Podcast 4: "On Infant Baptism"

Thinking Christianly Podcast: Episode 3 "Two Apologists and a Microphone"

This show includes special guest Dr. Peter Rasor, professor of Christian Worldview at Grand Canyon University's College of Theology. Dr. Rasor earned a Ph.D.in Philosophy from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (www.sbts.edu) and is currently working on co-authoring a book with Dr. Ted Cabal on the divide within Christianity over the issue of the age of the earth/universe. You can learn more about Dr. Rasor at his blog: http://thebladeonline.org/wordpress/

The Thinking Christianly Podcast is now on iTunes. Just search for the show by name and you will find it. If you enjoy the show please give us a good review and rating. If you don't like the show...please go rate someone else ;-)

Here are some links to books mentioned in this podcast or books for further study:

Darwin on Trial by Philip E. Johnson

Know Why You Believe by Paul Little

Faith Has its Reasons by Boa and Bowman

Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig

Who is God? from Apologia Press (Great curriculum for pre-teens and teens)

How do we Know God is Really There? by Melissa Travis (apologetics for kids) 

How do we Know God Created Life? by Melissa Travis (apologetics for kids)

For Paedobaptism

I was asked recently to write a letter to my favorite podcast, The Gospel Friends, by the guys who host the show, to defend / make a case for infant baptism. A position which I have very recently adopted as my own. This is the first time I have talked about this issue publicly since my convictions have changed from credobaptist to paedobaptist. The following is my letter to The Gospel Friends:

A Few Preliminary Remarks

Obviously volumes can and have been said on this debate and there will not be time on your show to discuss this at the kind of length that would be necessary to answer every question or objection that could be raised. For that reason I am simply outlining what I see to be some of the major issues and arguments for paedobaptism, and I will answer a few objections leveled against it. Before I get to the body of the argument I did want to give you just a little bit of my background so you can understand better where I am coming from.

I came to know Christ at 15 and became involved in the charismatic/pentecostal movement. The group I was in initially was indefensibly unbiblical in its practices (I was taught to speak in tongues by the pastor, I saw people rolling on the floor, falling over everywhere, flags whistling by your head, ‘holy laughter’, and every other chaotic thing you can think of that 1 Cor. 14 would have squashed had the Bible been read). I got uncomfortable with that stuff the more I read my Bible, I eventually moved to a charismatic church that was a lot more toned down. Eventually I moved to a new town after getting married and started attending a Southern Baptist Church and started working in the youth ministry. I was eventually called as the youth pastor there and during that time I became a full cessationist (I still lean that direction but have realized the Holy Spirit is also not on vacation). Since that time I have been in ministry for about 11 ½ years. 10 of those years were in Baptist churches, 8 ½ of them were in Southern Baptist churches specifically. I was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister and have been fairly active within the SBC, attending local association meetings, state meetings, and Convention wide meetings.

All of that to say my background is diverse, but none of it was anything like Presbyterian. I have been the guy that says “love those presbyterians like Ligon Duncan, but man are they off about baptism. How can guys who know the Bible so well be so wrong?” So I am writing to you as one who has only very recently (in the last 6 months) become convinced that the Presbyterian view of baptism is correct and biblical. I have been a Calvinist for quite a while now, but I utterly rejected covenant theology for a long time and that was primarily because I did not understand it. Since I have embraced covenant theology I feel that I see the Bible with a greater unity and clarity than I used to. Holes that had been in my theology for years got filled in. So that’s my story. Here is my argument for paedobaptism.

What is the difference between my kids and my pagan neighbor’s kids?

As a parent of four kids (number 4 due in July) I have been very concerned to see my children raised to know and love the Lord. But one of the questions I have struggled with is how do I address my kids? I believe in the doctrine of original sin and the depravity of man and I believe that my kids need to repent from their sin and trust in Jesus to be saved just like everyone else. But does that mean I treat my kids as unbelievers just as the child growing up in a pagan household? Or is there something different about the children of Christians that ‘sets them apart’ from the rest?

The first passage of Scripture that really hit me hard when it comes to covenant theology was 1 Corinthians 7:10-14.

10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. 12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

I’ve always had trouble making sense of this passage in the past. What does it mean that the unbelieving spouse and children are made “holy” by the believing spouse? The word holy means, of course, to be set apart. But set apart in what way? It does not guarantee their personal salvation just because they have a believing spouse or parent; too much Scripture speaks against such an idea. But what does it mean?

The best way to understand this is to say that the believing spouse brings covenant grace to the whole family. The family is recognized by the Lord as a covenant family because of the believing spouse. So the children of even one believer, all the more of two believers, are set apart as holy to the Lord. The children of the righteous are not the same as the children of pagans who are separated from the promises of the covenant. The children of believers are holy and are to be raised as Christians. Note I am not saying that they are justified, made right with God, merely by relationship to their believing parent(s) alone. But they are to be considered as holy, belonging to the Lord, set apart from the world in a covenant way.

Christians should speak to their children about things as “what we believe as Christians.” How we live our lives “not like those in the world who do not know God.” We should speak to our children with the expectation that they do believe as far as they understand and will believe when they fully grasp the gospel. We should not talk to our children as if they are in a totally different category from ourselves. Christian families are not half Christian and half pagan until the kids express repentance and faith, they are all set apart as holy and in visible covenant relationship with the Lord.

Abraham and the Covenant of Grace

We all know the beautiful picture of God’s grace in Abraham’s life which we see in Genesis 15:3-6

3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir;your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

This passage is wonderful proof that the gospel of salvation by grace through faith is not a New Testament idea, it is a Bible idea. Salvation by grace through faith has always been the way God saves people. The law was never intended to save but to show people their need for God’s grace and to make them cling to him. Abraham believed God’s promise and was counted as righteous by faith apart from works of the law and before he was circumcised.

But here is the big question. What is the point of circumcision? Obviously it is not salvific because Abraham is justified by faith, not by the work of circumcision. So then what is its purpose? Paul answers this question in Romans 4:11-12

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

So, according to Paul, circumcision was received by Abraham “as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was uncircumcised.” Circumcision points to the righteousness that is acquired by faith. Circumcision does not point to the person, or the faith of the person, but to the righteousness that comes by faith. Whose righteousness is that? Christ’s righteousness (Romans 3:23-26).

Now when we talk about baptism, as a good Baptist, I always said “Baptism is an outward expression of an inward reality.” Which is to say that it is an outward picture of the washing away of sins and regeneration which, for a believer being baptized, is absolutely true. It wouldn’t be true if we baptized a baby though, would it? It’s not a reality for them yet. So if we baptize an infant it has to be something a little different than an outward sign pointing to an inward reality. And with Abraham, whom we could rightly say about his circumcision that it was an outward sign of an inward reality (that is an inward reality of a circumcised heart Deut 30:6), it is the same. Circumcision for him, as a believer, would be different from the circumcision of an infant.

But here is the thing, Abraham was commanded to circumcise his infant son and the male descendants thereafter. Why? Those children are not believers yet. In fact many of those children, as the Old Testament abounds in examples of, never became believers and were lost to hell. So why are they to be circumcised and what does their circumcision do for them? It points them to the righteousness that can be had by faith, just as Abraham received the righteousness of God by faith. Circumcision is a sign of God’s covenant promise to save all who believe just like Abraham did. Children in the Old Covenant were called to live in light of their circumcision, to remember who they are as the covenant people of God, to express faith in the Lord just like Abraham.

Baptism as the sign of the New Covenant

Few Christian theologians disagree with the following statement. “Circumcision was the sign of the Old Covenant, baptism replaces that symbol as the sign of the New Covenant.” I hope it is safe to assume that you would agree with me there.

As a Baptist I argued that this was indeed the case but that one of the major points of difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant was the way God gathered his covenant people. I would have said God had a national/ethnic people as his covenant people then and people were born into covenant relationship in the Old Testament whereas now God gathers people into covenant relationship as individuals, not by means of a national ethnic people. Born into covenant in the Old Testament, added to the covenant by personal faith in the New Testament.

In some ways that is true. There is no doubt that the true elect of God (spiritual Israel) are gathered individually as God calls them to himself by His Spirit (John 6:37, 44), and it is true that God had a nation of people set apart for himself in the Old Testament and worked through the Jewish people primarily. It is further true that now the church is a multi-national, multi-ethnic group made up of all believers and is not tied to a particular nation or ethnic group.

But here is what I was doing wrong. I was failing to see the distinction between the visible and invisible church, between national Israel and Spiritual Israel. As Paul writes in Romans 9:6-8

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

God has always had his true people within the visible people. Israel as a nation was the visible people of God, but not all of them were true Israelites spiritually. In our churches today we have a visible community but not all in our midst are really believers just as Jesus notes in Matthew 7, “many will come to me saying Lord, Lord”.

So the reality is this, God is not gathering his people differently in the New Covenant than he was in the Old Covenant. There is a visible community and within that visible community there are genuine believers and others not so genuine, even though outwardly they are referred to as God’s people, the Church. We may speak of the church as the bride of Christ while knowing that not all who take part in the visible church really belong to him.

So then, since baptism is the sign of the new covenant, replacing circumcision, to whom should it be applied? It should be applied to the visible church, all who belong to it by proclamation of faith or by virtue of being born into it. It is not to say that they are thereby saved, but it is to say that baptism is the mark of those in covenant relationship with God under the New Covenant and the children of believers are in covenant with the Lord because they are holy to him (1 Cor. 7).

The problem of discontinuity

Imagine yourself to be a Jewish believer in Yahweh who is listening to Peter preach at Pentecost. As the people are cut to the heart by the gospel message the following unfolds in Acts 2:37-39

37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

Now, you’re a Jew...what did you just hear? Who is this promise of salvation for? It’s for me, and for my children, and for all people that the Lord will call. What is the sign that accompanies the promise of salvation to those who repent and believe? Baptism.

I’m a Jew. I am in covenant with Yahweh. My children are in covenant with Yahweh and I have circumcised them as covenant children to point them towards the righteousness that comes by faith in the Lord, just like Abraham. God is doing something new, something greater, something bigger. It’s a promise to me and to my children and all who are far off. Sounds like the Old Covenant, just even better.

One way the New Covenant is better is that its application is wider. Baptism is not just for male children but for all my children. In Christ we are all adopted as sons with full rights. But the last thing that Jewish believer thinks is this:

“My kids were holy and in covenant with Yahweh, and now they are cut off from the covenantal blessings until they are old enough to repent.”

That is not what they heard. It is not what was said. And if it were the case that the covenant sign of baptism (the sign that marks them as belonging to the Lord in covenant relationship) was not to be applied to their children then it would need to be explicitly taught. But it is not taught. In fact it is not even implied anywhere.

The Jewish convert to Christianity would have understood that the promise and the sign of the promise was for his whole family, even his children.

Some objections:

1. You don’t see any infant baptism in Scripture.

Certainly this was one of my primary arguments against infant baptism as a Baptist. I mean, case closed right? I thought so. But put on a fresh pair of lenses and look again. I am not arguing that there are any clear instances of infant baptism and I am even willing to admit there may actually be no instances where it is seen at all. There are a few cases where it is at least possible that there were infants baptized, but it’s altogether unclear either way. The text does not explicitly say there were no babies baptized nor does it explicitly say that everyone was older and everyone believed. For instance you have household conversions in the New Testament. Just one example is Acts 16:30-34 and the Philippian jailer:

30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

Again, it may certainly be the case that all in his household were older, and all expressed personal faith in Jesus. But that is an assumption. If paedobaptism is correct nothing in this text forbids the idea of his children receiving baptism. Also it is interesting that the text says “he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.” The emphasis is on his faith and conversion even though the whole household was baptized. The idea of corporate family solidarity as opposed to the individuality of our culture is an issue to consider. In the Old Testament there are numerous cases when a head of household made a decision which affected the whole family, either in conversion to Israel and all are circumcised (down to the servants) or in situations like Achan’s sin where the whole family pays for his sin.

So this may be a case where there is infant baptism, it may be a case where all are older and all believe personally. The issue is that the text can fit both paradigms without any trouble. The other thing I would say is that all of the baptisms you see in the New Testament are of first generation Christians. There is no example in the New Testament of a baptism of a second generation Christian. Even paedobaptists believe in believers baptism when they have not been reared in the home of saints.

One last point here. Everywhere you see baptism in the New Testament where names are mentioned (as opposed to the more than 3,000 at pentecost) it is a household baptism. The only exceptions are the Ethiopian eunuch (for obvious reasons) and Simon the magician (who actually shows himself to be unregenerate although baptized). The corporate solidarity of the family (the household can be more than just blood relatives in Scripture) is a huge aspect in Scripture, both Old and New Testaments and it is often easily overlooked.

2. Baptism means immersion...so there!

Some will point out that the primary lexical definition of the Greek word baptizo is “to immerse”, so that settles it. Nobody thinks we ought to put 8 day old babies under the water so the discussion is over since sprinkling and pouring are out by definition (actually the Eastern Orthodox apparently do full immersion for babies I’m told…). Well, it would end the conversation (for most of us) except for the fact that the word baptizo is used numerous times in the New Testament to refer to situations where immersion is not in view.

Mark 7:4 “and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)”

The word used for “washing” is a form of the word baptizo. But it is very unlikely that they are completely immersing entire dining couches. Likewise in Luke 11:38 “The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.” It is not likely that the pharisee was astonished that Jesus did not fully immerse himself before dinner, but that he didn’t wash his hands like we typically think of. In 1 Corinthians 10:2 baptism is referred to in relationship to crossing the red sea and being in the cloud (no one even got wet). Basically nowhere in the New Testament does the word baptism get defined as immersion, it is an a priori assumption that is read into the text. It most certainly can mean immersion, it may often mean immersion, but it does not have to mean that.

3. Unregenerate church membership is dangerous.

It definitely can be. But it is also an undeniable reality. As we have already said there are tares among the wheat. People who name the name of Jesus whom Jesus does not know. The visible church is always mixed with the elect of God and those who are lost. But the children of believers, while unregenerate until they repent and believe, are set apart as holy and are a part of the church. They are (in Presbyterian terms) non-communicant members until they profess faith in Christ personally. But they are covenant members of God’s household and to be treated as such until or unless they actually reject the Lord and then they are to be dealt with as unbelievers.

The problem of nominalism, which comes from unregenerate people in the church, is not just a problem for churches who practice infant baptism and non-communicant membership. Although the idea in credo-baptist circles is that every member is a committed believer, the reality is that many credo-baptist churches are very nominal and have a mix of true believers and lost but professing individuals. Nominalism is not caused by paedobaptism it is caused by sin and lack of faithfulness in biblical teaching and preaching. In Reformed circles the non-communicant member of the church holds no possibility of teaching or influence in the church, only those who have expressed faith in Christ and repentance from sin can hold offices or teach in the church. Lack of faithful exposition of Scripture and holding the line on truth is what causes churches to sink.

4. Infant baptism will confuse people and give them false assurance of salvation.

It could easily do that if the church fails to be faithful in the consistent preaching of the word of God. But there are also credo-baptists who wrongly assume their baptism has saved them and they are good-to-go. The truth is if a church teaches faithfully and consistently that baptism does not save you, only repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus saves you, then this shouldn’t be a problem. Faithful Reformed preaching tells people they need to live in light of what their baptism points to, the righteousness of Christ that can be theirs by faith. They do not have a righteousness to themselves, their baptism does not save them or infuse them with grace, but that it is a sign of God’s covenant to save them if they will repent and believe the gospel.

It is important to distinguished the Reformed/Presbyterian understanding of paedobaptism from Roman Catholic paedobaptism and Lutheran paedobaptism which do teach that baptism is salvific in nature. Roman Catholics and Lutherans believe it washes away original sin, the Reformed/Presbyterians do not believe that. Both RC’s and Lutherans practice confirmation where the non-communicant member is confirmed at a particular age, Reformed/Presbyterians do not. A person becomes a communicant member when, and only when, they personally express repentance and faith, there is no age in particular.

5. Jesus was baptized as an adult.

True story. But something needs to be considered here. John’s baptism is not the same baptism Jesus commands in the Great Commission. Baptism was a relatively common ceremonial practice in Jewish circles as a symbol of cleansing and preparation, but Jesus instituted a Trinitarian baptism for the church to use which was different. The baptism of John, which Jesus was baptized with, is not synonymous with the baptism Jesus later commanded after the New Covenant had been inaugurated by his death.

A final thought

In credo-baptist circles baptism is said to point to the believer’s faith in Jesus. In paedobaptist circles baptism is said to point to the righteousness of Christ itself that can be appropriated by faith. That is to say that as a paedobaptist I am arguing that we should see baptism primarily in terms of a visible seal of the covenant that points people toward the righteousness of Christ that is received by faith. We should not make baptism about the one who has believed but about the one whom we are to believe in (Christ).

Thank you for letting me write to you. I know that this may not convince anyone but I hope it is helpful for discussion on the show. I love you guys as brothers and I appreciate your show, the laughs and the good discussion. If you would like to follow up on any of this with me at some point I would be glad to clarify any point or answer any questions I can. My email is jacob.allee84@gmail.com and I welcome correspondence about this if you’d like. Here are some recommended resources for further study if you so desire:

Sproul on paedobaptism

http://www.gty.org/resources/Articles/A361/Case-for-Infant-Baptism-The-Historic-PaedoBaptist-Position

Dennis E. Johnson on paedobaptism

http://reformedperspectives.org/newfiles/den_johnson/TH.Johnson.Baptism.html

Liam Goligher on changing his mind towards paedobaptim

http://www.tenth.org/resource-library/articles/how-i-changed-my-mind-about-infant-baptism

Kevin Deyoung’s short article on Paedobaptism which includes further resources:

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2015/03/12/a-brief-defense-of-infant-baptism/

Thinking Christianly Podcast: Episode 2 Why the World Craves Superheroes

Thinking Christianly Podcast: Pilot Episode

Separating Christ from the Bible

Continuing on the same line of thought I started in the previous post, I wanted to clarify further the problem of reductionism in Christian apologetics. By reductionism I mean reducing the requirements of what it means to be a Christian to an absolute minimum. In other words is it okay to simply affirm God's existence, Jesus' resurrection and that's it? Is that what Christianity is?

The answer ought to clearly be 'no'. You cannot be a Christian without accepting all of Christianity. Let me be clear, I am not talking about soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). What must you do to be saved? Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:38;19:4 John 3:16; Eph. 2:8-10). You don't need to know, understand or believe any more than the basic gospel to be saved. Almost no one can articulate the Trinity when they come to faith in Christ, but do you need to believe the Trinity to be a Christian? Yes.

It's not about what you have to believe, at minimum, to be saved. It is about what do Christians believe? What should I (we) believe if we have repented and believed in Christ? We should believe the Bible and all it teaches. To reject the Scripture is to reject Christ because the Scripture is the word of Christ (Romans 10:17).Now someone will surely say 'but, that argument is circular' because I am arguing from the Bible to say that the Bible is the word of Christ. Okay, that's a fine thing to say... if you are an unbeliever. I understand having to defend the Bible to an unbeliever, but I am talking about those who have been convinced already that God exists and Jesus is His Son and that God raised Jesus from the dead. If you can get there by evidence and reason, what's your hang up with believing the Bible?

Furthermore, if you have believed in Christ as the resurrected Savior, what are you supposed to do now? What did Jesus save you from and what did he save you for and to? You see all of the information about why Christ had to die, why he had to rise bodily and what we are supposed to do with our lives in light of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection is in...guess where? The Bible.

The Bible is the content of Christianity. If you separate the Christ of history (the Christ of apologetic argumentation) from the Christ of the Bible what do you have? Some disconnected facts about a person named Jesus who taught (something?) and died by Roman crucifixion and rose bodily from the grave on the third day. But what do you do with that information if you don't have the Bible to fill in the context and meaning?

Now some will surely say 'well of course the Bible is important and we need it, but it's not inerrant'. The idea being we can use the Bible to fill in context and meaning but we cannot take it as perfect or infallible truth. Maybe they got a lot of things right but some of it wrong?

But who are you, O man, to judge the Bible? Will the one who is saved by Christ say to him 'why have you not protected all of your word?' Or do you not know that is exactly what he has done! The God who is powerful enough to create the world out of nothing, powerful enough to save sinners and raise Jesus from the dead, is powerful enough to keep his word trustworthy.

But you realize what happens when we talk about the Bible being 'generally reliable' don't you? It becomes ours to use selectively. If we reject the notion that the very words of the Scripture are 'theopneustos' (God breathed) and that every 'jot and tittle' is inspired and instead go with the notion that the Bible is just 'fairly historically accurate', then we set ourselves up as judges over the Bible. Ruling from our wicked hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) we decided what in the Bible is important to obey and what we can dismiss as simply a product of that culture. The Bible is accurate enough to tell us that Jesus rose from the dead to save us from our sins, but not accurate enough to tells us about God's will for human sexuality or whether or not it is okay for women to be pastors (those things are cultural, right?).

When you separate Christ from the Bible you separate Christ from Christianity. If your Christ isn't the same as the one in the Bible then your Christ is without content and cannot save you because you don't have a basis for understanding what you need saved from or saved to. Christ Jesus, if he is anything, is the Jesus of the Bible. He is the Lord who commends the Bible to you as the very word of God. He looks back to the prophets and says that's the word of God, he is God and he spoke, and he set apart apostles to speak for him.

So while I understand the reasoning of some apologists who say that you only have to believe that Christ died and rose from the dead to be a Christian, that is only true as it relates to believing that the Christ in mind is the one who is understood in light of the Bible. To be a Christian is to recognize Jesus is Lord of your life and that involves knowing and following his commandments. But where do we get the content of Jesus' teaching? From the Bible.

John 8:31 "So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples."

A Sub-Christian Apologetic

There is more than one way to approach Christian apologetics. In this case I am not referring to the debate between Classical, Evidential and Presuppositional apologetics. Instead I mean there are at least two different objectives that some people doing apologetics have. While everyone in apologetics would say that they are defending the Christian faith and trying to get people to believe in Christ it would seem that some have a greater objective in mind than others. The objective of one kind of apologist is to defend the whole truth of the Christian worldview, without compromise, no matter how our culture receives it. The objective of some others is to get people to believe certain aspects (presumably what they consider the most important parts) of the Christian worldview and they are less concerned with whether or not people believe 'the peripherals'.

Now I speak of two pretty black and white camps while realizing there is something of a sliding scale with many shades of grey in between. Nevertheless every apologist, consciously or not, falls closer to one than the other. It is my contention that the first objective, to defend the truth of the Christian worldview without compromise is what true apologetics is about. I loathe the idea of commending Christianity to our culture by way of watering it down and making it more palatable to secular taste buds. The idea that we can boil down Christianity to the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus and say all those other doctrine are optional is despicable, but that is the result of some of the apologetics we see today.

The problem comes when we start playing games such as 'how little do I have to believe to be a Christian?' The moment that question is asked we have already lost. Apologetics is not about defining what is the most reductionist, minimalist form of Christianity that one can hold to and still be a Christian. Apologetics is about helping people believe the whole Christian worldview.

We are not calling people to believe the Bible is basically reliable as a historical source, we are calling people to believe the Bible is the authoritative word of God. We are not calling people to merely believe that the best explanation of the facts is that Jesus rose from the dead, we are calling them to repent and believe the gospel. We are not calling people to believe generally in the moral law but to believe specifically in the morality presented in Scripture which is where the moral law giver has spoken most clearly.

I am tired of talking to 'Christians' who think it is acceptable to pick and choose what they believe in the Bible. I am tired of talking to apologists who act as if we cannot believe (or expect others to believe) anything in the Bible unless it is corroborated by an early non-Christian source. That kind of limp-wristed, minimalist, halfhearted sort of Jesus following is pathetic.

I love apologetics. I love the evidence that supports the truth of Christianity. I love extra-biblical sources that support the data of the Bible. I love manuscript evidence that shows the faithful transmission of the Bible. I love philosophical arguments that show the logical consistency of believing in God. I love that science shows serious problems with evolutionary theory. I love all of that stuff and more and I agree that if Christianity is true we should see evidence of just those sort of things.

But here is the problem, we will never confirm with 100% certainty every fact that the Bible proclaims. It just wont happen. But it is wrong to conclude that you should not, therefore, believe everything the Bible proclaims. If the evidence shows that belief in God is more reasonable than the alternative, then believe in God wholeheartedly. If the evidence supports that Jesus rose from the dead then bow to him as the sovereign Lord of your life. If the Bible has been shown to be faithfully preserved and that the New Testament authors told the truth then yield to the instruction of the Bible completely.

The fact of the matter is if Jesus rose from the dead, he is who he claimed. If he is who he claimed then the Bible is God's word as he said it is. If you are a Christian that means you are committed to following Jesus and his teachings and you should be all in. There is no half way in Christianity.

If we can affirm the central truths of Christianity with intellectual rigor and honesty, and we can, then that should be reason to believe more. All of those truths can be reasonably affirmed and that is a foundation for believing all of what Christ and his apostles and the prophets of old taught. It's ludicrous to believe that God exists and raised Jesus from the dead and then to also to sit over the Bible as its judge on every issue that cannot be externally confirmed.

Apologetics should lead people to believe more, not less. I'm afraid many apologist have actually led Christians to believe less while helping non-believers believe more, but still insufficiently so. If Jesus rose from the dead then Christianity is true and all that comes with it. If A then B. If B then all the way to Z.

Tolerance Demands Disagreement

It is a sad truth that we live amid a generation of people who cannot recognize the difference between the statement 'I disagree with you' and the statement 'I hate you'. In a day when 'tolerance' is a major buzzword in our culture it is ironic that few seem to know what the word actually means. In fact what we are witnessing is nothing less than a total redefinition of a word by the mass misusing of that same word.

Historically speaking, tolerance has meant that people agree to disagree. That is to say if you hold a point of view that is in opposition to my own I allow you to hold that view even though I don't like it. Conversely, intolerance is in direct opposition to the idea of tolerance. Intolerance is the application of harm to make others agree with your position, or to punish those who refuse to agree. Disagreement is innate to the idea of tolerance. If everyone agrees then there is no need for tolerance.

Imagine to foolishness of the following situation. A person says 'rocky road is the best flavor of ice cream'. His friend says 'I agree that rocky road is the best flavor of ice cream, and therefore I tolerate your opinion.' Our response to this should be obvious. There has been no act of tolerance here, only agreement. If the person said 'I think strawberry cream is the best flavor of ice cream but I will allow you to disagree' then that would be tolerance. But if in response to the first person the second had said 'I think that strawberry cream is the best flavor of ice cream, and unless you change your mind I will kill you' then what has happened? The first person's friend has been very intolerant towards them.

The very nature of the concept of tolerance demands disagreement. You cannot be tolerant of an idea you agree with. Tolerance is the virtue of respecting the right of another person, or a group of people, to disagree with what you hold to be true. The moment a person applies the threat of harm to make the other person change their mind, they show that they are intolerant of that person's point of view.

Tolerance is, simply put, the willingness to allow people who hold ideas and beliefs contrary to your own to exist with you in this world without threat of harm.

By harm I mean the deprivation of basic human rights and civil liberties. In other words 'if you don't agree I/we will beat you' and 'if you don't agree I/we will burn your house down' and 'if you don't agree I/we will imprison you', etc., are all examples of using harm to coerce agreement and punish disagreement and that is intolerance at work.

On the other hand statements like 'if you don't agree I/we will not be your friend anymore' and 'if you don't agree I/we will openly oppose your point of view to the public' and 'if you don't agree I/we will not give your company my/our business', etc., are not examples of harm.

Now don't get me wrong, the latter set of "if you don't agree' statements do exert a certain kind of force. The force employed is a kind that seeks to change their opponents mind by withholding friendship, by getting others to see their opponent is wrong in his conviction, and by withdrawing financial support from their opponents company. All of those things, however, are within the rights of the person who disagrees. They are not acts of intolerance; they are acts of conscience. Those acts may persuade their opponent to change their mind (or at least their policy) because it is not worth it to the opponent to hold their ground but force and harm are different issues.

A person must be free to disagree, to disagree loudly and publicly and also free to not support the people they disagree with. But tolerance demands disagreement. A person who denies friendship, who speaks publicly against someone else's view, and who will not buy goods from another can still be tolerant of them as long as they do not harm them. Getting your feelings hurt, by the way, is not harm. People refusing to give your business their support is not harm. People disagreeing with you is not harm. You might not like it, sure, but that is just too bad.

Can you imagine a world without tolerance? If you read history books and world news it should not be that hard to do. When a regime like that Nazis or ISIS takes control there is no tolerance. You agree with them or you die. You might even die if you do agree. When different views and ideas are not allowed to coexist we end up in a miserable situation. A situation where basic human rights are denied and where people are imprisoned and put to death for disagreeing with the dictator or the group of people in power.

Our American culture is increasingly intolerant towards those who hold to the biblical worldview. To say 'homosexuality is a sin' is thought to be a criminal offense by many people in our country. We are blurring the lines between hurt feelings and genuine harm. Christians, who actually hold to biblical teaching, will both openly oppose homosexuality as a sin (along with heterosexual sex outside of marriage) and also defend homosexual's right to practice homosexuality without fear of harm (the real kind of harm, death, prison, destruction of property, etc.). Even opposing the legalization of same sex marriage is not harming anyone in the real sense of the word harm,. It is a disagreement about what is best for individuals, for children, for our nation, but it is not a call for violence against homosexuals.

Christians, who actually follow the teaching of Jesus, will oppose the idea of harming homosexuals in any way. Christians will allow people who disagree with them to exist and to make their own decisions about how to lives. As long as people are not harming other innocent parties in the process of exercising their freedoms then they should be allowed to do so. Radical Muslims, however, will not protect the rights of homosexuals like Christians will. We practice tolerance, radical Islam does not.

Our country needs to think real carefully about the idea of tolerance versus intolerance. We need to think carefully about how to define the word harm. We need to think carefully about the importance of allowing people to disagree, even vehemently disagree, without forcing people to conform through threat of harm. Just as homosexuals shouldn't be threatened with harm by radical Muslims neither should Christians be threatened with harm by radical homosexuals. I am afraid we are seeing the growth of intolerance towards people of biblical faith under the ironic banner 'tolerance.'