to get to, and we will

attempt to get to after the break as soon as possible.

And if you'd like to join them while there is still time, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail

.com.

Don't go away.

We're coming right back after these messages with Dr. Michael Hagen and the Baptist

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you've just tuned us in, our guest for the last 90 minutes and for the next half hour to come

has been Dr. Michael Haken.

Dr. Michael Haken, who is no stranger to the majority of Calvinistic Baptists, I think, in the

United States.

We are discussing, for the most part, the Baptist story from English sect to global movement.

If you'd like to join us while there's still time, our email address for questions is chrisarnzen at gmail

.com.

We have B .B. in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania,

who wants to know, can you summarize the difference between the First and Second London Baptist

Confession?

And I'm sorry if the question is too deep to provide a short answer.

I think it was

Gary Long, but

essentially,

and here I would

differ.

It seems that a lot of New Covenant Calvinists prefer the First, because the First

doesn't explicitly involve the law, or at least in their opinion, it doesn't.

Yeah.

They used the Savoy as well, right?

The Savoy Declaration?

They used the Savoy,

the

Congregationalist

document

from 1658 as well

there.

Yeah, I've heard that because some of

the men involved in the drafting of the First London Confession would have later adopted

the Second, that the idea that it was intentionally

not a Covenantal Confession doesn't hold water, but I wouldn't be able to answer that not knowing the

hard facts about that.

Yeah, in 1644, William

Kiffin, he signs the Answer of

Knowles, but

neither Knowles.

Confession is a

question that needs

to be answered.

Well, thank you very much, B .B., and you're also getting a copy of Eight Women of Faith.

I don't know if you're a woman, B .B., because you may be named after B .B. Warfield, for all I know, but

either you're a woman who's going to be blessed by this as a woman, or you're going to be a man who is blessed by this and

repents of male chauvinism, one or the other, and we just need your

full mailing address to send that book out to you by Dr. Hagen.

And of course, it seems to be the consensus that the reason those

Baptists in the 17th century nearly, and I say this tongue -in -cheek,

plagiarized the Westminster, it was not because they were actually plagiarizing it, it was because they wanted to show

unanimity with them.

They wanted to say, hey folks, we're not a cult, we agree with you on most everything except for

these unique distinctives of the Baptist.

People.

Am I

right on that?

When I had

spent a

lot

of time

with my

New

Covenant

brethren.

By attending the John Bunyan Conference annually for many years in my early

part of my Christian walk, my late wife's pastor would accompany me to

that conference, who is a New Covenant Calvinist, I noticed that

there was a division among them on confessionalism to begin with.

There were some who heartily endorsed the First London Baptist Confession, and

there were some who were vehemently opposed to confessionalism to begin with.

And it was interesting that a man who has become a dear friend, Dr. John

Thornberry, preached there one year on the validity and

power of confessionalism, and he stood on the side that

confessions are very strongly useful and beneficial, that the pluses outweigh the

minuses, and that everybody really is a confessionalist.

The issue is, do you write it down or not?

Like, for instance, he had brought up that the American Baptist Association said that we, as the

history of our people, is that we do not believe in confessions and creeds outside of the Bible, and Dr.

Thornberry, who was once a part of that denomination, the American Baptist Association, reminded him that that was a

confessional statement.

And I actually brought up the same thing, taking Dr. Thornberry's

comment.

I was at a gathering of Church of Christ brethren,

Restorationists, Campbellites, however you want to phrase it, and they were bringing up the same thing, and I pointed out to them that they

were indeed very confessional and just didn't want to admit it, or they didn't recognize it.

But how much a part of confessionalism is a part of Baptist history?

...17th and 18th

century,

expected

every

summary

of the

principles...

Yes.

...wanting to affirm...

Yeah, there is really no escaping it in regard to confessionalism, because even if you were to

say, if you take an extreme liberal example, and I don't know of any church that

exists that says this, but they probably do somewhere.

If you were to say, if you join our church, you could believe anything that you want to.

Well, even that is a confessional statement.

But I guess where they become a danger, just like anything else that is good, it can be twisted

and misused, if you elevate it to being on par

with the scripture and view it as inerrant, and also, if you cease being a

Berean and just accept something because it's in the confession that was handed down to you, I guess that would be

the area of sin where they become dangerous, but it's not necessarily a danger innate to

the confession, it's to the person who's misusing it,.

Right?

Yeah, agreed.

And what do you think of those churches?

Are they truly confessional churches that modify, like the 1689?

I know a number of men who do.

In fact, most Reformed Baptists have removed the aspect of

the papacy being Antichrist or the Pope being Antichrist.

They have removed that from the 1689, and I know a

handful who have not, who agree with that eschatological view.

But you have also the Presbyterians who have done the same with the Westminster, but what is your what is your make of

that?

...pointed them,

and he would always give

it.

You never, you

never find, I've never come across one example of...

Does the Philadelphia confession have the marriage area in that?

My, my...

Oh,

okay.

Yes, which is amazing that we do have to do that.

Many of, and

in their

case,

they

were... and

so in

that sense,

everybody in

the culture...

Mm -hmm.

Right.

And it's a shame, though, that obviously people have totally abandoned their confessions

that were good, even though they may on paper in some official capacity

state that they adhere to them.

Like the Church of England, for instance, there are very few congregations in the Church of England, or

comparatively few, that actually hold to the articles these days, even though I think that that is still a

part of the official...

Well, officially, yeah, I

know.

I mean, certainly, technically, they should.

And that would be both the Oxford movement, which is very Romish, although

conservative and traditionalist on one side, and then you have the liberals on the other.

Both would reject it, because it's truly a Protestant, it's clearly a Protestant and Calvinist...

Oh, yeah.

It's an

evangelical

angle

that dealt with, you know,

bishop...

Well, you know, interestingly enough, though, Dr. Haken, the area on baptism, it actually...

it doesn't say anything about babies.

It says that we should not forbid children from being baptized, so...

They may have intended infants when they wrote it, but it doesn't say infants, it says children.

So take that, Buzz.

Yeah.

I want to make sure... well, let me go to one more question.

Our friend Tyler from Mastic Beach has returned with a question, and he

says, I'm an online student with Midwestern Baptist Seminary and

chose it for its more Calvinistic leaning.

Besides Dr. Mohler and Jason A. Allen, are there any other

outspoken Reformed leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention?

Well, we're talking of one, Tyler!

What do you mean?

There's Dr. Michael Haken, but anyway, do you have any others?

Dr. Haken, do you have any others you could list?

I'm not sure.

Okay.

And he was appointed within the last year.

Oh, there's another one that is a very good friend of mine.

I don't know how well -known he is, but he's growing in his public

awareness, or awareness by the public.

Dr. Eric C. Redmond, or Eric C. Redmond, I'm not sure if he has a doctorate yet, but he

is a friend of mine.

Yeah, and he was actually the second vice president at one time of the Southern Baptist.

Convention, and an African

American.

Southern

Union

University.

By the way, I wanted to give a shout -out to one of our listeners who won a book earlier.

He included in his address that he is a part of the Bay Area Baptist Association of Michigan.

So, I just wanted to give a shout -out to those folks, whoever you are, and I'm glad that a

representative of your organization has joined us on the air for the discussion today.

I want to make sure that before we run out of time, Dr. Haken, that you do bring up

things from the Baptist story that we have neglected to discuss, that you have time in

summary fashion to address, because we have about eight minutes left, if you want to

bring up anything that I may have overlooked.

I want you to really leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and

minds before we leave the program.

Today.

And

then,

it's

such

an

area,

and

it's

humbling,

because

it helps us,

we're

thinking.

And doing as biblical as we sometimes think it is.

Yeah, and of course, on the other side of the coin, don't we have to be very

careful about the battle cry or the pillar of

reformational thinking, Semper Reformata?

The church is always to be reformed, although that may be true, we have to be careful with it,

because people use that as an excuse to adopt all kinds of

reprehensible and unnatural and wicked and damnable

beliefs, like the Christianizing.

Of homosexuality and other things.

And our

confession again and again.

Amen.

Well, Dr.

Haken, what do you have in the pipeline going on that our listeners should know about, new projects.

You're

writing on, and

so on?

The main thing I'm

doing, which is

easy believism,

died

at the

age of 30.

Well,

praise God for that.

Well, we look forward to having you back to address those.

Topics, and often, and you always have an open door here on Iron Trip and Zion,

as long as God permits, and you are enjoying yourself with us, we'd love to have you

back.

I'd love to do that.

And I want to let our listeners know that tomorrow we have, God willing, Dr. George Grant joining us for the very first

time on Iron Trip and Zion, and Jason Wallace returns, the Orthodox Presbyterian

pastor from Salt Lake City on Thursday, and then on Friday we have Doug Van Dorn

speaking about covenant theology within the Baptist faith, so we hope that you join us

for those programs as well.

And next Monday, on July 11th, God willing, Rosaria Butterfield, you

gotta mark your calendars for her interview, fascinating woman, ultra -leftist college

professor, who was a lesbian and transformed by the grace of God and

saved by his precious blood, is now a conservative Reformed Christian married to a

Presbyterian pastor, and she is going to be on our program Monday, God willing,

to discuss her testimony.

You don't want to miss that at all, and especially let your family, friends, and loved ones who may have a liberal

leaning, you've got to have them listen to that program.

Well, Dr. Haken, we look forward to having you back on the program.

I want to thank my co -host, Rev. Buzz Taylor, for once again sitting in with me

today, and I just hope that you all always remember for the rest of

your lives, in the words of the Puritan Christopher Love, that Jesus Christ is a

far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

God bless, we look forward to hearing from you and your questions tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.