Please scroll down and check out the "What is a Reformed Baptist?" Poll at the bottom of the page.
I am interested in how the Reformed Baptist community might answer this question. I have given four options for answers that I think basically sum up the various groups or individuals that I have found to be using the term.
I would appreciate the blog's readers weighing in and letting me know where they are on this question. Also, if you think I need to add another answer, let me know.
I appreciate that you are asking this question. I've been thinking a lot about this lately as a matter of fact. What is a Reformed Baptist? Is this a different question than: What is a reformed Baptist? or: What is a reformed baptist? Certainly #1 cannot apply, being reformed is far more than simply Calvinism. But this is the question I've really been struggling with: What does reformed mean?
ReplyDeleteI believe that it certainly does include covenant theology. It certainly does imply being confessional. I also wonder if Sabbatarianism is essential to reformed theology. As well as regulative principle of worship adherence.
I suppose, though I may not yet be able to answer the poll, I would at least say this. There is a Reformed Baptist of the stripe that would clearly fall under #3 and then some. But I don't think you need to be this kind of Reformed Baptist in order to call yourself reformed baptist.
After such a long comment, you might think that I was going to offer a good answer, but I don't have one. As soon as I can agree with myself about what it means to be "reformed", then I will be able to more clearly articulate what a reformed baptist is.
Yours in Christ,
Josh
I'd be interested to know why those who checked "you must strictly hold to the baptist confession of 1689" believe the way they do. Who is it that made the decision that belief in every bit of this document is the authority?
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good question, and it is in part why I have included this poll on the blog. I am interested in discovering what others who identify themselves as Reformed Baptists, or who interact with self-identified Reformed Baptists, think the term means or should mean.
ReplyDeleteThe term "Reformed Baptist" is one that is in flux and certainly encompasses many more people than simply those who hold strictly to the 1689 Confession (of course, typically excepting the statement regarding the pope as the Antichrist). I am just trying to get some idea about how many there are who think this is too restrictive.
So far, seven out of twelve respondents believe that adherence to the 1689 Confession is too restrictive a way to define what is a "Reformed Baptist."
I will be interested to see how this poll goes in the future.
Pr. K,
ReplyDeleteCould you please add an "Other" option for the poll so I can vote? I think that a "Reformed Baptist" is someone who is reformed in their theology as well as baptistic. I do not believe that you have to hold strictly to the 1689, but nor do I believe that Calvinistic soteriology is enough to be considered reformed.
Someone who is Calvinistic and Baptist should call themselves a Calvinistic Baptist, or, as some do, a Sovereign Grace Baptist. But reformed, though I'm still trying to learn what it encompasses as a whole, is much more than simply that, IMO.
In Him,
Josh
Unfortunately, I went to change the poll to add another answer and found that once someone had voted the options could not be changed.
ReplyDeleteI didn't kinow this when I first posted the poll. So, your comment will have to suffice, I am afraid.
In that case, I voted Calvinism + Covenant Theology, since I think this is the closest.
ReplyDeleteIn Christ alone,
Josh