Greenbaggins continues to review my book “Reformed” Is Not Enough, and he does so here. He begins this post by asking where I have been hiding.
I sent an email to Douglas Wilson asking if he is desirous of continuing the debate. I believe that since June 28th, which was the first post on the sacerdotalism chapter, and July 2nd, which was the second post on that chapter, and July 12th, which was my first post on the baptism chapter, Wilson has had adequate time to respond. I think that if those who are benefitting from this exchange between a critic and a proponent of FV are desirous of keeping this a two-way street, some pressure will need to be exerted on Wilson to continue on his side. I plan on finishing the book review. I am not sure why Wilson has not continued the debate. But lack of time can hardly be the reason, especially since he has posted on the Federal Vision here. I do not mean to bully Wilson in any way. If he is not desirous of continuing the debate, then that is certainly his prerogative. At the same time, I think it odd that he has been clamoring for debate, and yet now does not seem to want it. Was it because I came down hard on his (mis)take on Warfield? I make no attempt to read his motives. I am somewhat puzzled, I confess. Maybe Wilson will be so good as to clear it up for us.
So let me address that first. What with a book project I was finishing, some pastoral time-munchers, catching up in the office after time on the road, shoveling away at small mountains of email, and having five extra grandchildren back from the UK, I have been up to my neck in plenty of good things to do. During such seasons, priorities shift, some of them downward. But interacting with Greenbaggins is still something I intend to finish, and because I have just gotten through this most recent bottleneck, here we are. No pressure necessary. All I need are some extra hours.
At the same time, in the spirit of full disclosure, it should be said that my enthusiasm for answering Lane had been dampened by his treatment of Leithart on Kings. That was just the royal limit, but still I soldier on. What I intend to do here is respond briefly to this most recent post, and, as I have opportunity, go back and respond to the ones I missed. I hear rumors that I got my rear end kicked over a Warfield quote and so I really need to go back to that one and check for bruises.
One of the reasons I have been willing to interact with Lane is that he has been willing to acknowledge a number of my qualifications and explanations. This is not the case with some of the other FV guys, but, for whatever reason, he does do it with me. This could cut both ways, of course. At the end of this process I might find that I am reluctantly included among the orthodox. The other possibility is that Lane might have to start defending himself against charges that he is denying sola fide. There are some people out there on a hair trigger, and whenever one goes to presbytery one must walk like a ninja.
For example, in this last response, he is sailing pretty close to the wind — at least as far as some critics of the FV are concerned.
In this [on the question of deferred grace from baptism], I would certainly side with Wilson. Indeed, as carefully read and qualified (I don’t at all like the language of baptismal regeneration, as it carries an enormous weight of baggage), Wilson’s position seems to be in accord with the Standards on baptism.
Yikes. Criminy. An implication of this is that Lane is arguing here that FV critics who have accused me of sacerbadthingsism have misunderstood and misrepresented me. This is quite true, and so I’ll take it with grateful thanks.
So let me explain my use of the phrase baptismal regeneration. I actually agree with Lane that the phrase carries a lot of baggage that I don’t want to carry. This is why you won’t hear me preaching any sermon series on Why We Hold to Baptismal Regeneration. What happened was this.
I got accused of holding to baptismal regeneration, and a bunch of other unflattering things, by a number of hostile injuns who had the warpaint on, and who were wearing the Westminster Confession of Faith as a ceremonial headdress, feathers and all. Without me having used this kind of language provocatively (for obvious reasons of prudence), I was accused of holding to the substance of baptismal regneration by men who did not know the history of their own confession. Because of their compromises with the American baptistic ethos, they had institutionalized a number of “workarounds” to the language of their own confession and baptismal formulae. This they did, serenely unaware of how much they owed to the Southern Baptist Convention.
The point of that section in RINE was to point this glaring problem out. Now I cheerfully admit, acknowledge and say that the Westminster doctrine on this is clearly not the doctrine of the Lutherans, Anglicans, or Roman Catholics. But if you are going to get whipped up into a lather over language, or logical inferences from such language, then why don’t you guys start with your own confessional totem? It is just as clear that Westminster’s is not the doctrine of the bapterian critics of the FV.
Lane says that he differs with me over my lack of qualification over sign and thing signified. But I do make this qualification, and have made it repeatedly. My central point here is that if heresy charges can be leveled on the basis of “ambiguous” language, then the bapterians have only succeeded in indicting the Westminster Confession. It is the Westminster Standards that say both sacraments are effectual means of salvation to worthy receivers. It is the Westminister Confession that says one of the things signified by baptism is regeneration. It is the Westminster Confession that says the things signified by baptism (among which we include regeneration) are really exhibited and conferred by baptism at the time of the effectual call. So fine. Don’t use the language of baptismal regeneration if you don’t want to. I don’t want to either. That is not a problem. But it is a problem when your reluctance to use that language yourself prevents you from reading a seventeenth century document in its historical setting. It is a problem if you cannot discern the undeniable presence of massive Presbyterian compromises with American revivalism in the evangelical world today. Such confusion is not biblical, it is not historical, and it is not confessional.