Decisionism and infant baptism

This is a post script to my last post below on "decisionism" and also follows through on some of the thoughts I posted a few months ago on infant baptism.

You see, ultimately I think the problem with the so-called "believers baptism" model is that it is decisionistic in its focus. It says a child cannot be baptised until she is old enough to have made a mature and well informed "decision". It doesn't seem to accept that faith is something that a child can grow into, and there may be no moment of "decision". There is a constant attempt to evangelize the child and have the child reach a point where they can "pray the prayer".

This is the wrong focus. You tell your 2 year old child that God created the world, that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus died on a cross, that Jesus rose from the dead, and the child will tend to believe those words. Some continue to grow in that belief, others later reject it, but the belief can and is nonetheless present at a young age. Infant baptism is an affirmation of that reality.

Decisionism and the sinner's prayer

John H has posted an alternative version of 2WTL (h/t Craig S). He said he was keen to avoid the "decisionistic" emphasis of the final box of 2WTL. I'm completely with him on that, not so much with respect to 2WTL (which, by the way, I think is generally great as a gospel summary), but more wanting to avoid the "decisionistic" emphasis of evangelicalism generally. Here's (you guessed it) five thoughts:

1. What do I mean by "decisionism"? It's a common feature of evangelicalism that, in the course of evangelism, the evangelist tries to get a "decision" out of someone to become a Christian. Moreover, it can be an attempt to get a decision expressed in a particular way - in the old days it was the altar call; nowadays in Sydney Anglican circles it tends to be "ticking the box" on a feedback card. In both cases it is accompanied by praying "the sinners prayer". So much so that the phrase "prayed the prayer" has become a synonym for "become a Christian".

2. There is much that is true about decisionism. Following Christ does involve making a conscious decision to do so. And in our evangelism we are to call on people to make a response to the gospel. But there's a few aspects I'm not keen on.

3. The gospel response the Bible seems to ask for is faith and repentance. Yes, there's an element of "decision", especially the repentance part. But for the faith part, it's more a case of simply believing. Do you believe Jesus is Lord? Do you believe he died for your sins? Do you believe he rose from the dead? For many (myself included) it can be a case of the penny suddenly dropping - one minute you lack belief, the next minute it falls into place and you believe it and grasp it. Or for others it may happen more gradually over time. It's not so much that I made a decision to be a Christian (although I did), but that God opened my eyes to see the truth and believe it. "Decisionism" can start to sound very Arminian, so I find it somewhat surprising it is so prevalent in our more Calvinist-inclined circles.

4. The other issue I have is the empahsis on "praying the prayer" as the expression of that decision. Barely a gospel tract or gospel outline exists without a version of the sinner's prayer to pray. Of course, there's nothing wrong with praying on conversion - indeed, it's a great thing to do! But as Phil said over in the comments at John H's blog, it implies that the newly-converted person has no faith or forgiveness before the prayer and gains both by the act of praying. Phil said he would teach people the 'convert's prayer'. "Do you believe this? Then the first thing to do is to say thankyou to God!". I like that.

5. Finally, if there is to be some physical expression of the new convert's faith, what's wrong with the physical expression used in the Bible - i.e. baptism? It seems the "sinner's prayer / altar call / tick the box" package has become the new initiatory sacrament of evangelicalism. Instead of ticking the box, what about just finding a nearby river or swimming pool or bath or jug of water and being baptised!! Indeed, even taking the Lord's Supper would be a good idea - eating the bread and drinking the wine as a sign of feeding on Christ in faith for the first time. I saw the Lord's Supper used in that way at St Helen's Bishopsgate in London on my recent trip, and we've done it a few times since at our church - i.e. use the Lord's Supper as a demonstration of new found faith - "if you have believed Jesus' promises for the first time today, why not take and eat this bread along with us".

Five more Mars Hill hymns

I referred to five of these earlier (post now updated to include links to MP3 files of songs).

These guys truly do a great job with modernizing classic old hymns. So here's five more:

1. Holy, Holy, Holy - by The BCG. ("Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!")

2. When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (with a bit of "And Can It Be" thrown in for good measure) - by The Mars HillBillies. (Hillbilly indeed!) ("Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown.")

3. Be Thou My Vision - by The BCG. ("Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise; Thou mine inheritance, now and always...")

4. What A Friend We Have in Jesus - by Brothers of the Empty Tomb. ("What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!")

5. Nothing But The Blood - by The BCG. ("Nothing can for sin atone: nothing but the blood of Jesus.")

Five cosmic truths from John 1

What a great chapter of the Bible, one of my favourites. It contains such mindblowing cosmic truths such as these:

1. In the beginning was the Word.

2. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

3. Through him, all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

4. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

5. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

To think that he who is eternal, divine, the creator of all, the light of the world, came and dwelt among us, taking on our frail flesh, is truly amazing.

Five things to say about singing in church

I've taken on responsibility for leading the music team at church this year, so have been thinking a bit about music and church. Here's some thoughts, probably all overlapping somewhat.

1. God made us as emotional beings and gave us music as a way to express that emotion. We only need look at the place of music in every culture to see this, but more importantly the pages of scripture testify to the place of song in the life of God's people.

2. The primacy of the ministry of the word should not mean devaluing music. Indeed, a "word-centred" church should recognise that song is a powerful way to express the word of God, but also that music is one way we have of responding to the word of God. In singing, we express our joy and thankfulness to God in response to the saving word of the gospel of Jesus Christ. (See Colossians 3:16).

3. In saying that the ministry of song goes hand-in-hand with the ministry of the word, we need to be careful however to ensure our songs are not simply statements of doctrine set to music. A song should have music that lifts our hearts, and lyrics that are rich with poetry. Don't give me dry songs. If you want to just set a doctrine text book or statement of belief to uninspiring music, what's the point of having the music?

4. Much has been made in evangelical circles recently of the "horizontal" dimension to music i.e. singing to each other. This is all true. However, we need to avoid forgetting the "vertical" dimension of music. There is nothing wrong with singing to God and not just about God.

5. OK, the whole "worship" thing. Yes, some churches misemphasise the purpose of church as being to worship God, in a sense which might suggest we are not worshipping God the other 6 days a week, and some have confused what we do in church with Old Testament cultic worship, and that we somehow enter into God's presence when singing in church i.e. the "praise and worship" time. BUT, we evangelicals have way over-reacted against some of these errors by almost purging the word "worship" from our vocabulary all together, and removing any sense that when we gather together as God's people we are worshipping God, or that singing can involve worship. I think we can and should acknowledge that singing does involve worshipping God, while recognizing that worship is also much more than singing.

Stay tuned (excuse the pun) ... more posts to come on music and church ...

Five hundred reasons I believe in the resurrection of Jesus

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

Happy Easter!

Five reasons why I think Christians should baptise their children

For most of my life, I've held to "believers only" baptism (i.e. usually adult, or at least older children). But tomorrow, I am having all three of my children (aged 4.5 yrs, 2 yrs and 5 mths) baptised. Why am I doing this?

I am doing this because I have come to quite firmly believe that Christian believers should baptise their children. [Note, I still do not think unbelievers or "nominal Christians" should baptise their children; it is that practice that turned me off infant baptism for so long.]

Why do I now think this? I could go on for ages, and I'm not sure I'm yet able to articulate this as well as I'd like to, but here's five reasons:

1. The starting point is to say that baptism itself is important. On its own, the mere splashing or pouring or immersing in water may not necessarily mean much, but what that water points to are things of profound and amazing wonder - the washing away of sin, our burial and resurrection with Christ, and the pouring of God's Spirit into our hearts. In the New Testament, baptism was the expected norm for the Christian, the sign that you belonged to God and were part of his community. I could go on. But the point is, we too often undervalue baptism (some can also overvalue it) but it is a wonderful thing because it points to even greater things.

2. I believe that Jesus's great commission of making disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them to obey all he had commanded, starts at home with our own family - we are to baptise and teach our children, that they too might be disciples of Christ. Indeed, we should treat them as little disciples from day 1. We treat them as part of God's family, part of the church. We don't treat them as pagans requiring conversion, but as little Christians requiring discipling.

3. It is often said that there is no precedent in the New Testament of children or infants being baptised. Putting aside the various "households" being baptised that are referred to in the book of Acts, this argument misses the whole point of Acts. The book of Acts is all about new converts, the first generation of believers. It was groundbreaking stuff. There is nothing in the New Testament that discounts the possibility that the second generation, the children of those first believers, were baptised. Indeed, the references to households being baptised suggests that is exactly what happened.

4. One difficulty with so-called believers baptism is our definition of "belief" or "faith". We seem to require a faith that is sufficiently mature before qualifying for baptism. Why is not the faith of a three year old who knows that Jesus is God not sufficient faith? Do they have to be able to articulate the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement to qualify? What about the little two year old who says a simple grace of "Dear God, dinner, Amen" - why is not that simple trust in God sufficient? Where do we draw the line? In my mind, the only logical time to baptise the child of a Christian family, who will hopefully never know a time when they did not know Jesus, is as an infant.

5. But in any event, ultimately baptism is not about my choice, my decision, my faith. What I love about infant baptism is that it shifts the emphasis to God's choice, God's decision and God's faithfulness. Just as the initiative in the baptism comes from outside the child, so too does the initiative in salvation come from outside ourselves. Our salvation is not about our own faith, but about God's faithfulness. Baptism, and especially infant baptism, points to this.