3 Reasons to be Presbyterian

Pastor Bob O'Bannon

This is not an age when it is popular to belong to a particular church denomination. Most Christians shun such distinctives, mostly because denominational boundaries have become a symbol for the stereotype that Christians simply can’t get along with one another. Sometimes I am asked if it wouldn’t be easier if we just took the word “Presbyterian” off our sign in front of our church. Maybe it would be better if we just called ourselves, “New Life Community Church.”

Perhaps there is some wisdom in this, and maybe I’ll change my mind one day, but there are reasons why we retain the word “Presbyterian” as a description of who we are. It’s because that word communicates some important distinctions about the way we do church.

Presbyterians in our tradition most value the centrality of the free grace of the Gospel, the final authority of Scripture in all matters of life and doctrine, and the importance of God’s sovereignty, among many other things. But these values are shared by many churches and various traditions. The three points below, while not exclusive to Presbyterianism, do highlight some attributes that distinguish us from the broad swath of evangelicalism, and therefore should not be easily discarded:

1) ‘Presbyterian’ means we are confessional. As Presbyterians, we hold to a doctrinal statement called the Westminster Confession of Faith. Many Christians proclaim that they “just believe the Bible,” but that statement begs a larger question: what do you believe the Bible teaches? Confessions and creeds are not intended to rival or usurp the Bible’s authority; instead, they are written as a way of explaining “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

Further, history has shown that it is always the tendency of the church to wander from orthodoxy into any number of doctrinal errors and heresies, which is why Heb. 13:9 warns us against getting carried away by strange teachings. Confessions function as “crucial defensive instruments,” as Kenneth Gentry states in his excellent article on the usefulness of creeds. Rather than replace the Bible’s authority, confessions help to defend it.

Almost all churches have a doctrinal statement of some kind. We simply see no need to reinvent the wheel when the WCF already summarizes so well the thrust of Biblical doctrine. For further reading on this topic, see Carl Trueman’s book, The Creedal Imperative.

2) ‘Presbyterian’ means we are connectional. As Presbyterians, we believe it is important not only for individual Christians to be connected to one another in local churches, but for local churches to be connected to one another as a demonstration of the unity of the church universal. 

For Scriptural support of this idea, read Acts 15. This is the account of the Jerusalem Council, which was convened to resolve the question of whether Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. After much discussion, a decision was made, which Paul and Timothy were then dispatched to deliver to the churches in the region for their “observance” (Acts 16:4). It is clear that there is some kind of formal connection here among the early, first-century churches, and that those congregations  functioned under some kind of official oversight.

Of course there are many strong and healthy independent churches, and it is true that “official oversight” run amok can create problems for local churches, but Acts 15 is in the Bible for a reason. When you go to a Presbyterian church, you can know that you are attending a church that is not isolated, but in formal relation with other like-minded churches that share its doctrinal convictions (see point 1).

3) ‘Presbyterian’ means we are covenantal. As Presbyterians, we believe the Old Testament and New Testament in the Bible are united by a grand covenantal framework that makes the Bible a coherent whole from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible is one story about one plan of salvation through one Savior for one redeemed people of God. 

This essential unity of the Scriptures leads us to certain conclusions about the way baptism is practiced, for instance; it also leads us to deny a popular theological system known as dispensationalism. (Dispensationalism has given rise to the commonly accepted “rapture theology,” which actually does not enjoy universal acceptance even among orthodox evangelicals.)

I don’t mean to suggest that we Presbyterians do everything right. We have our issues. We’re known as the “frozen chosen.” We can tend to be overly intellectual. We can be hard on people who don’t agree with us doctrinally. We lack ethnic diversity, both in the pews and in our pulpits. We have a reputation for not being very evangelistic. But nonetheless, there are good reasons to identify with this particular denomination, and so for now I think we’ll keep our name — New Life Presbyterian Church.

Answers to 4 Common Objections to Infant Baptism

Pastor Bob O'Bannon

There is a common experience for many people who visit New Life: They appreciate that the people are warm and friendly; they value the emphasis placed on sound Biblical preaching; they are grateful that the church is evangelical and Gospel-centered; they are relieved to find they are not in a liberal mainline church.

But then it happens — they see us baptize a baby, and they don’t know what to make of it. They’ve seen Catholics baptize babies, but they’ve seen evangelicals only baptize believers. So what do you do with an evangelical church that also baptizes babies?

This blog is not intended to be a full explanation of the Presbyterian doctrine of infant baptism, but it does attempt to refute some of the immediate and common objections that come to the minds of evangelicals who are surprised to see us baptizing children at New Life.

Objection: It makes no sense to baptize a baby who doesn’t understand what baptism means. 

Answer: This objection proves too much. Circumcision, which Rom. 4:11 tells us is a sign of the righteousness we have by faith (I.e., the Gospel), was commanded in Genesis 17 to be given to children, but certainly the infants in Abraham’s day had no understanding of what faith and righteousness mean. This particular argument against infant baptism would also invalidate infant circumcision, which was explicitly commanded in the Bible.

Objection: Infant baptism is a Roman Catholic practice.

Answer: It is true that Roman Catholics practice infant baptism, but that doesn’t make the practice wrong, just as the Mormons’ practice of believer’s baptism doesn’t make believer’s baptism wrong. It is interesting to note that Baptists are Protestants, and many of the key figures of the Protestant Reformation believed in and practiced infant baptism (John Hus, John Calvin, John Knox, Martin Luther, John Wycliff, William Tyndale). It should also be noted that Presbyterians practice infant baptism for very different reasons than Roman Catholics, but that is a topic for a different blog.

Objection: There are no examples in the Bible of babies getting baptized.

Answer: This is not necessarily true. In the Bible, there are frequent mentions of household baptisms (Acts 16:15, 16:33-34, 1 Cor. 1:16), and it is likely that infants were included in those households. But whether this is true or not, the Baptist often does not acknowledge that he has a similar problem. In order to support his position in the same way he is asking of the Presbyterian, he has to show an example in the New Testament of a child being born into a Christian family who then was not baptized until he made a profession of faith at a more mature age. There are no examples in the New Testament of this happening. It is true that adult converts are baptized in the New Testament, but these are first-generation converts; that is, they are the kinds of baptisms that would take place in a missionary situation where the Gospel was preached to people who had never heard it before. In such a case, a Presbyterian would baptize those adult converts just as enthusiastically as a Baptist would. But this is a different situation than a Christian child being reared in a Christian family and being denied the sign of baptism until some kind of age of accountability. That practice finds no precedent in the New Testament.

Objection: Infant baptism gives people a false sense of assurance.

Answer: It is true that infant baptism can be wrongly practiced in such a way that a child is given a false sense of being a Christian. For example, to a child asking searching questions about his or her salvation, a Presbyterian parent might respond: “You have nothing to worry about — you’ve been baptized as a child!” That would be a grievous error. But the same kind of error can happen with believer’s baptism. To a child asking searching questions about his or her salvation, a Baptist parent might respond: “You have nothing to worry about — you were immersed as a teenager!” There is always a temptation to trust in something or someone other than Christ for our justification before God. What is important is that parents offer clear and Biblical teaching to ward off unbiblical conclusions, just as we would explain that the Gospel of grace is not a license to sin, and just as we would explain that the Trinity does not mean we believe in three gods.

Again, I understand that there is much more to be said on this issue, and I am not so delusional as to surmise that these four points would fully persuade someone to baptize a baby. My hope is that those offering the above objections to the Presbyterian doctrine would consider that perhaps those challenges are not as decisive as once believed.