I am resharing an old post on an old intramural baptist discussion. The two questions this one concerns are these:
- “If our basis for welcoming paedobaptists into membership is because ‘Jesus has accepted them’, what ground have we got for denying those who reject the inerrancy of scripture? Unless we are arguing that a rejection of inerrancy means Christ cannot have saved that individual, we have something of an inconsistency on our hands, don’t we?”
- “In what way are we affirming baptism as significant at all if it means absolutely nothing in relation to membership? In what way are we treating it as a foundational command of Jesus present in the Great Commission if, in fact, we are happy to make disciples without insisting upon their being baptised?”
The first question equally applies to a host of other issues, including those who wouldn’t admit people who are neither paedo nor credo baptised. It applies to any non-salvific issue that we nevertheless insist upon for admission to the church.
The second rests on an understanding that baptism does, in fact, matter for membership of the church. A position that has been held by every stripe of church for about 2000 years until very recently. We cannot sidestep it by arguing baptism that we do not recognise as legitimate is, in fact, actually baptism despite our rejection of it. If we wouldn’t happily conduct such a baptism because it isn’t actually baptism, we do have to question why we will affirm it as legitimate at all with any consistency.