Dr. Joe Boot and Pastor Joel Webben argue that Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists must unite locally against secularism and Islam, treating baptismal debates as a wartime luxury rather than a dividing line. They detail Westminster Chapel's coalition model and Webben's church policy where members recognize the 1689 Confession without requiring rebaptism for infant sprinkling families. By prioritizing cultural engagement over intramural purity, they suggest this pragmatic ecumenism is essential for survival in a DEFCON 4 moment, urging listeners to join Ezra Institute leadership academies to strengthen their worldview against ideological threats. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome Back and Testimony00:03:17
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Is this the episode where I finally come out as a Presbyterian?
I know you Presbyterians have been waiting.
You've all said that it's just a matter of when and not if.
It's going to happen.
He's already Presbyterian.
He just doesn't know it.
I give it six months.
I see you guys online on Twitter taking bets.
I say within three years he's baptizing babies.
I say he's going to be doing it within three months.
This is the episode.
We talk about baptism.
Me and Joe Boot.
Fantastic episode.
I get real close.
Do I go over the line?
You got to stay tuned to find out.
Tune into this episode of Theology Applied with your host, Pastor Joel Webbin, and special guest, Dr. Joseph Boot.
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.
I am your host, Pastor Joel Webben with Right Response Ministries.
And in this episode, I am very privileged to welcome back, I believe for the 64th time or something like that, a regular guest to our show, someone that I have benefited much from, Dr. Joseph Boot.
Welcome.
Thanks, Joel.
It's great to see you again.
Great to be back.
Thank you for having me.
You're very welcome.
So, what I want to discuss is unique to you and unique to myself at some level, but very unique to you.
I want to talk about baptism.
And instead of having a quasi informal charitable debate and hosting someone who is exclusively, fully, you know, blood, sweat, and tears prescribed to the 1646 Westminster Pado persuasion, what I like about you in this conversation is there's a very real sense in which you've had each of your feet in both sides of the aisle.
And so, could you maybe start this conversation by just maybe giving a little bit of, we'll get to the theology, but let's start with maybe your testimony, your pastoral.
Experience in pastoring a Presbyterian church and a Baptist church?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think that sometimes with questions like this, we are going to be inescapably shaped and informed by some of our own experience in the Christian community.
For me, within the global Christian community, and I often find that people who've had considerable exposure to the global Christian community.
Early Christian Community Experiences00:03:41
Will nurture a kind of, I hope, a healthy Catholicity when it comes to some of these questions.
But I was actually raised in a Baptistic environment because I grew up in the Pentecostal church in England, which is Baptistic.
But my studies took place in an evangelical seminary, not in a Pentecostal seminary.
So when I was 18, I actually went to.
To theological college.
And there were reformed professors and scholars there.
One of them was a congregational minister, actually, who I found to be the most engaging of the professors.
And he introduced me to the Puritans and really introduced me to reformed thought.
And so, in the early part of my Christian life, I was.
Exposed to and ended up getting experience in both a Credo Baptist and a Paido Baptist environment.
And, you know, a number of my professors were Paido Baptist, a number were Credo Baptist.
By the time I was 24, and in the sort of after my formal initial part of my formal theological education, I actually was working as an evangelist apologist for an organization in England.
Called Salt Mine Trust, actually, still going.
They used creative arts largely in going into schools and colleges and doing evangelism with young people.
And my task was to go in with these creative arts teams into schools, prisons, colleges, and share the gospel.
And in many of the sort of missions contexts that we were involved with, with churches, it was with.
Every kind of evangelical Christian community.
Some were Credo Baptist, some were Paido Baptist.
And I saw the love of God and the commitment to Christ and frequently genuine faithfulness to God and His Word in all of those environments.
And this led on actually to my first pastoral role in my mid 20s.
I was actually, you mentioned Presbyterian, it was actually Anglican, it was Reformed Anglican.
So, my first pastoral role, where I was essentially functioning as the associate pastor, my official title was director of evangelism, was at a church in southwest London, which was a paido Baptist community.
And I felt as comfortable there and as happy there as I had done in any credo Baptist environment.
And so, I would say that kind of my initial experience in the early part of my ministry, if I can sort of, I'll let you.
Come in here, and I'll stop there.
Maybe move on to Westminster in a moment.
But in that early part of my ministry, I found myself with a non sectarian attitude, at least, having some of my own convictions, but I had a non sectarian attitude to the baptism issue, in part because it was driven by a passion for evangelism and apologetics.
Secularism as a Formidable Enemy00:11:07
And my priority at that time was not really having to manage disagreements or disputes in the local church around that issue.
Yeah, well, that makes a lot of sense.
I appreciate you sharing a little bit of your early ministry experience with us.
You know, for myself personally, as somebody who prescribes to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, one of the challenges that I've noticed pastorally is that I too would prescribe to this kind of lowercase c baptismal Catholicity, wanting to link arms across the aisle, so to speak.
I don't, that's not my all of time definitive and definite position.
So, I, you know, Christ chooses to tarry for 10,000 years.
I wouldn't hold that in one local assembly you should have both the pedo and credo Baptist position represented by the eldership of the church and practiced for all of time.
But I think that we're living, for lack of a better word, in a unique dispensation in this moment where we've got some pretty ferocious giants that the church is facing, some dragons that need to be slayed, most notably and urgently.
I would say secular humanism being a very large one.
We've seen the eroding and kind of Recession of Christendom in the West, and we want to regain that.
And so, the idea that Presbyterians and Baptists, both being confessional 1689 and 1646, partnering for the next 20 or 50 years in a local assembly because they have post millennialism in common, Kyperianism in common, theonomy in common, patriarchy in common these kinds of things that are absolutely vital in order to slay this present dracon of secularism.
In order to reusher, you know, reusher a Christendom 2.0, and then maybe we can start to fight about baptism again.
I just feel like the debate of baptism, it matters.
It certainly matters, but in some sense, it feels as though it's a luxury of times of peace for the church that we currently are not living in.
What do you think about that?
Would you agree with that sentiment?
Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it, Joel, actually.
We don't have that luxury right now, it's a luxury for times of peace.
I think that the church is under tremendous pressure in the West, unprecedented, really, in many, many years.
And I think a good example of what you're saying actually is found on the mission field, in the traditional mission fields, I should say, of the Western church.
So when we talk about mission, we still tend not to think about our own nations, which I think we really should be as well.
But we think about heathen lands historically, Islamic cultures, pagan cultures, Hindu cultures, and so on.
My family were missionaries in the Islamic world for about 17 years, my parents.
And in the part of the world that they were for all those years, the missionaries were from both Pado and Credo Baptist backgrounds Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists, Pentecostals.
And in that setting, when you're up against the behemoth of, Islam, the colossus of the Islamic world, and the percentage of Christians is hovering around 1%.
Your priority is not ironing out the details of which of those confessions should be adhered to and the niceties of how one should deal with perhaps a paido baptized person who wants to go in and join membership in a Baptist community.
Those simply aren't the priorities.
For obvious reasons, you've got a much larger, broader battle to fight.
And so, as you say, it's not that the question of baptisms is not important, but as the book of Hebrews says, it's one of the foundations, it's the milk.
It's baptisms and discussions about baptisms have gone on for centuries.
And this is not an argument that we are going to solve anytime soon, in my view.
I think we're going to have these two emphases with us for a very long time.
And so, in a missions context, it's simply not the priority.
And I think that in times of great prosperity for the church in the West, in times of, in a certain sense, we might say, cultural influence or even cultural victory, it wasn't just Baptists and Pado Baptists that would squabble.
It would be Baptist denominations and Reformed denominations on even lesser issues, dividing.
And where I was in Toronto, there was an old story about the two.
To Baptist movements, that where some of the older people would tell me that when they were kids, there would sometimes be some stone throwing and argy bargy between kids from the two different Baptist communities because one was on that side of the road and the other one was in the other neighborhood and they belonged to two different fellowships.
And it's like, so in a certain sense, that sort of thing, clobbering each other with our clogs, is a luxury for a different time.
To say, well, you know, we're all going to be in our own paddling pool.
Right now, there are bigger fish to fry, as you said, with the assault of secularism, of repaganization in some parts of Europe, Islam.
And I think there's a good precedent for what you're saying.
John Bunyan, in that time of tremendous pressure on the church in England, pressure on non conformists, Bunyan spent a lot of time in prison, as you know.
Bunyan was a non sectarian on the baptism issue.
And actually, some of the great Puritan leaders like Oliver Cromwell had that Catholicity that you were talking about on this issue.
So, I do think one major factor to consider is what is the cultural environment?
What's the cultural situation?
Is that discussion, the intramural debate between Reformed, evangelical, faithful, Christ honoring believers, the priority?
And is it something we should be splitting up, dividing over, avoiding co belligerence, not welcoming each other to the Lord's table and so on, or welcoming one another into membership?
No, I don't think so.
I think we're at a moment, as you say, even if we talk about from a pragmatic point of view, there's one faith, there's one baptism.
And right now, there are much bigger challenges that I think if the church got our mind into those, let's come back to this one.
But it's not the highest priority.
Yes, I completely agree.
And I like what you shared in terms of the foreign mission field, especially in Islamic countries and cultures.
That, again, that's a perfect example of those who do not have the luxury to debate this particular issue.
And I think in the West, we need to come to those similar terms and recognizing that secularism is quickly becoming a comparable threat.
To what Islam is in other countries.
That as we look at the West, if we're to analyze things properly and honestly, and we run through the statistics, we run through the numbers, and if we actually don't include in those numbers false churches, prosperity gospel preaching, heretical churches, and we actually just look at true churches within the bounds of orthodoxy in the West with the rise of the nuns.
You know, those who would prescribe to no religious affiliation.
I think that the West is quickly becoming comparable to the East and other places that have, whether a pagan culture or Islamic culture.
And so, if we think of secularism in those terms, and we think that the West is no longer in its heyday of Christendom, certainly there are many still remnants of Christendom that we often take for granted, but we're no longer in the heyday of Christendom.
Eroding, foundations are being destroyed, secularism is a formidable enemy, quickly becoming comparable to Islam, for example.
Then I think we need to think, we need to employ wartime strategies and not peacetime strategies.
And in wartime strategies, there should be an extra willingness to form alliances, right?
That Americans may not be particularly fond of the French.
But if Great Britain is on our doorstep, then all of a sudden an American French alliance, you know, it may make sense, even if we perhaps regret it at a later point.
And so I think that we're in that kind of moment.
One quick question on that end I have the sense that secularism, that things are going to get worse before they get better in the short run with secularism in the West.
In the long run, though, If Christ does tarry for 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 years, who knows the day or the hour, but if that is a possibility, I have the sense that secularism, although a formidable enemy and a dragon of significant size, is going to get a little bit stronger, but quickly, I think, will be slain.
I think that there's a sense in which there's worse things yet to come, but also if we think in the next 50 years, but if we think in the next 500 years, I think 500 years from now, our great, great, great grandchildren will go on field trips to museums and look at Jackson Pollock paintings, and the teacher will inspire the children to collectively laugh at the absurdity of what we once thought was beautiful and the fruit of secularism.
So I think 50 years of secularism, I'm not particularly encouraged for my children's and grandchildren's sake.
500 years of secularism, thinking of my great, grandchildren.
I think that they will be laughing at the corpse of this dragon that's been sufficiently slain.
Totalitarian Power vs Biblical Freedom00:15:01
Back to Islam.
If I was to write a fictional book, a fantasy of post millennial, progressive, gradual conquering of Christ through the church in the earth and the progression of Christendom, I have a sense, and I'm curious if you feel the same, Dr. Boot, that I think Islam may be one of the last dragons to be slain.
What do you think?
Well, all of these things, as you say, do reach a tipping point.
The power of secularism and the power of Islam, their influence, I think both have the same root.
They ape, they copy Christianity, but with key differences.
And it's their similarity to Christian truth that gives them their cultural force.
So secularism was really an attempt to strip.
To maintain the liberties, freedoms, institutional life, the prosperity of free markets of a Christian order, the branches without the root.
In some respects, Marxism is a secular eschatology.
It posits a utopian future by the creative work of man.
And so it strips out, it keeps on to this idea of, it holds on to this idea of progress in history, but it strips the Christ out of it and strips the word of God out of it.
Secularism has really sought to do that.
It wanted to maintain the fruits, it didn't want the root.
Now, Islam.
Again, it is an apes' Christianity.
It's a counterfeit, but it has certain similarities, and that gives it its sense of cultural force.
But because of the nature and character of Islam, the seeds of its own destruction are built into it.
You're seeing, even in the West now, the Muslims having great difficulty retaining their own children in the faith in the Western context.
Huge levels of conversion to Christianity, and the Ayatollah needs to keep his foot on the necks of the people.
And that is similar throughout much of the Islamic world, which has been for a long time in a state of decay.
So I'm not sure when you look at it, Islam is definitely a major threat.
Whether it's a greater threat than a sort of revival of paganism, which is a sort of, and I would include secularism in that, secularism is a Form of paganism, and it's becoming more and more spiritualized.
They are, they're both significant threats that neither are going anywhere soon.
Both are totalitarian in their outlook, in terms of their view of the state.
Both deny, are concerned to deny certain critical freedoms that are fundamental in the Christian view of reality.
And I think they're really, they're both utopian too.
Secularism does believe in man building his own future, his own prosperous future without God, and believes that by right now, in our current secular moment, we believe that by a grand leveling, a utopia, even if we don't use the term, a kind of utopia is going to emerge.
Islam, likewise, in the Ummah, the world Islam, that through the imposition of Sharia, A kind of utopian order is going to emerge through world Islam.
So they bear similarities to one another.
Their cultural strength is in their aping of Christianity, but there's always a tipping point.
And I think that it's very difficult to say, isn't it?
I mean, you've kind of wrestled with that question right there.
It's difficult to say when we will reach that point where we're going over the edge and people start to, by the grace of God, Begin to look back with some sense of longing and yearning to a Christian past, and God, you know, by his grace, begins to pour out his spirit.
Is it 20 years?
Is it 50 years?
Is it 100 years?
We don't know.
The Lord knows.
But in the meantime, facing down those giants, those dragons, as you say, is a greater priority than dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's of a very tidy theology.
Right.
Amen.
Just to address the devil's advocate, some would be listening to everything you're saying, and I think they would say, well, you know, you said that secularism is totalitarian in the sense that it forces, it's coercion.
And Islam, certainly, Sharia law is coercion.
But you and I would both prescribe to theonomy, and there would be some who don't like our position.
And that would claim, you know, some who even are Christian would claim that what we're advocating for is just another form of coercion.
And so, you know, that as post millennial theonomic reformed Christians, I think, you know, the devil's advocate would say, you know, they would say, how is what you're trying to accomplish any different than ushering in some kind of earthly utopia through force?
How would you address that?
That counter, that pushback?
Yeah.
First, the Christian way, the biblical way, is regeneration, not revolution.
And, or the, which is, you know, and I would include Islam in that revolutionary model of, you know, conquest by the sword, by violence, by force.
The reason that secularism is totalitarian is its view of the state.
The state is the All encompassing, all inclusive institution.
And it begins to, you can see it, you observe the West today, the state now dominates more and more areas of people's lives, begins to redefine the family, seeks to control the church, education, economics, media, everything.
Totalitarianism, you don't need to be looking for a Hitler or Stalin type figure.
That's authoritarianism that is usually accompanied by totalitarianism.
But totalitarianism is when One created sphere or well made institution by the Lord seeks to swallow and treat the other spheres of life in parts to whole relationship.
In Islam, the state is everything.
And so there is a reach of the power and authority of the state into every area of life.
There's no grasp of the principle of sphere sovereignty.
The same is true.
And of course, Islam grew out of an undifferentiated society in any case.
A tribal society, and that's why whenever it dominates, you get this totalizing statist view.
The secular world, which now rejects, post the French Revolution, rejects the lordship of Jesus Christ and sees society basically rooted in just a social contract.
Well, that's Jean Jacques Rousseau, and his view of the state was totalitarian.
The general will is where the people.
Surrender in a sense their independence, their individuality, and the general will is what the state says on their behalf.
So the state becomes, you know, that's precisely why, you know, the goddess of reason was enthroned in Notre Dame and the living God is thrown out.
The human society, human community is no longer about covenant, and it's certainly no longer a covenant with past, present, and future.
It's a revolutionary act to say we're starting over.
Vox populi, vox de, the voice of the people is the voice of God.
That's embodied in the state, in the general will.
And increasingly, that's the position that we're seeing in Western states.
There is no transcendent authority over and above the state that could bring it into judgment, that can hold it accountable, and that can delimit its power, which is the foundation of liberty.
The foundation of liberty is the delimiting of state power and authority.
You see that throughout the pagan empires of the Old Testament period, and of course in the Greco Roman world.
So, biblical law, theonomy, as you talked about there, Is about the rule of God's law, one law for all, freedom under the law.
And unlike statist law, it's restrained and it's very limited.
Most areas of life are freedom.
There are 10 commandments, not 10,000 commandments.
And then there are case law applications, which we need to positivize those for our own time and our own environment.
But the concern of biblical law, it's often been described really as biblical libertarianism.
Freedom under God, where family, church, state, vocations, and the various other areas of life are left free, free to serve the Lord.
So people do get this rather wrong headed.
If I can shamelessly plug my book, Ruler of Kings, toward a Christian view of government, I explain how people get confused about this.
They think, oh, you know, biblical law, that's like Sharia law for Christians.
That's like a totalitarian authoritarianism where clergymen are going to rule the state and Enforce biblical law on an unwilling society.
That's the absolute opposite of our position.
It's regeneration.
It must be something that comes from the bottom up because godly and righteous laws are demanded by a godly and righteous people who want to be in covenant with the Lord and want to live in freedom and know righteousness and justice.
The third and final point would be if it's the law of Christ, if it's the law of the living God, if it's the law that Jesus Christ himself expounded on the mountain, Why wouldn't we want that?
His law is liberty.
That's what the Apostle James tells.
His law is love, and it's also liberty.
It's the law of liberty.
And so, if we want a liberating law, it's going to be the law of God, freedom under God and his law, not the apostate, totalitarian law of man that reaches into every single department of life to control you and coerce you.
Right.
Well said.
One more point on that, and it does relate to baptism.
So, staying in the theonomic vein, but starting to inch our way back to baptism, I have heard several 1689 prescribed individuals.
One thing they have in common is they all tend to be big fans of Thomas Aquinas, and by no coincidence, they also would strongly assert that someone cannot.
Affirm the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith and prescribe to theonomy.
They would say that the 1689 is wholly incompatible, even with a general equity theonomy position, which my understanding is that Bonson, Greg Bonson, was a general equity theonomist.
What would you say if you were trying to defend from the 1689 that you can affirm theonomy?
How would you address that critique?
Well, I don't, frankly, I've never really been able to see why any of the core Reformed confessions, or the Three Forms of Unity, or the London Baptist Confession, are in any way incompatible with a theonomic reading of Scripture.
If you imprison the law of God into an older covenant period, I mean, one of the things that I think surprises people is when you do have Baptistic Christians who are theonomic,
because they assume that you would have to have a strongly Paido Baptist covenantal view in order to recognize a continuity of the older covenant law and the commands of God.
To hold to the theonomic position in the present.
And there's a general assumption that, well, if you're not really Presbyterian and strictly covenantal in a Presbyterian sense, then you're not going to be a covenant theologian and therefore you're going to struggle to get to a theonomic perspective on the law and see the continuity of one great covenant of grace that unfolds over time through different administrations.
But you take a look at somebody like Charles Spurgeon.
And I talk about Spurgeon quite a bit in my book, The Mission of God, as a great Baptist.
You can only look at his writings on public life and on God's law and see an inherently theonomic reading of Scripture.
You look at his preaching and you can only see a covenantal understanding of the gospel.
So I tend to believe that, well, I do believe, don't tend to believe, I do believe that.
Theonomy is a view of Christian ethics.
Election and Covenantal Expectations00:14:14
It's how we're looking at what God requires of us morally, ethically, as believers, and then how are we to think about the life of the state, public life, culture in its relationship to God's commandments.
Now, to my mind, whether you're Anglican, Presbyterian, or Baptist, or Pentecostal, there's nothing to stop you saying, looking at the theonomic view of ethics.
I think Barneson's major work was called Theonomy in Christian Ethics.
And recognize that we can, as believers, we need to look at the standing law of the Old Testament as binding and recognize that the applications, the positivizations of the case law, most of that is moral law, as Barneson would have argued, which is looking at minimal cases of a particular application of the Ten Commandments.
For that particular context.
And then we look for, as we're doing our biblical interpretation and as we're looking at our current cultural situation, what are the fundamental principles?
What's the general equity of that law that applies?
I've never been able to see why that position is not applicable across the Reformed confessions.
When we think about the issue of covenant, which obviously is central to this, You know, the Lord Jesus doesn't at the last supper say, um, this is uh, uh, here's the blood of the new covenant, and now here's a new ten commandments.
He doesn't give two new tablets of stone and a new set of commandments for his people.
He says, I'm going to add a particular model for you.
He says, There's a new commandment I'm going to give you love one another as I have loved you.
So follow this example.
But covenant is about law and blood.
And all of us as Christians come around the reality of the Lord's table that sin is lawlessness.
We violated his law, and the cost is the blood of the covenant, it's the blood of Christ.
So, the blood of the older covenant, the administration of the older covenant of bulls and goats, was insufficient, could not take away sin.
The blood of Christ, our sacrificial lamb, our great high priest of the order of Melchizedek, the new administration is the blood of Christ, but with respect to law, the law remains the same.
And so, whatever, it would be a bizarre thing indeed, wouldn't it, if the redemption of Christ, because of Our lawlessness, that because of Christ's death for our lawlessness and rebellion, that post the resurrection, we now no longer need to pay any attention to his law, which was the reason our rebellion against which was the reason he actually went to the cross.
So we can unite around the Lord's table, law and blood, and recognize that the law abides and remains, and the new location of the law is now on the heart rather than on tablets of stone, Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews chapter 6.
And as we think about the covenant, then, that Covenant reality that we come into as believers, that as and as families, because the promises for you and your children and all those whom the Lord our God shall call.
Both the Baptist and the Presbyterian is thinking, if they're reformed, in terms of the covenant, the covenant that God has made with us, and that baptism is a recognition of the reality of the covenant that God has made with us, and we are dead to ourselves and alive to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Um, and uh, you know, there are it's interesting.
I sometimes explain it this way the way in which we sort of handle that in the two traditions.
So, I would say that the Baptists and the Presbyterians or the Paedo Baptists both have a non biblical ceremony that is added or is utilized to fill in the gap that we both feel in our traditions at an appropriate moment.
So, in the Baptistic tradition.
When a child is born and comes into the family, most Baptists, most Baptistic churches, will have a dedication service.
We dedicate children.
I knew you were going to say that.
Yeah.
For the record, I don't, but go ahead.
Right.
Yeah, most do.
You're right.
Most do.
But most have, because there is a sense of need to recognize that we want to call upon the parents and the family to recognize the reality of God's covenant and his obligations.
The obligations that he places on us as a family to educate our children in the faith.
And we want to bring our child to the Lord, dedicate them to the Lord to say, Lord, thank you for this child that you've given to us.
And the congregation prays and joins in prayer that together as a community, we're going to raise this child in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
And we recognize that the promise is for us and our children and all those whom the Lord our God shall call.
We don't baptize them.
The Baptist at that point.
But there's this sense of a desire and a need to recognize that moment that this is a significant moment in the life of the family, that the child is the Lord's, and that we need to raise them in the faith.
The Pado Baptist position, on the other hand, feels that need.
So in the Baptist tradition, then we baptize on confession of faith.
But then in the Presbyterian tradition, we recognize, of course, the entrance of the child into the world.
The obligation of the family, the promises for you and our children, and we mark them with baptism, with the sign of the covenant.
But then, because they, as children, especially if they're babies, will not even remember that baptism, there's no personal involvement for the child.
It's the parents acting on behalf of the child in terms of the covenant.
There is a sense of need that the child, when they reach a certain age, If you're in the Reformed churches, in the Dutch Reformed churches, do confession of faith.
It's usually around the same time, somewhere between about 12 and 16, when they've done their catechism and they want to confess the faith for themselves.
In the Anglican tradition, which I served in, it's confirmation.
There's a confirmation service and a first communion.
And usually it's first communion in most of those Paido Baptist traditions when confession of faith or Confirmation has happened.
And so I think it's very interesting that in both of those traditions, typically we feel a need to recognize both of those moments, especially as you said, Joel, if we're covenantal in our thinking, and I recognize that not all are.
So I'm not really speaking about, we haven't got time to talk about those that aren't covenantal in the thing, but those of us who are covenantal in our thinking, there is this sense of a desire and a need to recognize both moments.
Um, one baptizes on anticipation of the fulfillment of the promise, holding God to his promises.
The other baptizes on fulfillment of the covenant of promise, and we fill the gap with a ceremony on either side in those traditions, right?
Yeah, you're right.
I'm unique among my 1689 Reformed Baptist friends in the sense that I actually do prescribe, and I believe that I can do this consistently from my position, but I do prescribe to covenant succession.
As it's literally defined, that it's the not presumption, not assumption, but it's the eager, joyful, humble expectation of Christian parents that their children will succeed them in the faith, not by covenant nature, but by covenant nurture.
And I do believe, even as a Baptist, that by covenant nurture, not that God owes us, it's not that there's a way in which we can work the God of the universe into our debt, but.
What I wish more Reformed 1689 Baptists recognized is that it's not so much an argument of good, godly parenting meriting the salvation of our children, but I wish I've said it like this I wish that more Reformed Baptists would recognize that there is a thin but real distinction between unconditional election and arbitrary election.
And God's election is not arbitrary.
It is unconditional, but it is not arbitrary in the sense that God never severs means from ends.
The means of grace are designated by God exclusively for bringing about his ends of grace.
Romans 10 14, how will they believe unless they hear?
How will they hear unless someone preaches?
And so again and again and again, we see God bringing about his decretive will in its ends of grace in every Facet, but especially as it pertains to the salvation of an individual, the ends of grace in salvation are always brought about by the means of grace.
And therefore, I believe that again, it's not meriting, so it's not a 100% guarantee, which even the Presbyterian wanted to affirm.
They have a category for apostate children being a part of this external covenant members, but not internal, not decretal elect.
And so even the Presbyterian has this understanding.
So for the On the Baptist side of the aisle, what I'm recognizing is I'm saying that by and large, more often than not, I think that it should be the hopeful but serious expectation of Christian, Reformed, Covenantal Baptist parents that God is going to save not some and not most, but all of our children.
And that that's precisely why He gave those children to us.
If God was not intent on my children being elect and saving them, He could have given them to my pagan neighbor.
But he gave them to me because the means of grace are not severed from the ends of grace.
Unconditional election is not synonymous with arbitrary election.
God brings forth salvation through a designated means, and it's a means that just so happens that my wife and I are very committed by the grace of God to submerse and immerse our children in, namely gospel preaching, catechism,
training up in the paideia of the Lord, in our home through family worship, in our children's education through a Christian classical school, through Through participation in the Lord's day, both in the morning service and the evening service, in the means of grace, that our children are swimming in this.
And so, again, it's not that if we do this, God owes us that, but it is to suspect that it is God's ordinary pattern to use his ordinary means of grace to bring about the ends of salvation.
Unconditional election is not arbitrary election.
And to those who would push back and say, well, what about Jesus who says, I have not come to bring peace, but a sword, division?
From now on, a household of five will have two against three and three against two.
I personally, and I'd like to get your sense on this, Joe, if you agree.
I personally see that as Jesus speaking very, it's not an indefinite prophetic declaration, but a prescription, indefinite prescription, but a particular temporary description of what it looks like in the days of Christ and his earthly ministry for the gospel to come to a first generation.
That was ultimately predominantly hardened in unbelief, that ultimately crucified the Messiah, rejected, he came to his own, but they received him not.
And so when the gospel first comes to bear with the first generation, that's what we saw in the time of Christ.
And I would say that that's a pattern that we continue to see throughout this gospel age whenever the gospel comes for the first time to a first generation.
So whether it be Judaism at the time of Christ or whether it be an Islamic nation.
Or whether it be some other pagan nation, when the gospel first comes to bear, we do see it being ordinary the splitting of households, that a husband is saved and a wife is not, that a sibling is saved and another is not, that the children are saved but the parents are not, or vice versa.
But on the heels of multiple generations of Christendom, that should no longer be the pattern.
I think that you should expect in countries and cultures that have been dominated by Christian ethics, Christian gospel, Christian preaching.
Christian culture for centuries, we should expect that by faithful parenting, covenant nurture, we should have covenant succession, an expectation that God would save not just some or most, but all of our children.
And I think the Baptist, the covenantal reformed 1689 Baptist, has just as much claim on that doctrine of covenant succession as the Presbyterian.
Affirming Conscience Over Retribaptism00:15:47
Tell me I'm crazy.
What do you think?
You know, I like that.
I think this is an, I'm encouraged that we're singing from the same hymn sheet on this.
And I do think it's an indication that.
Actually, we're in a time when, you know, faithful, reformed people can get closer and closer together on this, on the significance of the covenant.
I mentioned that I had served in both Baptistic and Paido Baptist churches.
When I planted Westminster Chapel in Toronto, about what was 2008, so 14, 15 years ago now, I had initially had conversations with the Anglicans because that's where I. In London, in England, that had been where I had been more familiar with pastoral ministry.
But I very quickly discovered that that was going to be essentially impossible because of the state of the Episcopal Church in North America.
It was at a time when it was all beginning to move in a strongly liberal direction and fall apart.
So that never happened.
So the plant ended up being a bit of a coalition of the willing, and it was a Baptist movement that.
Wanted to come alongside this vision that I put together a plant team and we had this vision for the church plant.
It's actually a conservative evangelical Baptistic movement that said, We would love to stand with you in this.
And so I thought, Well, you know, who is the Lord brought alongside us right now?
And I had some interesting conversations early on because this particular movement that I won't name on the podcast, but this particular movement.
It's sort of confession of faith, its peculiar commitments opened with this statement the Church of Jesus Christ consists of all fully immersed believers.
And it was a holdover from a very, very sort of strongly Baptists in Canada seeking to find their peculiar identity in the practice of.
Of water baptism by full immersion.
And I said to them, I said, look, I want to work with you.
This is, I think, a God ordained coalition of the willing.
But I said, I cannot sign up to that.
I can't possibly sign up to that statement of faith.
I can't agree with that.
How can we say that George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley and William Wilberforce and many of the Puritans and And on and Charles Hodge and Benjamin Warfield, these people are not part of the Church of Jesus Christ because they're not fully immersed.
Of course, the absurdity of the position was very obvious to them as we talked about it at the table.
And they said, well, no, you can just ignore that.
And, you know, just, you know, and I said, I want to receive, I want to be able to receive people who have been baptized as infants.
I said, this is a church plant in a pagan, one of the most pagan cosmopolitan cities in North America, perhaps the most multicultural in the world.
I said, this is not a time for us to be all saying we all want to pee in our own paddling pools.
I said, this needs to be, I need to be able to receive people who were baptized in evangelical, reformed homes as infants who believe that their baptism is valid and they stand by that baptism and they want to become members or want to show promise to move into leadership positions.
I want to be able to receive them.
And I was given dispensation to do that.
Periodically, I was accused of dry baptisms of infants because when we dedicated, Children, I would use a bottle of oil and make the sign of the cross on their forehead, quite an Anglican thing to do.
And was this a dry baptism?
I was careful with the wording.
It was that covenant succession.
That's the kind of wording that I used.
In the ideal world, this wasn't possible in that context because we were part of a large family of Baptist churches.
And I wanted to respect and honor the fact that the practice of baptism in the life of The church needed to be in keeping with the fellowship we were part of.
That is the God honoring thing to do.
In my ideal world, I would have gone with an approach because we had elders in the church that were both Paido Baptist and Credo Baptist and lived together in joy and harmony in the leadership of the church.
I would have ideally liked to have gone with the conscience of the parents, that I would have gone with what is it that the parents.
Believe that because we had people from the church of about 400 in the end, by the time that I moved on, and we had people from a variety of different backgrounds in different places.
Some people wanted to reaffirm their baptismal vows of their parents by full immersion.
So it wasn't a rebaptism as such, it was a reaffirmation.
This is something that some of the Reformed Anglican churches do in England.
If somebody feels they were christened by unbelieving parents, by an unbelieving pastor or vicar, they want to reaffirm.
So, there are a number of things that could be done there.
And there were some people that wanted to do that, but there were others that had the conviction that no, they're Presbyterian or Anglican faithful parents.
It was a legitimate baptism.
And so, in the ideal world for me, at this cultural moment and at this time in which we're living, especially in these sort of missional environments in inner city metropolitan centers, where we need to be.
Bringing God's people together around the truth of the covenant, his law, the lordship of Christ, the fullness of the gospel, the reformed faith.
I think that to me, and I know I probably will upset people on both sides of the aisle saying that, but that's really what ideally I would have wanted to do is affirm the conscience, the conviction of the family, the parents, and gone with the mode of baptism that they were requesting.
Amen.
Yeah, I take a similar position.
I'm not quite.
To the point where you are, but I take a similar position in the sense that I love how you just said mode of baptism.
So I'm unique again among 1689 Baptists in the sense that we will receive a sprinkling infant baptism.
So, we have multiple members of our church, adult members, not just speaking of their kids, but adult members of our church who they themselves were baptized in a gospel preaching church as an infant.
And what we were, you know, even our statement of faith.
So, we have two statements of faith by design.
We have what we call our general statement of faith, and then we have the church's specific statement of doctrine.
General statement of faith, specific statement of doctrine.
The specific statement of doctrine, as it currently stands, is the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.
And that is, we have very specific language in our constitution of the church that says that each member of the church must recognize the specific statement of doctrine that is the 1689, but that they're not required necessarily to affirm it.
And we bifurcate what it is to recognize versus affirm.
Recognize means that they're not going to be visibly and audibly, you know, vocally divisive over it.
And they would come to expect that the public preaching ministry of the church would be within the theological guardrails set forth by the 1689.
We do require officers of the church, any ordained officer, which for us, the diaconate would be an ordained officer of the church, and we would hold to a male diaconate, just as we hold to a male eldership.
But male elders and deacons ordained by the church, they are required not only to recognize, but also affirm the specific statement of doctrine that is the 1689.
But members of the church only have to recognize that specific statement of doctrine, 1689, but they must affirm another.
Statement of faith, which is our general statement of faith, and it's just that by design, it is general.
It is so intentionally narrow that no non Christian could affirm it.
A Muslim cannot affirm it.
A Buddhist cannot affirm it.
An atheist cannot affirm it.
A Roman Catholic actually would not be able to affirm it.
But a Presbyterian can affirm it.
An Anglican can affirm it.
A Baptist can affirm it.
An Arminian could affirm it.
A Calvinist could affirm it.
Continuationist could affirm it.
Cessationist could affirm it.
And so we're intentionally having the statement of faith.
That requires prescription from the members of the church intentionally broader.
And so, what it says in regards to baptism is it simply says that in order to be a member of the church, you must be a baptized follower of Jesus.
And it makes intentionally no mention of mode.
And so, what I do with that Presbyterian family, because churches are few and far between right now, because we're in a time of war, not a time of peace.
And solid covenantal reformed theonomic post millennial Kyperian churches don't currently grow on trees.
When a family like that finds themselves in our geographic area and they're looking for a church and they can't find a Presbyterian church like ours, then and they want to be members in our church, I simply ask them, Do you believe that your infant baptism of sprinkling in terms of mode, do you believe that that was a legitimate baptism?
And if they say yes, then what I say is, in order to Obey the teachings of scripture in Galatians, one baptism, one Lord, one faith.
I say, Well, I am not comfortable as a pastor subjecting you to sinning against your own conscience by subjecting you to what your conscience would see as a second baptism.
And so we're going to say that we have a difference in mode, but that we both have a baptism.
And so therefore we welcome them in as members of the church.
Now, what I'm not currently able to do in my own conscience is that even if the parents' conscience had their own children and wanted them as an infant to receive infant baptism, pedo baptism, the parents' conscience would be clear, but I could not perform, actually practice that baptism as a minister.
And so I have a Presbyterian minister who is close by, who we have a good friendship with.
And so I would actually send them over to him to receive that infant baptism and then come back.
To us and their membership residing with us.
And so that's how I'm navigating it right now.
And again, this is not for anybody, because I know you and I are both going to get pushback from this episode as relativists or whatever, which we're not.
But again, my position is I'm not saying that this was a good position to hold 200 years ago.
And I'm not saying it's a good position to hold 200 years from now, as I believe with my heart of hearts that Christendom was stronger 200 years ago.
And I believe that Christendom will make a comeback 200 years from now.
But in this unique moment that we're living in, what am I going to tell them?
This couple comes, and I'm not saying there's no Presbyterian church, but this is what they have to choose between, Joe, and you know this better than I do.
They have to choose between the Presbyterian church in town that's radical to kingdom, Thomistic, not presuppositional, no room for Van Til or Bonson or anything like that.
So they have to choose between a church that is reformed and that is.
Um, pedo Baptist that will baptize their children, but then will disciple their children to have no influence in culture whatsoever, um, and and to not seek to restore Christendom, to not seek, um, to to um, to engage culturally with you know all of Christ for all of us.
And so, what happens is that the parents they're like, We can't do that, Joel.
We would rather be in a Baptist, um, a Baptist Kyperian church than a pedo Baptist.
Pietist church.
We see pietism as actually a bigger threat to our children in the long run than a church that won't baptize them.
But then the parents sit there with their conscience uneasy.
And I can see it as they're, in terms of their conscience, they're foregoing what they see as a commandment from the Lord to choosing not to baptize their children.
So I send them over to my friend in town so that their conscience can be at ease.
But then they can be a part of our church.
And that's just, I don't know what else to do in this current moment.
I don't think it'll always be the case, but I think it's currently where we're at.
And I know that a lot of my 1689 friends would say that I'm compromised on this issue, but I think that history will look back and say, yeah, what Joe and Joel were doing in that moment, given the larger context, what was at play, was not the ideal position, but probably the lesser of the poisons to choose from.
Well, I don't think that's a compromised position at all.
I think that the compromised position, the.
The experience that you're talking about of people coming to the church who are from a paido Baptist background but cannot stomach the retreatism, pietism, sometimes antinomianism in the perhaps the paido Baptist environment around the corner was something that we dealt with.
We had migrants from, for example, in terms of response to lockdowns, there were people that came to us from.
Presbyterian environments because they just could not deal with the compromise anymore.
What does sort of the hardcore credo or pedo Baptist people on either side of the aisle who will not bend and flex on what is ultimately a secondary issue in situations of critical missional importance are going to do with families like that?
Just turn them away?
And I think you make a critical point that you cannot force people's consciences.
And actually, what you described as your practice is exactly what we did at Westminster.
When I said that my ideal would be to follow the conscience of the parents, that was not what we were able to practice because of our desire to be faithful to the community, the Baptistic community that we were part of, that it would be a bridge too far to do that.
But We did have situations where we had Reformed Presbyterian families in the church who had a child, or they were Reformed, Dutch Reformed, and they were in the church and they wanted their child baptized.
Unity in Mode and Timing00:04:25
And so we helped with arrangements for that to happen.
But they continued to be worshipers, members of our church.
And I think that that's what we, in terms of the broader unity of evangelical.
Reformed believers who love the Lord, love his covenant, and want to love and serve one another in a time of war, as you say, I think this is important.
And until at the end of the day, look, we have, we know, and this is really my last remark on the issue, but we both know that there are godly, faithful, covenantal, reformed, and if you want to add some of the other distinctives, you know, theonomic, optimistic eschatology, so the post mill, presuppositional.
Uh, Kyperion, you can have all of these additional descriptors on both sides of this discussion, and I think that many of these issues that are like the one you mentioned there, for example, that the two kingdoms issue, uh, today, to my mind, is a much more critical and vital issue for the church at war than the mode of baptism.
Uh, and uh, and I think that until we are in a time of peace where if the Lord would grant it.
We could come to one mind on the mode and timing of baptism until that time comes.
I think we have to develop ways of building unity in the local church on this issue.
Because, as you say, the churches that are truly faithful and committed to the Reformed faith today are increasingly scarce.
And those that will be prepared to confront prophetically culture and engage all of, you know, as you said, all of Christ for all of life.
In its totality and take the totality of his word seriously, they're not growing on trees.
So, what are we going to do with our faithful brothers and sisters in those different environments?
Surely, the attitude of Christ, the attitude of the apostles would have been, I think, the one that, you know, without wanting to, you know, place ourselves on the side of the angels automatically, I think that's the one that would have been pursued by the apostles, were this question a matter of division in their time.
This is a secondary issue where godly men and women of faith and truth and like commitment have differed for centuries.
And we are in, we're at DEF COM three, possibly DEF COM four right now in the West.
So this is surely not the time to focus on division over secondary issues when we've got the battle of a lifetime to struggle with for our children for the future.
Amen.
Amen.
I'll let that be the final word.
So let's go ahead and do this now.
In light of everything that we've been talking about, we're not relativists.
We're not saying that baptism doesn't matter.
It certainly matters.
We're not even saying that mode doesn't matter, although we are distinguishing baptism as a whole from mode of baptism.
But even with mode of baptism, we're not saying it doesn't matter.
What we're saying that a lot of guys don't get right now is that that matters a great deal.
But this two kingdom, radical two kingdom pietism, Is a bigger problem.
And so there are very few, and speaking about how rare it is right now, it doesn't grow on trees.
There are very few churches, but there are also very few programs and trainings and resources to get these things in your bloodstream optimistic eschatology, theonomic thought, all of Christ for all of life, Kyperianism, presuppositionalism, from your apologetic to your ethics to markets and economies and vocation.
A full orbed, straight whiskey, no chaser Christian faith.
You're doing that, Joe, better than just about anyone that I know.
Ezra Institute Opportunities for Families00:06:35
So bless our listeners with an opportunity, with some of the things that they could partner with you with.
Well, you're very generous to me, Joel, and I appreciate it.
And I'm grateful to see the way that the Lord is using you and raising you up there in Texas and in America with.
With a voice on these issues.
And I think that the Lord is going to continue to bless what you're doing as you're faithful to Him, because fruit always follows faithfulness.
I would want to let people know about an opportunity, a couple of opportunities that they have to get equipped in this moment of cultural struggle.
How do we begin to develop the Christian mind?
Over a period of time, begin to get the tools necessary for this kingdom struggle that we're in.
I just want to mention two opportunities that the Ezra Institute has on offer, amongst several others in the US right now.
So, for those listeners who don't know, the Ezra Institute was started in Canada, but we've recently opened offices in the United States and in the United Kingdom in process.
And our office is in Tennessee.
But The programs are happening in various parts of the US.
But this year, there is a really exciting opportunity.
Our flagship training program is a 10 day intensive Christian worldview, cultural apologetics residential program.
And it's aimed at 19 through 40 year olds, thereabouts.
So, students and younger professionals to develop a robust, Biblical world and life view and a cultural apologetics.
So we deal with things like law, politics, education, Christian apologetics, church and state, these kinds of questions.
We have fellows from around the world that come and teach people.
They go to our website, ezrainstitute.com.
They can look at our fellows, and it's not just our fellows, we have other guests speaking at these programs.
Um, this year we've got people like James White uh joining us and many others.
Um, and we are going to be in uh Chatsworth, Georgia, for the Runner Academy.
It's it's it's we shorten it to the Runner Academy, it's called the H. Evan Runner International Academy for Cultural Leadership.
It's named after an American philosopher.
Who was a reformed thinker and Kyperion and was wanting to advance the Christian world and life view.
And so we name it after him.
We shorten it to the Runner Academy.
So that is May 7th through 17th.
May 7th through 17th, 19 to 40 year olds, chats with Georgia, 10 days, residential, fellowship, teaching, fun.
It's an amazing time.
Go to EzraInstitute.com and you can click on the Runner Academy and then find all the details.
About the program there.
We would love to see a full program of American students, young professionals gathering together with like minded people to get equipped.
So I'd really encourage people to look at that.
And the other opportunity is in the summertime, not the spring.
That's in July.
And I'm blanking on the date off the top of my head.
But that program is happening in the US as well.
And it's called the Worldview Leadership Academy.
So, the Runner Academy is for our 19 through 40 year olds.
Our Worldview Leadership Academy is a one week program for 14 through 18 year olds.
So, there's got to be parents or grandparents listening to this program.
We think, I need my children to get a biblical world and life view and a cultural apologetic training so that they're grounded in the faith.
They can face all the ideological challenges of the day.
They can develop an effective vindication of.
The gospel, an effective vindication of the Christian view of life.
They can begin to understand human identity, sexuality, law, politics, education, the arts, all in terms of a Christian world and life view, lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life.
So, again, if you go to the website, EzraInstitute.com, click on, you'll see on the landing page there, Worldview Leadership Academy, click on that, and you'll be able to find our program that's happening in the summer in the USA this year as well.
So, those two programs, I just thank you for the opportunity, Joel.
To mention those.
Absolutely.
The H. Evan Runner International Academy for Cultural Leadership, the Worldview Leadership Academy for Teens.
Go to our website, get signed up.
You won't regret that you did.
No way.
You definitely won't regret it.
I just can't.
This whole time, I'm just imagining how different my life would have been if for youth camp in the summer when I was in high school, I was going to what you just described.
I'm thinking my oldest is five right now, and I'm thinking, I wonder if she could hang.
I wonder if Joe would take her.
As a five year old, if I could send her.
But yeah, the grandparents and parents listening to this, anybody who has a teenage.
It's not all lectures for the Ward of Leadership Academy, it is demanding.
There are lectures, but there's lots of activity and fun thrown in there as well.
But yeah, sorry, I interrupted you, Joel.
Go ahead.
No, no, no, that's fine.
I was just thinking that, man, when my kids are of that age, that sounds amazing.
I think that they would, yeah, it was just so fruitful for a teenager.
I'm just thinking, you know, I came into these doctrines in my 30s, my early 30s.
And the last, I became reformed when I was, you know, Calvin, you know, embracing the tulip when I was 21, you know, so it's been 15 years.
But some of these other things and understanding, you know, Kyperian, post millennial, theonomic, presuppositional, Calvinism 15 years, these other doctrines five.
It's really been five years.
And I'm just thinking, man, if I had, if I, and I didn't even know they existed, if I had heard about these things when I was 14 years old.
I just can't imagine.
You know, I just can't imagine.
Gratitude and Final Blessings00:00:57
So God bless you.
And I hope that everyone listening, if you are a parent or a grandparent, don't miss out on these opportunities.
One more time the website is Ezra.
Ezrainstitute.com.
Ezrainstitute.com.
And people can follow us if they want on Facebook or Twitter.
They can follow me on Twitter.
And if they're interested, we also have our podcast for cultural reformation in terms of a resource that's a weekly podcast that they can get wherever they listen to their podcasts.
Great.
Well, Dr. Boot, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
And to all of our listeners, I hope that you were blessed by this discussion.
I know that I personally was, and I hope that you were too.
Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks so much for listening.
But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
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