A Response to Pastor Nino Marques’ Post, “Can Baptists Be Truly Reformed?”
Written by Pastor Chris Cousine
Let me first lay all cards on the table: I was a Reformed Baptist pastor under the umbrella of the North American Mission Board from 2011-2016. I held to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and honestly got annoyed every time a Reformed or Presbyterian would tell me that Baptists can’t be reformed. I am now a 1646 Westminster Confession holding Presbyterian minister. I have seen both sides of this argument, and when I saw Pastor Marques’ blog post dealing with the subject, I couldn’t resist. Below is an attempt to interact with the blog post in good taste and cheerful disagreement.
First, the good.
Pastor Marques’ clearly distinguishes between General Baptists and Particular Baptists. This is an important distinction and one that cannot be ignored. It is also true that the 1689 Particular Baptists did emerge from the Westminster Reformed world. The 1689 confession is directly modelled (read: plagiarized, but on purpose, they weren’t hiding it) after the Westminster confession. The 1689 is therefore similar in many ways to the Westminster in areas of soteriology, confessional theology, and a covenantal reading of history (more on that in a minute). I would also say a hearty ‘AMEN’ to the assertion that Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians are closer in many ways than the General (Arminian) Baptists.
Now, for the pushback.
The issue isn’t origin, but that of definition. Pastor Marques’ argues that “Reformed Baptists are Reformed by origin, therefore they are truly Reformed.” The problem is that this isn’t how “Reformed” is defined, and historically never has been. To be Reformed incorporated confessional standards, ecclesiastical standards, and sacramental standards. It was never defined by the modern notion of “Calvinism”, confessional similarity or covenant theology in the abstract sense. Furthermore, Reformed was defined by a covenant community, a church constituted by households, and sacraments as covenant signs administered to believers and their children. Here is the rub: You cannot remove the covenant sign from covenant households and somehow still claim to be expressing the same covenant theology. This is not a small difference, but one that plays out in how the covenant functions in history.
When I read from Pastor Marques, “We affirm covenant theology fully while disagreeing on covenant signs and membership.” Respectfully, this assertion is incoherent, because it collapses under its own definitions. These are not peripheral issues in the Reformed world. Covenant membership, covenant signs and covenant administration are the means by which the church is identified. To be clear, children are excluded from visible covenant membership as historically defined in all Baptist circles, regardless of the stripe. With this change alone, the covenant no longer exists or functions as it did from Abraham forward. This definition of “New” swings wildly away from fulfillment of the Old, but into that of redefining the covenant. Think continuity, think household inclusion, think of the covenant signs as God-initiated markers, not merely human responses. Once you’ve redefined the covenant, you have stepped outside of “Covenant Theology”. At best, we might say that ‘Reformed Baptists’ are structurally discontinuous with historic Reformed covenantalism. We are not the same.
So while I would agree that my ‘Reformed Baptist’ brethren are brothers-in-Christ and wonderful additions to the body of Christ, I would have to disagree with the assertion that even ‘Reformed Baptists’ can truly be ‘Reformed’. Words mean things, and while Reformed Baptists are similar to the Reformed churches in many regards, definitionally they do not fit the term ‘Reformed’ in it’s historical sense.
Reformed Baptists are not outsiders, enemies, or theological interlopers. They are our closest cousins. But family resemblance does not erase real differences in how we understand the covenant, the church, and the administration of God’s promises.
The question is not whether Baptists can be Calvinistic, confessional, or covenantal. They can, and many are. The question is whether the historic Reformed tradition can be meaningfully separated from paedobaptism without becoming a closely related but nevertheless distinct ecclesial tradition. I don’t think it can.
Covenant Presbyterian Church 