The Painted Veil

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Miriam's blog has an insightful comparison between the two movies The Notebook and The Painted Veil. Check it out by clicking HERE.
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Washington Square

I've just finished reading Washington Square by Henry James. It is a very interesting, and sometimes infuriating, little book, where the drama takes place almost entirely on the psychological level. It was a bit difficult to get through since I didn’t like a single character in the story, although I’m glad I finished it because James has some keen insight into human nature.

Review of The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant

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Book Title: The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church

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Author: Lewis Bevens Schenck
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Publisher: P & R Publishing, 1940

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Number of Pages: 188 pages.
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Price: $15.99

This post has now moved to the Alfred the Great Society website and may be read by clicking HERE.

How Do We Treat Covenant Children?

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Someone left the following comment on one of my earlier posts, which I want to answer here since my answer is too long to fit in the comments box.

"Robin - enjoy your posts, you do a great job. If the children are believers, then fine. For an unbeliever to celebrate the Lord's death and resurrection would be a bit pointless wouldn't it? If the children don't understand what is going on they shouldn't take communion. I grew up in a church thinking I was a Christian because I had gone through catechism class, and took communion, and it all led me into a false sense of who I was before God. If I remember correctly,the Puritans got into trouble when they instituted the Half-Way covenant which allowed those without a conversion experience to take communion. Blessings to you!"

I’m glad you enjoy my posts. Right now I am sitting in the airport on my way to a funeral, waiting for the next connection and as I have a few hours before my next plane, I will try to address your comments.

You raise some good points. Certainly Greg Bahnsen maintained the child had to be old enough to make a profession of faith, however simple that profession is. However, that is not my position. I would adopt the position of the Eastern church (and the Western church until comparatively recently) in admitting children, however young, to the Lord’s table, provided they have been baptized. I don’t think it matters whether or not they understand what is going on. Being a member of God’s family (which is what communion is all about) doesn’t depend on our own understanding of it but on what God is doing, first in choosing us before the foundation of the world and then in feeding us. The Eucharist is not a disguised sermon so that we can get something out of it for our minds. It is fellowship with the Lord, feeding on the food that He gives us. So just as a starving man is fed by food whether he understands why the food is helping him or not, so a baby is fed by the food that God offers whether he understands about it or not. Communion is something objective that God does. Thus, what Calvin said of baptism I would say of infant-communion: “if the children of believers, without the aid of understanding, are partakers of the covenant, there is no reason why they should be excluded from the sign because they are not capable of expressing their allegiance to the stipulation of the covenant...”

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And again, “If it be just for infants to be brought to Christ, why is it not allowable to admit them to [the Lord’s supper], the symbol of our communion and association with Christ? If theirs is the kingdom of Heaven, why shall the sign be denied them by which, as it were, an entrance into the church is opened that, being received into it, they may be enrolled among the heirs of the heavenly kingdom: How unjust shall we be, if we drive away from Christ those whom he invites to him; if we deprive them of the gifts with which he adorns them; if we exclude those whom he graciously admits?”

I don’t see how this can lead to a false sense of who we are before God. Perhaps in your case you thought that your salvation was guaranteed because you took communion and studied the catechism, etc. However, in the classic Protestant understanding, the sacraments do not make us a Christian but are the evidence that we already are members of God’s family, just as circumcision marked out the people who had already been born into God’s covenant family. If this is accompanied by nurture on the part of the parents, the child should grow up with a clear sense of their identity as a member of God’s family. I try to practice this in my own home. Beside my children’s bed I put pictures of their baptisms, and I constantly remind them of their baptism of proof of who they are in Christ. I say things like, “You are a Phillips and that means we belong to each other. But you are also a child of God and your baptism is proof that God chose you to be in His family even before you were born. That means that you belong to God. That is who you are and who you will always be.” I have never ever mentioned to them that when they’re older they will have to choose, or that the verdict is still out on them or that they occupy the status as ‘candidates. When they fall into sin, I remind them again of these truths and say, “Is the way you are behaving the way a child of God behaves?” Dr. J.W. Alexander wrote: “But O how we neglect that ordinance [of infant baptism]! treating children in the Church, just as if they were out of it. Ought we not daily to say (in its spirit) to our children, ‘You are Christian children, you are Christ’s, you ought to think and feel and act as such!”

If – God forbid – I fail in my task to nurture them and so they someday choose to reject the Lord, I will still address them as a child of God, but as a wayward child of God, a covenant breaker, someone who is being unfaithful to his identity. You see, they will never be able to escape from the significant of their baptism whatever they do. They will always have a sense of who they are. We have baptism parties to celebrate our baptisms, and special baptism candles that we light on their baptism anniversaries, and special cups that were given to them at their baptisms that they can drink wine from during our baptism parties.

This, of course, assumes that there is a basic continuity in the structure of the old and new covenants. In both, there are three basic categories: (A) those who are in the covenant and are faithful to it because they are regenerate; (B) those who are in the covenant but are unfaithful to it because they are not regenerate; (C) those who are not in the covenant at all. Interestingly even atheists have an unconscious awareness of this, as evidenced by all the recent ‘de-baptism ceremonies’ in England. But of course, these atheists will never be able to escape the significance of their baptisms, because they will always be covenant breakers rather than just un-baptised individuals. It is not within human power to de-baptize oneself, only to live in a way that is inconsistent with one’s baptism.

Regarding the, so called, Half-Way covenant of the Puritan’s American descendents, that arose only because the reformed understanding of the covenant was neglected. Remember, the magisterial reformers held to infant baptism, not as a means for bringing children into the covenant, but to recognize that children of believers already enjoyed a covenant relation with God and a real vital membership in the church. Such children, the reformers taught, are not mere candidates for salvation, with the verdict still pending until they develop the cognitive apparatus necessary for conscious belief; rather, such children are ‘presumptively regenerate’ in the same way that we presume that a faith-professing adult convert is regenerate. In the case of the latter, the presumption of regeneration (and therefore baptism) is made on the basis of the convert’s profession of faith; in the case of the latter, the presumption of regeneration is made on the basis of the promises God gives to believing parents. Christian parents were entrusted with the awesome responsibility of being God’s means for preserving and sustaining the faith of His children. This was the classic Protestant position until the decline of religion at the beginning of the 18th century. The privileges of church membership, together with the duties incumbent on believing parents, began to be seriously neglected by the Protestant community. All too often, religion continued as a shell with the essential kernel sucked out, with many church members following the external rituals associated with being a Christian without the inner conviction. In order to accommodate the increase of functionally unconverted church members, some Presbyterians began to suggest that it was entirely appropriate for a baptized child to be an external member of the church and still be regarded as unregenerate, thus reversing the reformation presumption of regeneration that was applied to all baptized individuals not under church discipline. A corollary of this was the formulation of new theories on the significance of baptism and the covenant, including the idea of the Half-Way covenant that you referred to.

It was in reaction to that that the Great Awakening began to stress that the children of believers needed to have a conversion experience. Such a view was – in my opinion – very unhelpful. I would disagree with the Great Awakening revivalists that a sudden conversion experience, preceded by a state of alienation from God, is the normal and only method for bringing souls into God’s kingdom. The reason this view was unhelpful is because it implied that children were enemies of God until they too experienced this type of conversion. This fails to appreciate the covenantal standing of baptized children who, thanks to the slow and steady nurture of their Christian parents, might never be able to look back and remember a time when they did not know the love of God or desire to follow in His ways. It also failed to appreciate that Christian nurture over time, and not a sudden conversion experience, is the normal method God uses for propagating his kingdom. As Dr. Van Dyke put it in his Stone Lectures, “Christian Nurture, beginning in infancy, inheriting traditional influences, and surrounded at the first dawn of consciousness by a religious atmosphere, is the normal and divine method for propagating the Church.” J.A. Quarles put it similarly when writing about slow and steady Christian nurture: “this is the Lord’s chosen way to perpetuate and extend his Church. It is the growth from within, like the mustard seed....The regular, normal mode of increase is through the multiplication of Christian families, the blessings descending from generation to generation in an ever growing ratio.”

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Schenck on the Great Awakening

“It was unfortunate that the Great Awakening made an emotional experience, involving terror, misery, and depression, the only approach to God. A conscious conversion from enmity to friendship with God was looked upon as the only way of entrance into the kingdom. Sometimes it came suddenly, sometimes it was a prolonged and painful process. But it was believed to be a clearly discernible emotional upheaval, necessarily ‘distinct to the consciousness of its subject and apparent to those around.’ Preceding the experience of God’s love and peace, it was believe necessary to have an awful sense of one’s lost and terrifying position. Since these were not the experiences of infancy and early childhood, it was taken for granted children must, or in all ordinary cases would, grow up unconverted. Infants, it was thought, needed the new birth, as well as adults. They could not be saved without it. But the only channel of the new birth which was recognized was a conscious experience of conviction and conversion. Anything else, according to Gilbert Tennent, was a fiction of the brain, a delusion of the Devil. In fact, he ridiculed the idea that one could be a Christian without knowing the time when he was otherwise.”

Witsius' Quote

“Here certainly appears the extraordinary love of our God, in that as soon as we are born, and just as we come from our mother, he hath commanded us to be solemnly brought from her bosom, as it were, into his own arms, that he should bestow upon us, in the very cradle, the tokens of our dignity and future kingdom;...that, in a word, he should join us to himself in the most solemn covenant from our tender years: the remembrance of which as it is glorious and full of consolation to us, so in like manner it tends to promote Christian virtues, and the strictest holiness, through the whole course of our lives.” Witsius, from The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man

Children in the Covenant

I am currently reading The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church by Lewis Bevens Schenck, which I am borrowing it from my pastor (who has reviewed the book on his blog).

I'm Looking for a Job

Two weeks ago I got a phone call from my boss to inform me that the magazine I was writing for in England no longer has the funds to keep employing me. As a result, my pay has been cut to one quarter of what I was previously earning.

The long and the short of it is that I have suddenly found myself out of work, with very little time to look for anything else. We were living hand-to-mouth so we have no savings to fall back upon, making it a matter of urgency for me to find work sometime in July.

I am making this announcement because we are in great need of prayer, and also because we need as many people as possible to keep an ear open for positions. I will naturally be using all the normal channels to try to find work, but it always helps to have a network of people with their ears wide open. If any of my readers would like to see a copy of my resume and my qualifications as a writer, just shoot me an email. (Given the urgency of the situation, I am not merely looking for work in my field but am willing to take anything, although relocation will be a last resort).

With five dependents, this has naturally been a very difficult blow for us. If I am unable to find work by the beginning of next month then we will be in the position of having, quite literally, to trust the Lord for our daily bread.

I know that many other people are facing similar trials during these difficult economic times. What an encouragement it is to serve a sovereign God who promises to work good even out of the difficult providences He sends us. Please pray that Esther and I would remain joyful and positive, keeping our hearts fixed on the following promises:

Romans 8:35 & 37: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."

James 1:2-4: "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

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The Importance of Church

In Jeffrey Meyers' book The Lord’s Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship, Meyers goes through all the important features of the church service, illuminating their meaning from the scriptures and the reformed tradition.

One of the areas where the book has helped me is through confirming how important what goes on during Sunday morning really is. Many Christians don’t realise why going to church should be central, while I have some Christian friends who don’t even bother belonging to a church (I was in that bondage myself for many years).

It puts things into perspective to realise that Christians in China are willing to risk their lives each week to attend church, whereas many people in the West will skip church simply because they want to lie in on Sunday morning.

Sometimes the no-church mentality can be the result of selfishness. Proverbs 18:1 says, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire…” I don’t think the isolation Proverbs is talking about is purely quantitative. Sometimes whole groups can meet together on the basis of an isolationist mentality (see my post on home church HERE).

In chapter 15 of The Lord’s Service, Meyers dismantles the popular evangelical notion that a personal relationship with Jesus can be severed from His Body, the Church, and from the ministry and sacraments of the Church. He shows how the legacy of Gnosticism manifests itself in the unbiblical notion that the Spirit must operate immediately upon the soul of a man without external means or instruments.

The reformed tradition does acknowledge that the Lord is free to work outside His constituted means in extraordinary cases. Remember what the Westminster Confession says: outside the visible church “there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.” We don’t want to limit God, but at the same time we want to do justice to the ordinary means that Scripture reveals.

God has ordained where we are to find Him: we find Him at church. When Christ was on earth, if you wanted to find Jesus, He had a visible body you could seek out. Many Christians think that now that Christ has ascended, if you want to find Him, you have to hunt for something invisible inside yourself. But that is not true. Scripture tells us that there is still a visible body of Christ on the earth, namely the church (1 Cor. 12:12-14, 27).

This understanding displaces the unbiblical emphasis that having a personal relationship with Jesus has come to play in evangelical piety. Of course, if we use the phrase ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’ as a shorthand way to refer to regeneration, then no Christian would dispute the need for such a state of affairs to exist. But if we mean - and this is what many evangelicals mean by the phrase - something subjective that happens inside our heart, then I think we need to get our priorities straight.

This is not to say that feelings are unimportant to the Lord. The work of redemption should progressively transform every part of our being like yeast working through dough, bringing our spirit, mind, bodies and, yes, our emotions, into conformity with Christ. But it’s important to identify what kind of emotions we are talking about. If a person can listen to someone blaspheme the name of Christ and not feel revulsion, then there are probably some areas of sanctification that still needs to occur in the area of feelings. If a person can separate himself from Christ’s visible body and not feel a lack, then there are probably some areas of sanctification that still needs to occur in the area of feelings. But although feelings are important to the Lord, they are not the barometer of spiritual health, and to treat them as such is to make of them an idol.

It is because of this understand that Jeff Meyers’ book is so valuable. In emphasising the importance of liturgical worship in the New Covenant community, the locus of spirituality is taken away from the subjective and onto the objective, away from me and onto Christ.

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Tom Wright on Resurrection, Heaven and Hell

The Dying Scorpion of Labour Still Has Venom in Its Tail

The dying scorpion still has venom in its tail: this decomposing Labour government, rotting like a fish from the head down and with a maximum life expectancy of 11 months, is still doggedly pursuing the destruction of British society - the Project on which it embarked 12 years ago. Its latest assault on the family is an offensive against home schooling.

Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary - the very title is a totalitarian evocation of Maoist crèches and collectivist indoctrination - is to compel all parents educating their children at home to register them with local authorities (whose property they evidently are) and "extra support" (ie taxpayers' money) will be made available as part of "significantly strengthened" regulatory guidelines. In other words, the state, furious that 50,000 children have eluded its clutches, is intruding further into family life.

Keep Reading

Greg Bahnsen on Children at the Table

"...if we're going to be true to our principles as Reformed people we should not impose prerequisites that the Bible doesn't impose. There's no age requirement for the Lord's Supper..."

The Man Who Was Thursday

I've just finished reading this hilariously funny novel by G.K. Chesterton. How wonderful to know that sanity is even more exciting than anarchy!


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UK Spokesperson Seeks to "transform the most intimate and private relations between women and men"

If you thought radical feminism was a thing of the 1970's, you need to read the article I've just written for the Salvo blog about the British Government's new spokesperson for parents and children. The radical agenda she represents brings into focus many of the concerns I raised in my book The Decent Drapery of Life. Read more HERE.