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Commenting on Christendom, culture, history, and other oddities of life from an historic Protestant perspective.

Sunday, March 09, 2014

Skepticism, Agnosticism, and Atheism: A Brief History of Unbelief

The Modern Reformation Web site offers a fascinating history of Atheism. Here’s how the article begins . . .

The last two years have been good for atheism. A rash of books making the case for unbelief, including Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (2006) and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007), have sold millions of copies. Strident atheist Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, one of his atheistic tomes designed to rescue children from belief in God, was made into a movie. Even pop star Elton John got into the act, calling for a ban on religion. Leaders of the so-called New Atheism are aggressive and proselytizing. They don't just condemn belief in God; they also condemn respect for belief in God.

But how new is the New Atheism? It is said best in Ecclesiastes 1:9: "There is nothing new under the sun." To be sure, explicit and public atheism is a somewhat new phenomenon. But atheism, agnosticism, and good old-fashioned doubt have strong and lengthy histories worth learning. Because atheism is parasitic on theism and even more on Christianity, to learn the history of atheism is to learn the history of the church.

You can read the entire article here.

--The Catechizer

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posted by The Catechizer and The Deacon | 5:35 AM | 0 comments

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Baptism Resources

New Horizons magazine offeres two fine articles regarding baptism.

Baptism in Our Confessional Standards

In this article Rev. Alan D. Strange, professor at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, takes us through a guided tour of baptism in the Westminster Standards. Addressed are topics such as the . . .

  • Nature of baptism

  • Efficacy of baptism

  • “Improvement” of our baptism

You can read the entire article here.

A Better Case for "Infant Baptism"

In 2006, Rev. William Shishko, pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, N.Y., debated Reformed Baptist and apologist Dr. James White: "Resolved: The subjects of Christian baptism are only those who have personally repented and believed in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord."

Rev. Shishko explains the reason for the article this way: “The purpose of this article is to reflect on this debate. We can learn from projects like this, and become better able to respond biblically to those who differ with us.”

You can read the article here.

--The Catechizer

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posted by The Catechizer and The Deacon | 6:28 AM | 0 comments

Friday, May 05, 2006

The Dangers of Being a Credobaptist


I became a Calvinist while attending a Calvary Chapel. That pretty much sealed my fate there. After being driven out, we providentially landed at the Reformed church that we have been at for the last 12 years. It took no time at all for me to take the final step into the Reformation.

Being, at the time, the father of two young children, I was confronted with the question of pedobaptism. Before I even launched the study that would eventually result in my wholehearted adoption of the doctrine, one question stuck out to me, even before I became Reformed: What about my children?

The Credobaptist Answer to a Questioning Conscience

In the Old Covenant (OC), the children were certainly included. But, coming out of a baptistic tradition, all that I could formerly hope for was that one day they would walk an isle and pray a prayer. It’s seemed that in the OC, God was much more gracious when it came to children.

Credobaptists, whether consciously or unconsciously, ask themselves the same question: What about the children. The answer has been baby dedication. The problem is, there’s not Biblical support for such a practice. Even so, they (and, me too at one time) simply accepted it because it met a psychological need.

The Danger of a Wrong Answer

It is not my intention in this post to try to persuade credobaptists to change their minds. Instead, I’m asking that my credobaptist readers carefully search the Scriptures on this issue. Answer the questions, What about my children? And Why would the OC children be part of the convenant and receive it’s sign, but not the New (and better) Covenant children?

The stakes are high, as pointed out at the Out of Control blog. Here’s an excerpt:

Baptism and circumcision both point to the same reality--the washing away or the cutting away of sin (see Colossians 2:11-12). Both also signify the entrance into the visible church in their respective testaments. This being said, it is a very scary thought when you read this passage. God is saying that those who reject the sign of the covenant are rejecting what the sign points to. The true Jew knew that circumcision does not save a person; just as the true Christian today knows that baptism does not save a person. And yet, a rejection of the sign was a rejection of the covenant itself.

You can read the rest of this post here.

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posted by The Catechizer and The Deacon | 12:42 PM | 4 comments