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

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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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.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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Michael Haken, and he is Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality and Director of the

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

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

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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.

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Michael Haken. It's great to be here, thank you. And in studio, my very frequent co -host, the

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

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Dr. Haken, it's so good to be on with you, thank you. Good to be with you as well. And today is one of those moments that I relish in because the

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Baptists outnumber the baby sprinklers today. We have two Baptists to one baby sprinkler.

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Well, we have days like yesterday, though, where we outnumbered you, so. Yes, yesterday we had the honor of having my dear friend,

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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.

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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

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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

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Dr. Al Mohler, who God used to bring great transformation to that institution.

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If you could tell us something about the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Yes, it's the oldest of the

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Southern Baptist seminaries. It was founded in 1859 by four brothers in the faith.

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Shut down briefly during the Civil War years, but then was reinvigorated. Originally was from, was founded in South Carolina and then moved to Kentucky in the 1870s.

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One of the oldest Ph .D. programs in the country, really a remarkable story.

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By the 60s and 70s, it was running into heavy water because many of the faculty theologically were adrift in terms of the faith, and then part of the conservative resurgence that took place in the

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Southern Baptist denomination in the 1980s and 1990s involved the recovery of the school.

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Dr. Mohler, as you mentioned, going there in 1993, the youngest president ever in a Southern Baptist seminary.

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He was 33 at the time, and God has done a remarkable work of transformation through his ministry, a tremendous leader of vision, courage.

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When he went there, the school had about 1 ,200 students. We now have over 5 ,000, and it really is one of those moments in the history of the church when

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God really has bared his arm, shown his strength, and blessed his people. If the

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Lord tarries 100 years from now, you'll look back at these days and see that there really is something remarkable going on.

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It's just a tremendous campus, and faculty -wise, in some ways, is comparable to the old

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Princeton of the 19th century. It's such a blessing. Two of the founders of Southern, Basil Manly and James Pettigrew Boyce, both studied at the old

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Princeton, and were deeply shaped by it, especially in terms of the sovereignty of God's grace, etc.

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So it's a great heritage. In the history of the school that Dr. Greg Wills, one of my colleagues in the

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Church History faculty, wrote and published in 2009 for the sesquicentennial of the school, he concluded the account by saying that the vision that James Pettigrew Boyce, who was the first president of the school, had for the school has been realized afresh in Dr.

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Mohler. It's tremendous to realize that where we stand theologically is where those first men stood, and that we've gone back to those, to use a

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Biblical phrase, those old paths, that have been such a blessing to God's people. Yes, and I have interviewed several of the faculty members at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, not only you, but Dr. Mohler himself. I 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,

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Dr. Thomas Nettles on many times, and other brethren as well, and in fact,

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I did a program on the biography of J. Pettigrew Boyce, so I thoroughly enjoyed that and know something about him.

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And you are director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. Andrew Fuller has been claimed as a hero by both

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

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Baptist friends insist that he was not a Calvinist, and some of our even, perhaps, more strongly sectarian

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Calvinistic Baptists say that he was not a Calvinist. Tell us something about Andrew Fuller.

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Yeah, Andrew Fuller is one of those men that we find frequently in Baptist history.

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No formal theological education, you know, others you think of like Bunyan, Carey, Spurgeon, and obviously

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I've spent my entire life in formal theological education, so I'm not using that as a recommendation of not to have that, but it does speak of God's freedom of raising up men, self -taught.

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He's certainly the most important Baptist theologian in the latter half of the 18th century. His rebuttal of major theological eras of his day,

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Deism, Sassinianism, Sandemanianism, which is really what we call easy -believism, responses to Arminianism, Antinomianism, are very, very important.

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Probably the reason why non -Calvinistic Baptists like him is because of his deep involvement in the beginning of the modern missionary movement.

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He's a very close friend of William Carey, and without Fuller, Carey would probably never have gone to India.

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And Fuller is the kind of theological support and foundation behind Carey. And Fuller had a deep, deep abiding passion for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

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Very, very attractive figure. He was a leader who was able to build winsome friendships, not only with other fellow

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Baptists, but across the board with Anglicans like John Newton, William Wilberforce.

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People like Thomas Chalmers, the Presbyterian theologian in Scotland, regarded him as one of the most preeminent theologians of his day.

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Archibald Alexander, in a review of his work in the publication of Princeton in the 1840s, couldn't say enough good things about Fuller.

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So he was really a very, very important theologian. His theological position dominated

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Baptist circles in the 19th century, on both sides of the Atlantic. The formation of Baptist missions in America, the

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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.

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And so there's much that is very, very likable about Fuller, and important about Fuller.

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Now would you say that's—I'm sorry, go ahead. Fuller had recently emphasized that Fuller may well be one of the most important theologians in the 18th century because of his solid support of the beginning of the modern missionary movement, which basically has led to the globalization of Christianity.

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

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Yes. Although he didn't write anywhere close to the sort of things—the amount of stuff that Fuller wrote in terms of Calvinism.

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Carey's great strength was languages, and thus he was involved in the translation of the

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Bible into a multitude of work. One of the big things that really is outstanding need is for somebody to do a solid study of William Carey as a

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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—

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Just on him. Yes, right. Yes, Dr. Nettles has obviously done that work, but just a solid discussion of, you know, the five points of Calvinism, so -called, that, you know, where does

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Carey stand on those? And, I mean, I've got no doubt people would find that he's a solid

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Calvinist, but it's never been done. There really is nothing out there. Reverend Buzz wants us to ask a tailor—

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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, so you can just hold on for a second.

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Oh, okay, I'll try. Is one of the reasons that some, maybe perhaps more sectarian

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Calvinists, Baptists, have a problem with Fuller's Calvinism is because of the way he explained definite atonement and the sufficiency of the atonement?

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Yes, I mean, Fuller essentially falls into that line of thought coming down from the

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Senate of Dort, that Christ's death is sufficient for all, but efficacious for the elect.

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But he does adopt a governmental view of the atonement, never to the exclusion of penal substitutionary atonement.

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He's influenced by people like Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, the so -called New Divinity Man, who come behind Jonathan Edwards.

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And where they pretty well dispense with penal substitutionary atonement,

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Fuller never does. But he does use a fair amount of governmental language, which

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I think is problematic, because the biblical support for it is very, very slim, if it's there at all.

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Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's one reason why there is criticism of Fuller.

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Yeah. Well, Reverend Buzzard. 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

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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?

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Yeah, in terms of groups that have done that, I think there's a Lutheran group.

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Is it the Missouri Synod? Yeah. I think what's critical in the recovery of the

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Gospel in the broad stream of Southern Baptist life was the fact that the rank -and -file, so to call, the laity within Baptist churches were still fairly conservative.

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And so when the conservative resurgence began, the leadership were able to rally those people because when they had the annual conventions, the way that the

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Southern Baptist Convention is structured, very simplistically, is that the president appoints a committee called the

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Committee on Committees, and the Committee on Committees, the membership, they appoint the various boards.

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So the boards of the seminaries, the boards of the North American Mission Board, the

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International Mission Board, etc. And so the realization by a number of leaders like Paul Pressler, who was a judge in Texas, Circuit Judge Paige Patterson, who is now the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, was that if they were able to elect a conservative president for probably about a dozen years running, they would eventually be able to turn around the membership of the

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Committee on Committees and begin to turn around the membership of the various boards. And so for about a dozen to maybe 15 years, they were able to...

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tremendous grassroots rallying of bringing out people from churches, which often would not have sent their full complement of delegates to the annual conventions.

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And so you were getting conventions in the 1980s and 1990s where you might have 14 ,000, 15 ,000 delegates, voting delegates, which normally you've got about 8 ,000 to 9 ,000.

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And generally speaking, conservatives tend not to be politically active within bureaucracies of denominations, and the

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Southern Baptists were no exception. Except for this period of time in which these large numbers came out, voted in a conservative president in...it

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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

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

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And that's what led to Dr. Mohler's being voted on, become the president in 1993.

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The faculty was 95 % or more against him.

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Wow. And they had a vote of non -confidence when he came, and basically it was like 95 to 5 or something like that.

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95 % basically voted against him. At his first faculty meeting when he gave his address as to where the school will be heading, only two men came up to shake his hand and thank

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God that he had come there. Wow. The rest were, to various degrees, opposed to him.

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But the board was fully behind him. The board was a conservative board. And so because the seminaries are owned by the convention, they could then control the seminary through the board.

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And I think that's the best way for it. I think seminaries need to be controlled by denominations. If the denomination goes, then the seminary is probably going to go too.

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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.

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Yeah, yeah. And I think you see that happening down through the 20th century.

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There's no surefire method. But in this case, God used it for great blessing.

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Wonderful. And you also mentioned there Adrian Rogers. So there was obviously another transformation in regard to the doctrines of sovereign grace because the late

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Adrian Rogers, although a Calvinist now in glory, I'm sure, he was not a fan of the doctrines of Reformed theology or Calvinism at all.

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Am I correct? Yes, that's my understanding. And you still have a large constituency within the

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SBC who would be leery of Calvinism. Yeah, that would be the majority, wouldn't it? That's a very good question.

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The evidence is that probably easily 30 to 40 percent of the men under 35 in the

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SBC pastorate would identify themselves as Calvinistic. Wow. Yeah, and I know that one of the reasons we have what is called the

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Founders Ministries, the Founders Conference, a group of sovereign grace -believing

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Southern Baptists, the reason why they call it the Founders is because all of the Founders were Calvinists, weren't they, in the 1800s?

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Yeah, pretty well. I mean, there might have been a few, but essentially up until probably around 1900 with the death of the first wave of leadership, by the time that the

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SBC is founded in 1845, within two generations you're starting to get adrift.

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But all those founding men would have been Calvinistic. And the

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Founders Movement had about, I think, about 1 ,000 pastors on their role.

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The numbers now, if they did it, would be much larger. I mean, we're graduating at Southern.

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Not everybody would be a Calvinist, but Southern is largely known as theologically in that position.

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We're graduating anywhere between 400 to 500 men with MDivs every year.

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You just have to do the arithmetic. If most of those men get pastorates, you're looking at a significant number.

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Yeah. Well, praise God for that. And let me give our e -mail address to those listening who would like to join us on the air with a question of your own.

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Our e -mail address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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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

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USA. And as I mentioned earlier, one of the primary focuses that we have today is the book,

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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.

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The question is, can we trace the

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Baptists all the way back to John the Baptist in the Bible? And there is, as you know,

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Dr. Hagen, by the way, it's Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania. I'm sorry, Susan. That was

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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.

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Landmark Baptists is what they're typically known as, but if you could comment on that. Yeah, that was a position that really emerges in terms of thinking about Baptist history in the 19th century.

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One of the most intense areas of debate among Baptist historians, I'm not sure it really finds much echo, a tremendous echo outside of those circles, but certainly people are aware of it, obviously, by this question, is what are the roots of Baptists?

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And one 19th century position is reflected in that question, which is that Baptists can trace their descent all the way back to the

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New Testament, John the Baptist, for example, and that therefore Baptists really are not

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Protestants. They don't emerge out of the Protestant Reformation. They're an independent stream. From a historical standpoint, if you're approaching that question as a historian, there's just no way to sustain that Baptist churches can be traced organically all the way back to the

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New Testament. There's just no evidence for it. The position itself,

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I think, is driven by, first of all, a theological perspective, which is an understanding of Jesus' words in Matthew 16, where he says he will build his church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

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And the understanding there is the word church. What is church? And in the landmark circles, church is understood there to be a local church.

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And they deny the reality of the universal church. And therefore, if you adopt that position theologically, therefore if Christ's statement is to be seen as true, he has to have a local church, a faithful local church in every generation, and therefore theoretically it should be possible to trace a line of descent.

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I think that's one of the few instances in the New Testament. The others would be found largely in Ephesians and Colossians where the word church has a universal element to it.

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And so that passage need not drive the interpretation of historical evidence.

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The reality is that once you get beyond the Reformation, until you get to the early church era, the

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Patristic period, definitely before Constantine and definitely before Augustine, it's very difficult to find anything that approximates the sort of Baptist congregations that start to emerge either in the

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Reformation period, if you argue for Anabaptist roots, or either in the 17th century with the

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Baptists themselves in England. There are various groups that immerse adults or baptize adults only.

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There are groups that stand apart from the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval period. But baptizing adults and not being part of the

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Roman Church doesn't make you a Baptist. Right, and it's ironic that some of the very, very sectarian and isolationist fundamentalist

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Baptists would claim the Anabaptists as a part of their lineage, and yet they would probably never let an

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Anabaptist join their churches today. Because of some of the other things that they believed. And then definitely when you get into the medieval period, you're looking at various groups that are claimed to be

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Baptists, like, you know, the Waldensians. They didn't—clear historical evidence now that they did not baptize believers only.

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Other groups, like the Qasari and the Politians, are just outbound heretics. So this was a group—this was not a monolithic group, the

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Anabaptists. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but they all have in common the nickname re -baptizer

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Anabaptists, because they believed, for the most part, in adult or believer baptism.

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And some of them even did it by effusion and not by immersion, correct? Yeah, very—actually, the

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Anabaptists, that's again another interesting argument. The Anabaptists, very few of them baptized by immersion. Most of them baptized by effusion, by pouring.

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Hans Denck, a Swiss Anabaptist, would actually dip his finger in water and then make the sign of the cross on your forehead, and that was baptism.

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

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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

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I've been to a christening, as they call it. Oh, by the way,

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Susan, you have won a free copy of The Baptist Story from English Sect to Global Movement.

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

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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.

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And we also, obviously, have to thank B &H, Broadman & Holdman, Academic Press, for giving those to us to send out today.

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

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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

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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

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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

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Baptist couldn't rightly say, we can trace ourselves all the way back to the Bible? Well, that's a big question, probably in the midst of a number of different types of answers.

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On one level, Baptists, in terms of our ecclesiological distinctives, we're operating on a level of what we call secondary truth issues, and the position that we take on believers' baptism, the position we take on the nature of the

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Church, its relationship to the state, etc., etc., etc., those are secondary issues.

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They're not primary issues of salvation. And it's very evident,

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I think, from a reading of Church history, that God... Obviously, all truth is important.

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I don't like the term essential and non -essential truth.

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All truth is important. But some truths have a priority. And during the...

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If you look at the history of the Church, you find that there are periods in which you find very little

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Baptist witness, per se, but nonetheless, God's at work, in terms of primary truths being declared and held, etc.

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And there have been times, and I'm not certain if landmarkers make this mistake,

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I think some of them might, is where they confuse primary issues with secondary issues.

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And ultimately, and this is why I think somebody like Andrew Fuller is very helpful, ultimately, the big task that we have before us is to share the

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Gospel and to see men and women reconciled to a holy God and brought into a living faith and part of the

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Kingdom. If we strive, and Fuller makes this emphasis, and I think he's true, if we strive to primarily make men and women

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Baptist, we miss an essential part of our calling, which is to make men and women, by God's grace, to bring them to faith in Christ.

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So are you... Okay, I'm sorry. So I think part of the answer is that God's purposes in extending

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His Kingdom, if you look at the long track to the Middle Ages, it's the recovery of the

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Gospel, the recovery that has to take place. Or you look at the

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Revivals. This is one of the things that, again, Andrew Fuller's period is very helpful, because during the

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Great Awakening, all the key leaders were Paedo -Baptists. Initially, many of the

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Baptist leaders stood aloof from the Revival, even though their churches were desperately in need of Revival.

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And people like John Gill, who I have enormous respect for, he was very critical of the Revival. Because in his mind, if the

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Revival was truly led by the Spirit of God, all these people would leave their state churches and leave their

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Paedo -Baptism and become Baptists. And that wasn't happening. It couldn't be of God.

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And I think the critical point comes when people like Fuller realize, you know, in terms of the recovery of the

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Gospel, the Gospel was recovered by men like Calvin Luther, Cranmer, Tyndale, who were

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Paedo -Baptists. We bless their memory, we recognize from Fuller's point of view that they may not have gone far enough, but we see what

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God had done through them. God was working in them. And what's critical for people like Fuller then is to realize that they need to work alongside of Paedo -Baptists who love the doctrines of grace, etc.,

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etc. So that's one part of the answer. Another part of the answer is, again, that driving the landmark position is this idea of the

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Church. I think that you could probably find people in the Medieval period who may have held to immersion of believers.

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There's not going to be tons of them. But again, also, if to be a

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Christian is to believe the Gospel and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has

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His Church all through the Medieval period, even if there aren't significant numbers of Baptistic believers.

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And so God has been building His Church, why the thousand years, and probably you're looking at, you know, probably the real decline comes in the 700s and runs to about the 1300s before the rise of Wycliffe.

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That's a long period of time, though. Why? Well, providentially, that's the way

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God ordered the history of His Church. And yet there were believers in that period.

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

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

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There are Calvinist Baptists, Free Will Baptists, there are liberal Baptists, there are conservative Bible -believing

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Baptists. But let's just take for the sake of argument that we're talking about Sovereign Grace -believing

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Baptists. Although we believe all of our beliefs and doctrines can be traced and verified in the

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Scriptures, we do not believe, or you are saying, that as a movement, all of these collective

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Biblical views were not present for great lengths of time prior to the 17th century, where you could actually say that these people were

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Baptists in the same way they were after the 17th century. Is that basically what you're saying?

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That over the centuries, some things, just due to the traditions of men being dominant and smothering some things that may have been lost, that are distinctively found among the

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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

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Baptist people throughout the ages. Is that basically what you're saying? Yes. Okay, great.

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And I'm not as dumb as I thought I was. We're going to a break right now.

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If you'd like to join us on the air, we're waiting patiently to have your questions asked and answered on the air.

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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.

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Michael Hagen, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA. Don't go away.

36:17

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40:19

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,

40:33

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,

40:44

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. David in Midland, Michigan, writing, and he says, thanks for your faithful service at the

40:55

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

41:04

That name, Great Commission Baptists, didn't seem to take. What are we to make of that?

41:11

That's news to me. I haven't heard of that. Dr. Haken, can you explain?

41:19

Yeah, I'm not sure of all the ins and outs, politically, why that didn't go. I think some of it had to do with it being somewhat maybe convoluted, and did it, you know, for many

41:34

Southern Baptists, did it kind of retain their links with the past? I think there was a feeling among some, given the roots of the

41:46

Southern Baptists, the Southern Baptist denomination was founded in controversy regarding slavery, and although the

41:56

Southern Baptists have publicly, on a number of occasions since the 1990s, apologized to the

42:04

African American community for their forbearers' involvement in slavery, etc.,

42:10

so I think there were some who felt, you know, that this was a way of kind of retaining the past to rest, but I think,

42:23

I didn't have a vote, I wasn't a delegate at that convention, but I don't think I would have voted for that change.

42:30

I think it's helpful, despite the problems that we sometimes have with our past, to retain those connections, and the

42:41

Southern Baptists have a very rich heritage, and so that name change didn't click, and so the

42:50

Southern Baptist Convention is still a Southern Baptist Convention. Well, thank you, David, and guess what,

42:57

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

43:02

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,

43:09

God willing. And we have Tyler from Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who asks,

43:18

Do you think many modern evangelical Baptists don't look into their rich Calvinistic history, particularly the 1689

43:29

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,

43:37

Reverend Buzz, that when you were a Baptist pastor, you knew very little about Baptist history. Right, and when

43:43

I speak with Baptists about Calvinistic theology, I use the 1689

43:50

Confession to show them the roots there. Even though you're a Presbyterian, you obviously know that that's nearly identical to the

43:57

Western. Oh, yeah, I've read it. As a Presbyterian, I've read your Confession. And if you could,

44:03

Dr. Hagen, comment? Yeah, I think that's true. I think probably more than probably

44:12

Presbyterians. Presbyterians have a long tradition of a learned ministry. Baptists, as I indicated right at the beginning, have had the positive of having men raised up like Andrew Fuller who haven't necessarily had formal theological education.

44:28

The downside of that is that there are significant numbers of Baptist leaders who've never had any formal education.

44:38

And therefore may have had no exposure to who they are in terms of their identity as Baptists.

44:45

Now, the thing that's true— So that's, I think, part of the problem. I think part of the problem also is living in North America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

44:54

We don't live in a society that is enamored with the past.

45:01

We're enamored with the present, the future, the past. You know, it's a burden.

45:09

It's a hindrance. And so history is not a place that a lot of contemporaries go to for wisdom.

45:21

Thankfully, there are significant exceptions to that. But I think in not being grounded in our heritage, we're basically worldly.

45:34

We're being shaped by our culture, not by the Scriptures. Well, I came to Christ in a— actually, it was a

45:40

GARB church. And, of course, like I said, my first pastorate was an independent fundamentalist

45:47

Baptist church. The General Association of Regular Baptists. Right. And, of course, my church was an independent

45:54

Baptist church. We were totally alone. Well, some of my other fundamentalist

46:00

Baptist friends call it the GARB, the Grand Army of Rebelling Baptists. Yes, yes, and brag backwards and all that.

46:06

But when my pastors in the past went to define what

46:11

Baptists were, they tried to define it more theologically than historically. And they would use—

46:17

I remember one in particular that was an acrostic on the word Baptist, but you never really got into the history of it.

46:25

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

46:31

Southern Baptist Convention, you have such a rich history of Calvinism that is easily proven.

46:39

And these leaders, many of whom are vehemently opposed to the doctrines of grace or Calvinism, are not dummies.

46:49

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.

47:00

Well, for a while, when it became obvious that there was a significant movement of recovery of the doctrines of grace within SBC circles, one argument is, well, the argument was that this is one strain or strand of Baptist life.

47:17

And the other argument, alongside that, it was argued that there was another strain.

47:24

And the argument went that the Southern Baptists were informed by two traditions, the

47:32

Charleston tradition, which was a regular Baptist tradition, that is a Calvinistic Baptist tradition, and the

47:37

Sandy Creek tradition, which were much more looser. They were not necessarily

47:43

Arminian, but they weren't Calvinistic. That has been pretty strongly disproved now in the last 10 or so years by a number of Baptist scholars.

47:53

But the Sandy Creek tradition, which comes out of the English list, the New England being converted during the

47:59

Great Awakening, and Shubel Stearns, Daniel Marshall, these men, we talk about this in the

48:07

Baptist story, these men were easily five -point Calvinists. And now their church life had a number of elements that were different from regular

48:17

Baptists, kind of the more Calvinistic tradition.

48:24

But definitely, if you go back to SPC origins, and even before the

48:30

SPC, the earliest Southern Baptists in the 18th century, most of these men are theologically reformed, the vast majority of them.

48:40

And now the argument is, well, okay, that might be the case, but if you go back to the earliest

48:48

Baptists, the Anabaptists, well, they definitely were Calvinists. One of the,

48:53

I think, problems from my point of view of this sort of argumentation is it's driven politically. And the reality is that in English Baptist circles, the dominant expression of Baptist life has been

49:13

Calvinistic, down to the 19th century. And when you move into the 20th century, there is a widespread turning away from and Spurgeon, I think, typifies this.

49:30

His last days, basically, not only the downgrade controversy, but also the way in which many were turning away from what he represented.

49:39

And I think you start to find that in the United States. Definitely E .Y. Mullins is a transition figure.

49:46

He's a president of Southern, the fourth president. He died in 1928.

49:51

But by the time that he dies, you're starting to find a much more different mode of thinking about Christianity, which is not, it's not as amenable to the

50:01

Calvinism of the past. But the reality is that our roots as English -speaking

50:08

Baptists are in Calvinistic, the soil of Calvinism. Whether that's true or not, that's another question.

50:17

Whether Calvinism is true or not, that's a biblical question. But historically, that's a reality.

50:27

And for people who aren't, people who want to trace Baptist roots then, who aren't

50:33

Calvinistic, that then becomes a problem. Because their forebears don't align with where they're at.

50:44

The thing that I have found in discussing the doctrines of grace in regard to the

50:52

Baptists' 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

51:21

Baptist heroes were not Calvinist is because they assume if you are a

51:26

Calvinist you have no passion to evangelize the lost, and you don't really believe

51:31

God uses means such as the preaching of the gospel and evangelizing to save people.

51:37

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.

51:48

It's got 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

51:58

Calvinist. Yeah, I think that's a major factor. I think what shapes conservative

52:03

Baptist life, whether it's SBC, whether it's Garb, whether it's independent

52:10

Baptists in the 20th century has been a zeal for evangelism. And there is just this wrong thinking that if you're a committed

52:20

Calvinist you don't have that zeal. And that's both theological ignorance but also historical ignorance.

52:29

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

52:35

Calvinist. Yeah, but they're very few. I mean, if you were to ask where are there hyper -Calvinists in America today?

52:44

Well, there's maybe some primitive Baptists in the Appalachians. Most people don't meet these people regularly.

52:52

And there's some Dutch Reformed groups. You know, like the Netherlands Reformed. Yes, right.

52:59

Again, they're few and far between. The charge of hyper -Calvinism against most

53:05

Calvinists 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

53:15

Calvinist of any kind. Yep. If you really believe it, yeah. And the irony is that there are many

53:22

Arminians or non -Calvinists who live exactly like hyper -Calvinists in regard to their lack of zeal or passion to evangelize.

53:33

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.

53:51

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

53:57

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

54:06

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

54:12

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?

54:28

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?

54:44

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?

55:04

I don't know if you can make out the intent of that question. It sounds like there might be a number of questions there.

55:13

I think part of, ultimately, the turning of the tide against liberal theology, the great defender of biblical orthodoxy is the

55:27

Holy Spirit. And what we need is, we need two things, which, again,

55:36

Andrew Fuller I think is a great help here. We need both the truth, we need the faith, we need to pass on the faith that's been delivered to us, but we also need the outpouring of the

55:47

Spirit. We need revival, a genuinely biblical revival as it's found in paradigms like the

55:55

Reformation, the Great Awakening. And there needs to be not, we need both.

56:08

And so that may answer part of that question.

56:16

The little bit there about Muslims entering either seminary or church,

56:22

I think that's a reference to an incident that came up at Southwestern where apparently there was a student allowed into the seminary who was a

56:31

Muslim. And that had nothing to do with Southern or Dr. Moeller.

56:37

And I'm not sure how that turned out. That was raised at the convention about two years ago and I'm not sure what the final upshot was that.

56:49

There is no doubt that there's been a tremendous work of God's grace in the

56:54

SBC. The seminaries are by and large healthy, whole on the primary issues of the

57:04

Gospel. There's been this massive recovery of the doctrines of grace within Southern itself.

57:14

And I think looking back, it's not necessarily, I wouldn't call it revival, but definitely the spirit of God's been at work.

57:23

But ultimately to preserve biblical truth as it's passed down, we desperately need the presence and blessing of the

57:33

Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, thank you very much for writing, Nancy. And although we have run out of copies to give away of the

57:42

Baptist story, providentially, Crossway has sent us copies of another book that we are sending you a free copy of for writing in today.

57:52

Eight Women of Faith that has been co -authored by our guest Michael Haken.

57:57

So we hope that you enjoy Eight Women of Faith. But I also need your full mailing address,

58:03

Nancy, because the only thing that I have here is Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. We're going to another break right now.

58:09

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

58:18

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58:27

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58:40

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That's wrbc .us Welcome back.

01:01:32

This is Chris Arnzen. If you've just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

01:01:38

Dr. Michael Haken. And today we are primarily addressing his book,

01:01:43

The Baptist Story. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, my email, our email address here is chrisarnzen at gmail .com

01:01:56

chrisarnzen at gmail .com Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

01:02:04

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

01:02:13

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

01:02:30

Andrew Fuller in greater depth. Before we go into that,

01:02:35

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

01:02:46

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

01:02:51

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

01:02:59

Well, you'd have to trace it to a group of English Separatists who at last, they were

01:03:06

Puritans, who in the first decade of the 17th century had come to the conviction that the state and the church should not be united, unlike probably many

01:03:20

Evangelicals in the 16th century who believed that the state should enforce the dictates of the church.

01:03:30

This group of Puritans, differing from other Puritans, came to the conviction that they needed to separate from the

01:03:37

Church of England, start their own congregation. They ran into persecution and crossed over to Amsterdam.

01:03:44

Holland during the time was a kind of a refuge of religious tolerance, kind of a place of religious toleration and a refuge for many.

01:03:53

And it was there in, probably around 1609, 1610, that two men,

01:04:00

John Smith and Thomas Helwes, came to a Baptist conviction. Because they separated from the

01:04:07

Church of England, they raised the question, they came to believe that the Church of England was not a true church because she was allied with the state.

01:04:16

The Church of England is part of the Reformation period. And so once they raised that question, they also raised the question, was there infant baptism at the hands of the

01:04:25

Reformation Church of England a true baptism if the church wasn't a genuine church?

01:04:32

Once you raise that question, then they began to search for the nature of baptism in the

01:04:38

New Testament. And that, step by step, were led to Baptistic conviction. And in 1609,

01:04:46

John Smith baptized a number of these

01:04:52

Separatist Puritans and founded really what is the First Baptist Congregation.

01:04:58

Thomas Helwes, three years later, would take that congregation back to England, to London, a place called

01:05:04

Spittlefields in London where that would be the first English Baptist congregation on English soil.

01:05:11

You say Spittlefields? Spittlefields, yeah, S -P -I -T -T -T -L -F -I -E -L -D -S, yeah,

01:05:18

Spittlefields. Yes, so our origins are in Spittle. And did they actually use the term

01:05:27

Baptist as a way of identifying their church name? No, they would not have used that term.

01:05:35

That term is originally a term of opprobrium that's used against Baptists. Baptists eventually pick it up, but even the earliest

01:05:43

Calvinistic Baptists who emerged in 1638 for a number of years, they would not use the term.

01:05:51

They would call themselves Churches of Christ, but they would not use the term

01:05:58

Baptist. That term, as I think, becomes part of their...

01:06:06

It'd be interesting to know, and I can't answer this question, it'd be interesting to know exactly when that term starts to be used positively by Baptists.

01:06:14

My suspicion is it's probably after the 1660s. It may well be towards the end of the 17th century.

01:06:24

I had a very comic experience years ago as a person who has been involved in radio for 30 years, approximately, in Christian radio for most of it.

01:06:36

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

01:06:42

Baptist background, and they were all cooperating on a program that I had sold to them, being a salesman for the

01:06:52

Christian network I worked for. And this program was one where all of these independent fundamentalist

01:07:00

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

01:07:13

Bible church pastors to participate. They were wondering if this was appropriate and if they had to make an insistence upon the word

01:07:25

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

01:07:34

Baptist church, said, it's time for us to stop arguing about all this nonsense and just stick to what the

01:07:42

Bible says. And everybody just fell silent there and said, where in the

01:07:47

Bible does it say we have to call ourselves Baptists? But anyway. And I hope that pastor is not listening right now as we laugh at his comment.

01:07:59

But now, just recently, you on the

01:08:05

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.

01:08:20

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

01:08:25

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

01:08:43

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,

01:08:56

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.

01:09:06

But what does that word actually mean and is that a misapplication of the term? Yeah, it's a very slippery term, partly because, as you said, it's been just widely used as a term of rebuke.

01:09:23

I mean, it's like the term liberal. It's a swear word in our circle. Nobody wants to be called an antinomian.

01:09:34

Historically, you probably have two strains. One is a strain of argument which has recurred now among New Covenant Sovereign Grace men, which is that the

01:09:48

Old Testament law as a body of law has been fulfilled in Christ. But none of these men are antinomians.

01:09:56

They all believe that there is a thing that they would describe as the law of Christ. They believe that it contains a multitude of commands and laws that we as God's people are to obey.

01:10:06

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

01:10:11

Yeah, exactly. So it really is a misnomer to level at these sort of men.

01:10:20

There have also been, though, in the history of the Church, it's usually yoked to hyper -Calvinism.

01:10:29

And it starts to appear... There are roots in the 17th century, but it's definitely in the 18th century it starts to appear, where you get people arguing for one of the core tenets of hyper -Calvinism, which is eternal justification, and that believers have been justified from eternity past, so that when a person who is among the elect, the elect have been justified from eternity past.

01:10:57

So when a person is among the elect, God's perspective on that person is not one of wrath, because they're justified.

01:11:07

And even when they're sinning, they're under, really, the favor of God prior to their conversion.

01:11:18

And what happens at conversion is God's attitude towards them doesn't change. They're among the elect. They're justified.

01:11:25

But their attitude, they suddenly realize that God loves them. If you argue that position, and hyper -Calvinism doesn't necessarily have to entail eternal justification, but it frequently does, if you argue that position, then you can see that you could easily argue what is a genuinely antinomian position afterwards.

01:11:45

Because if, while you are outside of Christ, involved in sin, of all types of nature, et cetera, and God's favor rested on you, how much more does

01:11:59

God's favor rest on you now that you've become a Christian, even though you might sin?

01:12:05

And so there are forms of doctrinal antinomianism. For instance, and this is linked to the discovery

01:12:13

I made with Andrew Fuller, there was a man in Birmingham, England, called John Bradford, born around 1750, died in 1805.

01:12:22

He was a congregationalist, and then went independent. He was part of a group called the

01:12:28

Countess of Huntington's Connection, which was linked very closely to George Whitefield. And he eventually left them.

01:12:35

And it was reputed that he said, on one occasion, when he was asked, if he stabbed somebody and murdered them, would

01:12:45

God view that deed with abhorrence, if he was a believer, and he, for whatever reason, was involved in a murder?

01:12:57

He refused to answer the question. What he did answer was, well, you definitely would be violating the law of the land, but when the person pressed him, well, would you be violating the law of God?

01:13:09

He refused to answer. And there's evidence to those citing the example that he partook not only of some sort of doctrinal antinomianism, but there was also a practical antinomianism there, too.

01:13:23

And so there are people like that who they would say that believers, genuine believers, who are obviously among the elect, justified from eternity past, that these people can never sin in any way that angers

01:13:44

God. And that's genuine antinomianism.

01:13:53

Again, it's like the question of hyper -Calvinism. How many hyper -Calvinists have we actually ever met?

01:14:01

How many genuine antinomians are there? 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.

01:14:21

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

01:14:32

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,

01:14:43

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

01:15:00

Right. But other than that, obviously. But, you know, there was...

01:15:05

Go ahead. I'm sorry. There probably are a lot more antinomians walking around than hyper -Calvinists. Right.

01:15:11

There is a strong easy -believism tradition, which if you pray the prayer, you're in, and it doesn't matter how you live.

01:15:18

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.

01:15:38

Agreed. And there are some that actually adhere to the 1689 Confession. I know that a number of years ago, my friend

01:15:45

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries actually was invited to preach at a conference at a

01:15:51

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

01:16:00

Reformed Baptist and a Primitive Baptist where basically any use of means of preaching of the

01:16:08

Gospel or handing out a tract, or any use of means that a person, a

01:16:15

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

01:16:23

Gospel. They would say that they almost equate election with regeneration.

01:16:30

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.

01:16:39

God doesn't use it to bring the rebirth of the lost. But obviously, as you were agreeing, there are some who are

01:16:49

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.

01:17:05

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

01:17:11

Hyper -Calvinists from the Netherlands. Because you have on one side, you have Hyper -Calvinists who are

01:17:17

Primitive Baptists and other types of Calvinists who have a wider view of who the elect are.

01:17:27

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.

01:17:38

And I have heard that in some of the Netherlands Reformed congregations you could have enormous congregations of over a thousand people.

01:17:46

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.

01:17:54

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

01:18:00

Yeah, they are. It's interesting, the literature that they read is very similar too.

01:18:07

One of the major Hyper -Calvinist figures of the 18th century was a man named

01:18:13

William Huntington. And the first time I ever saw a complete set of his works was in the home of a

01:18:19

Netherlands Reformed elder. And I was amazed. Here was a man whose native language was

01:18:26

Dutch. And one of his favorite authors was William Huntington, imbibing the same sort of Hyper -Calvinism that people like Fuller had to fight.

01:18:38

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

01:18:44

Dr. Joel Beakey, and they'll see in the book, hey, wait a minute, Dr. Joel Beakey's from the Netherlands Reformed Church. Well, he actually left that denomination when that was one of the primary reasons he left it.

01:18:55

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

01:19:04

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

01:19:09

Dr. Beakey with Hyper -Calvinism because he is not at all a Hyper -Calvinist. Going back to something that you had mentioned during the very first part of the program today, identifying the

01:19:24

Southern Baptist Convention and Baptists in any way, shape, or form as a part of a denomination.

01:19:31

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

01:19:37

I am a part of a group of Reformed Baptists who belong to ARBCA, the

01:19:46

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

01:19:54

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 is your opinion on that?

01:20:07

I think the critical thing in Baptist life are associations of churches that work together.

01:20:13

Generally speaking, you know, when you are dealing with large denominational bodies, it is very difficult to have those sort of bonds of fellowship and association in life.

01:20:25

If you look at the great advances and blessings that have come to Baptists over the years, it has generally been from within the context of an association of churches, which means you're not talking about thousands upon thousands.

01:20:41

You know, as I said, it's very...

01:20:48

I think the Christian life is very much a life together, both within the local church and local churches within a body of churches of like -minded faith and practice.

01:21:04

In some cases, gathered locally, geographically, in others, like ARCA, you're more spread out.

01:21:11

But there is the possibility in both cases of getting to know people in these churches in a very real and powerful way.

01:21:20

I don't think denominations are unbiblical in one sense. Denominational bodies can certainly do things in terms of resources.

01:21:30

I mean, one of the things that... the reason why Southern exists as a seminary is because of that denomination, the finances.

01:21:40

But in terms of, you know, church planting, missions, what's critical is men and women within the context of a local church, group of local churches, laboring together and building links of trust and prayer.

01:22:01

And that's very difficult to bring about in a large denominational body. And part of the genius of the

01:22:07

SPC has been the, you know, the use of associations, state conventions.

01:22:14

But the association is critical. It's very interesting. A lot of our grads going out, one of the critical things that they begin to realize is the necessity of resuscitation of associations of churches where you have maybe 40, 50 churches who are actually able to do things together because of the smallness of their numbers.

01:22:39

And so, yeah, part of the problem there is we're asking questions of the

01:22:47

New Testament, you know, denomination, you know, it's not even in view of the

01:22:53

New Testament. Yeah, well, I think the primary distinction between an association or a fellowship and a denomination is that, am

01:23:01

I correct in saying that Baptists historically do not believe there is anyone who has authority over the local congregation other than Christ?

01:23:12

So the only men that have authority over that specific congregation are the elders of that congregation.

01:23:20

Yeah, so even when, even in the SPC, which is a denomination, that technically only, the

01:23:29

SPC only technically exists once a year when they gather in convention.

01:23:35

But even the rulings there, to some degree, I mean, within reason, for instance, a few years ago during the conservative resurgence when you had two churches declare that they would be going ahead and ordaining homosexuals, they were disfellowshipped from the denomination.

01:23:55

So within reason, but yes, I mean, the denomination as a whole does not exercise power over the local church.

01:24:05

Now, how this plays out in reality, I mean, obviously those are, you know, there's got to be challenges and differences.

01:24:14

But yeah, Baptists historically have believed that the authority within the local church is within that church, not with a body of people outside the church.

01:24:27

But it does help, though, when you think about chaplains and partisan nations. The denomination is identified by a significant amount of bureaucracy and boards and so on.

01:24:39

I'm sorry, what were you saying, Buzz? Well, when you think about chaplaincy quotas and mission... Chaplaincy quotas.

01:24:44

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

01:24:50

Associations help in those areas. Right, right. But it's interesting that, and perhaps Buzz even knows of this as a

01:24:56

Presbyterian, I do know Presbyterians who, though, in theory, agree with the denominational aspect of Presbyterianism, they have yet to find a

01:25:08

Presbyterian denomination that they, as a congregation, want to join. So they remain as independent.

01:25:15

Having a plurality of elders, just like a Reformed Baptist congregation would, but not having a presbytery outside of the local group.

01:25:29

And it's interesting, do you know much of the... I have developed some friendships with the Free Presbyterian Church, who seem to combine

01:25:37

Baptist views of the ordinances with the

01:25:44

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.

01:25:58

Do you know much about the Free Presbyterian denomination? Is that a question to me?

01:26:04

Yes, yes, I'm sorry. Now, when you say Free Presbyterian, do you mean from North America? Of North America.

01:26:10

The Free Presbyterian Church of North America, also known as the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. Yes, I do.

01:26:16

Yeah, I have one or two very good friends in that body. Yes, in fact, Reverend Buzz...

01:26:22

They're a curious group in one sense, because they seem to be open membership, open communion

01:26:27

Baptists, because they'll accept infant Baptism as well as Believer's Baptism.

01:26:33

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

01:26:40

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

01:26:46

Baptistic, he must allow another Free Presbyterian Church with Paedo -Baptist convictions to perform the ordinance.

01:26:55

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.

01:27:06

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.

01:27:19

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

01:27:26

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

01:27:32

Don't go away. We're coming right back after these messages with Dr. Michael Hagen and the

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01:32:17

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

01:32:26

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

01:32:34

United States. And we are discussing, for the most part, the Baptist story from English sect to global movement.

01:32:42

And if you'd like to join us while there's still time, our email address for questions is chrisarnzen at gmail dot com.

01:32:50

chrisarnzen at gmail dot com. We have B .B. in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, can you summarize the difference between the

01:33:02

First and Second London Baptist Confession? And I'm sorry if the question is too deep to provide a short answer.

01:33:16

Yeah, again, I mentioned earlier that there needed to be a book on William Carey's Calvinism.

01:33:21

This is also an area that really needs to be a good study of. There was one done a few years ago by Tony Mattia and Gary Long.

01:33:33

I think it was Gary Long, but definitely Tony Mattia that dealt with an element of this. Essentially, the

01:33:40

Second London Confession, the structure, the difference is in structure, not theology.

01:33:48

And here I would differ maybe from some. I don't think there are major differences in theology going on in the two confessions.

01:33:57

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.

01:34:08

Yeah, yeah. Again, I would like to see that kind of hammered out.

01:34:17

I mean, I've done some study between the two, but never focused on that theme. But structurally, they're very different.

01:34:26

The Second London Confession uses the Presbyterian Westminster Confession as its base, and then makes various changes when

01:34:34

Presbyterian polity, ecclesiology differ. But it used the

01:34:40

Savoy as well, right? The Savoy Declaration? It used the Savoy, the Congregationalist document from 1658 as well.

01:34:47

The 1644 is a typical Reformation confession.

01:34:53

It begins with God and Christ. The Second London Confession begins the way the

01:35:00

Presbyterian does, which is with Scripture, which is kind of a new departure for confessions of faith.

01:35:11

The relationship of the law to the believer in the First and Second London Confessions is something that really needs to be studied to see if there are significant differences there.

01:35:23

Yeah, I've heard that because some of the men involved in the drafting of the

01:35:31

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.

01:35:49

Yeah, again, I mean, the two men who would have adopted, well, there's one man who signs the 1644,

01:35:54

William Kiffin, he signs the Second London, and then the 1644 in its second edition is also signed by Hansard Knowles, who would have signed the

01:36:04

Second London as well. But neither Knowles or Kiffin had major roles in drawing up the

01:36:10

Second London Confession, and so was there agreement then on broad essential?

01:36:22

That's 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.

01:36:31

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.

01:36:47

And we just need your full mailing address to send that book out to you by Dr. Kakin.

01:36:53

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

01:37:00

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

01:37:07

Westminster, it was not because they were actually plagiarizing it, it was because they wanted to show unanimity with them.

01:37:13

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

01:37:22

Baptist people. Am I right on that? Yes. I mean, the historical circumstances of the

01:37:29

Baptists, along with Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England, was one in which it was incumbent upon them, given their shared

01:37:36

Puritan background, shared Puritan ethos, really a similar culture of Christian living, to stand together.

01:37:45

They found themselves, during the period from 1660 to 1688, imprisoned because the state church came back after the collapse of the

01:37:56

British Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. He died in 1658, and two years later, the king was invited back.

01:38:06

And he came with men who were determined to destroy Puritanism, root and branch.

01:38:12

And thus, there were 30 years, an entire generation of horrific persecution. And the

01:38:18

Baptists wanted to indicate their common solidarity with other

01:38:24

Reformed believers in England. And so on. And that's a very, very important factor.

01:38:32

When I had spent a lot of time with my New Covenant brethren by attending the

01:38:40

John Bunyan Conference annually for many years in my early part of my

01:38:45

Christian walk, my late wife's pastor would accompany me to that conference, who is a

01:38:53

New Covenant Calvinist. I noticed that there was a division among them on confessionalism to begin with.

01:39:01

There were some who heartily endorsed the First London Baptist Confession, and there were some who were vehemently opposed to confessionalism to begin with.

01:39:12

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.

01:39:27

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.

01:39:41

The issue is, do you write it down or not? For instance, he had brought up that the

01:39:48

American Baptist Association said that the history of our people is that we do not believe in confessions and creeds outside of the

01:39:56

Bible, and Dr. Thornberry, who was once a part of that denomination, the American Baptist Association, reminded him that that was a confessional statement.

01:40:06

And I actually brought up the same thing, taking

01:40:11

Dr. Thornberry's comment. I was at a gathering of Church of Christ brethren, restorationists,

01:40:20

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.

01:40:31

But how much a part of confessionalism is a part of Baptist history? A tremendous amount.

01:40:40

Yeah, it's not until you hit the 19th century, and then really with a vengeance in the 20th century, that you find this anti -confessional bent.

01:40:51

The earliest Baptist witness in the English -speaking world, 17th and 18th centuries, really up until probably the 1810s, 1820s, is very strongly confessional.

01:41:06

And when Southern is founded, they drew up the abstract of principles, which it was expected every professor would adhere to, both in terms of intellectual and heart commitment.

01:41:19

That was a summary of the principles drawn from the Second Lenten Confession. It's really the anti -confessionalism that makes its appearance in the 19th century, and then becomes part and parcel of so much in the 20th century.

01:41:37

So very interestingly, you'll have Fundamentalist Baptists and Liberal Baptists, both of them agreeing with their anti -confessionalism.

01:41:45

It's intriguing. Yes. The Liberal Baptists wanting to affirm religious liberty as the watch cry of Baptist life, the

01:41:54

Fundamentalists, the Bible only, but they're both agreeing on the negative place in their minds of confession.

01:42:05

When our Baptist forbearers flourished, confessions were very much part of their lives.

01:42:12

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 can believe anything that you want to.

01:42:32

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

01:42:47

Scripture, and view it as inerrant, and also if you cease being a

01:42:53

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?

01:43:09

Yeah, agreed. And what do you think of those churches?

01:43:14

Are they truly confessional churches that modify like the 1689? I know a number of men who do.

01:43:21

In fact, most Reformed Baptists have removed the aspect of the papacy being

01:43:28

Antichrist, or the Pope being Antichrist. They have removed that from the 1689, and I know a handful who have not, to agree with that eschatological view, but you have also the

01:43:43

Presbyterians who have done the same with the Westminster, but what is your make of that? I think generally speaking,

01:43:51

Reformed Baptists who are being confessional have approached their confessions as a norm that is controlled by Holy Scripture, and they have felt at times that Holy Scripture pointed them in ways that they had to modify the confession.

01:44:10

It's very interesting during the 18th century when a Baptist pastor would be ordained, and he would always give his confession of faith, but what they would never do, so this is true of the

01:44:21

English Baptists who would have held to the 1689 as the norm, you never find,

01:44:28

I've never come across one example of the ordination ceremony of them going through the

01:44:36

Second Lenten Confession and asking him questions on the basis of that. Every Baptist minister would always draw up his own confession, and they would be rooted and grounded in the theology of the 1689.

01:44:53

So Baptist confessionalism has an interesting twist to it, and I think that probably allows then for Baptists at times to feel that they need to modify the confession.

01:45:06

And given Baptist convictions of Sola Scriptura, I'm not sure

01:45:11

I would want to dispute that theologically. I think we need to be confessional.

01:45:17

I think confessions of faith are enormously helpful. They crystallize and summarize the truth of Holy Scripture.

01:45:26

But because the times change, and because we sometimes come to different perspectives on Scripture, like, you know, who is the

01:45:34

Antichrist, times change. I think it's necessary for us to have in our confessions of faith today an article on marriage.

01:45:44

It's interesting that the Westminster has an article on marriage, but I don't know why the Second Amendment Confession took it out.

01:45:51

Does the Philadelphia Confession have the marriage area in that? Well, that's a good question.

01:45:59

My understanding is the Philadelphia is identical to the Second Amendment, except in the article on the laying out of hands and the singing of hymns.

01:46:09

I could be wrong on that. But all that to say this, I think we need to say something about marriage in our day.

01:46:18

Yes. Which is amazing that we do have to do that. Yes. It is.

01:46:24

Yeah. Although, you know, if you go back to the Reformation period, and this is where the

01:46:31

Westminster Confession comes from, many of the Reformers were fighting a battle about what is marriage.

01:46:37

And in their case, they were fighting a church that required celibacy as a mark of genuine

01:46:44

Christian zeal and discipleship. And so the issue of marriage was a major issue.

01:46:50

The Reformation is a rediscovery of biblical marriage. And so in that sense, we're back to, we're in a similar scenario.

01:46:58

We're having a battle about marriage in our culture, and we have to affirm what marriage is according to the

01:47:03

Scriptures. And I think it'd be helpful to have it in our Confession. So all that to say that, because the times changed, what was confessed in one generation, the truth doesn't change.

01:47:17

But certain emphases need to be brought to the fore. I mean, our forebears in the 18th and 19th centuries didn't have to say anything about marriage, necessarily, because everybody in the culture agreed about what marriage was.

01:47:30

Whether or not they lived it, that's another question. But we don't live in that world. Right.

01:47:36

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.

01:47:51

Like the Church of England, for instance. There are very few congregations in the

01:47:56

Church of England, or comparatively few, that actually hold to the 39 Articles these days, even though I think that that is still a part of the official...

01:48:05

Well, officially, yeah. I mean, as far as I know, certainly here in Canada, the Anglican Church in Canada, there'd be very few who would adhere to the 39

01:48:16

Articles, so technically they should. And that would be both the

01:48:21

Oxford movement, which is very Romish, although conservative and traditionalist on one side, and then you have the liberals on the other.

01:48:29

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

01:48:38

Yeah, I mean, my theological education was at Wycliffe College, which is a constituent college of the

01:48:47

University of Toronto, and it's an evangelical Anglican school, at least it was. And there were only, in the 39

01:48:56

Articles, I think five of the Articles I could not agree with, that dealt with, you know, bishops, eminent baptists...

01:49:04

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.

01:49:18

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

01:49:26

I wasn't aware of that. So take that, Buzz. I want to make sure, well, let me go to one more question.

01:49:35

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

01:49:42

I'm an online student with Midwestern Baptist Seminary and chose it for its more

01:49:49

Calvinistic leaning. Besides Dr. Moeller and Jason A.

01:49:55

Allen, are there any other outspoken Reformed leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention?

01:50:00

Well, we're talking to one, Tyler! What do you mean? There's Dr. Michael Haken, but anyway, do you have any others?

01:50:07

Dr. Haken, do you have any others you could list? Yeah, the head of the

01:50:13

IMB slipped my mind.

01:50:21

Is it Pratt? I'm not sure. Yeah, the recent head of the

01:50:26

IMB is a five -point Calvinist. Okay. And he was appointed within the last year.

01:50:32

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.

01:50:45

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.

01:50:53

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

01:50:59

African -American. Yep. Another African -American would be Kevin Smith, who's now the head of the

01:51:05

Maryland Convention. Don Whitney, Southern.

01:51:12

Herschel York, very well -known among Kentucky Baptists. Yeah, there's a fair number.

01:51:19

Nathan Finn, who's now the Dean of Theology at Union University. Yeah. And by the way,

01:51:28

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

01:51:36

Bay Area Baptist Association of Michigan. So, I just wanted to give a shout -out to those folks, whoever you are.

01:51:43

And I'm glad that a representative of your organization has joined us on the air for the discussion today.

01:51:51

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

01:51:59

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.

01:52:12

And 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.

01:52:22

Well, I think a number of things. One is certainly the zeal for missions, which has marked Baptist life at its best.

01:52:30

And yoked together with, obviously, a love for the doctrines of grace. Certainly among the

01:52:37

Southern Baptists, the recovery of the Gospel, the conservative resurgence, as it's called.

01:52:44

And then, what has been a stain on Baptist life, which has been the whole issue of slavery.

01:52:57

While there have been significant numbers who fought against slavery within Baptist life, and I think here, particularly of English Baptists, like Abraham Booth, William Nibb, et cetera, the acceptance by far too many men who love the doctrines of grace, who are zealous for missions, of the institution of slavery, is disturbing.

01:53:27

And the... I'm very, very thankful that in the last, you know, 30, 40 years, there's been a recognition of this as, you know, sinful, and as wrong, rooted in racism.

01:53:47

And it's a very good illustration of why we need to know our history. Because the past shapes us.

01:53:54

A lot of the challenges that we have in contemporary North American society today with racism, are grounded in the historical institution that we call slavery.

01:54:04

And it's sobering to realize that men who love the truth could nonetheless be so wrong in such an area.

01:54:17

And it's humbling, because it should force us to ask, what areas are we missing?

01:54:27

It should not give us a sense of superiority. Okay, fabulous. We recognize they were wrong, but if such men who love the

01:54:35

Bible and love the truth and were zealous for the Gospel, if they erred in such a way, are we erring?

01:54:45

Also. And history is very important because it helps us to evaluate attitudes and perspectives, because the past is different.

01:55:00

These men are our forebears, we share so much with them, but there are times that their perspectives differ from ours.

01:55:10

And it forces us to raise the question of what we're doing, or what we're thinking and doing as Biblical as we sometimes think it is.

01:55:21

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,

01:55:36

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

01:55:57

Christianizing of homosexuality and other things. Agreed. That's where our grounding in the confessions is vital.

01:56:07

And our confessionalism is the ballast that brings us back again and again to, these are core

01:56:13

Biblical truths that have stood the test of time, and that's the ballast.

01:56:25

Amen. Well, Dr. Hagen, what do you have in the pipeline going on that our listeners should know about, new projects you're writing on, and so on?

01:56:35

Well, the new book coming out by Crossway, Eight Women, which

01:56:41

I wrote because one of the great concerns I have in our Reform Baptist Circles, Calvinistic Baptist Circles, is that we sometimes underappreciate how

01:56:52

God has used godly women. And that's really a core part of the book, looking at eight women of faith from the

01:57:00

Reformation to the modern day. The main thing I'm doing this summer is Andrew Fuller and a publishing house called

01:57:08

Walter de Gruyter, which is a Boston office, it's a German publishing house, are publishing the critical edition of his works.

01:57:15

The first volume by Nathan Finn is out. He edited Fuller on Sanemanianism, which is easy believism.

01:57:21

Very, very important. And I'm working right now on the Fuller's memoir of Samuel Pierce, who was a remarkable

01:57:30

Christian. Died at the age of 33. He was known as the Baptist Brainerd. And so I'm hoping that that'll be finished actually this week.

01:57:39

I've been essentially working on this for about ten years. Well, praise

01:57:45

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 Chirp and Ziron.

01:57:55

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

01:58:02

It helps to write books. I'd love to do that. And I want to let our listeners know that tomorrow we have,

01:58:07

God willing, Dr. George Grant joining us for the very first time on Iron Chirp and Ziron. And Jason Wallace returns the

01:58:15

Orthodox Presbyterian Pastor from Salt Lake City on Thursday. And then on Friday we have

01:58:20

Doug Van Dorn speaking about Covenant Theology within the Baptist faith.

01:58:26

So, we hope that you join us for those programs as well. And next Monday, on July 11th,

01:58:34

God willing, Rosaria Butterfield. You've got to mark your calendars for her interview. Fascinating woman, ultra -leftist college professor who was a lesbian and a

01:58:46

Christian, transformed by the grace of God and saved by His precious blood, is now a conservative

01:58:53

Reformed Christian married to a Presbyterian Pastor. And she is going to be on our program

01:58:59

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.

01:59:12

Well, Dr. Haken, we look forward to having you back on the program. I want to thank my co -host,

01:59:17

Reverend 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

01:59:28

Puritan Christopher Love, that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

01:59:36

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