Protestants, baptism and the covenants (Part 2)

More sweeping generalisations which may not be true. Perhaps I should call them hypotheses for testing.

• For Lutherans the sacraments are the covenant/promise with the individual ("This cup is the new covenant in my blood").
• For the Reformed the sacraments are the sign of a covenant/promise which existed before hand with the individual ("He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.").
• For Baptists the sacraments are reminders of the covenant/promise that was made before hand and has no necessary connection with the individual ("Do this in remembrance of me").

Please disprove my hypothesis.

Protestants, baptism and the covenants

I'm not sure that this is right but it is seeming from my reading that:

• Luther thought that the New Covenant is with every individual. It may be rejected by unbelief but the promise of the New Covenant is for all.
• Reformed theology seems to see the New Covenant as being with believers and their children (unless they reject it). However, I may be wrong here as while it is clear that they see believer's children as in the 'covenant community' I'm not sure that it is the same thing as thinking they are in the covenant.
• Credobaptists believe that the New Covenant is with believers only.

If this is a true summary then the different beliefs about baptism are simple to explain. However, I am 90% sure that my sweeping generalisation is wrong. But I'm trying to get things right in my head as I go.

Please, please, please correct me where I'm wrong.

Protestantism and pluralism

The Protestantism of the reformers is different from contemporary Christianity in many ways. It is particularly different from Evangelicalism surrounding the issue of pluralism.

1. Exclusive where we are inclusive

The term Protestant comes from the Protestation at Speyer. This was a protest by the Protestant princes at the Emperor's insistence that the Mass be permitted in all the territories of the Holy Roman Empire. The protest was not directly at the denial of the rights of the evangelicals to worship but at the idea that two rites (evangelical and Roman) may be permitted in the same region. It was inconceivable to them that they Christian princes could allow worship that denied the Gospel (i.e. the Mass). The truth was universal and pluralism cannot be permitted if a prince has the power to prevent it.

This is clearly different to the view of almost everyone today, whether Christian or not. Freedom of religion is one of the most basic rights of citizens in the West. Interestingly the first emergence of this idea in England was in Cromwell's (Puritan) Commenwealth.

2. Inclusive where we are exclusive

The other thing that is striking as a twenty-first century Christian reading the Reformers is that they were not separatists.

Martin Luther as late as 1920 presents his book The Freedom of a Christian to the pope appealing to him to preach the teachings of the Reformation! Martin Luther, nor any of the Reformers that I can tell, felt compelled to leave the Roman Catholic church. Rather they considered that the Church of Rome left them and the teaching of the Early Church. At least that was how it was understood by the Protestants. I think in this the Reformers paralleled Paul's practice in mission. He started in the Synagogues time after time and usually only started preaching apart from them when they had ejected him.

If the church is ever in the news today it is because of new threats of divisions and threatened separation. When considering the debate within Anglicanism today, none of the Reformers would act like some (but not all) of their supposed followers do today. They threaten to split from the Church unless the bible is obeyed by the authorities within the Church. The Reformers trusted the Word to do it's work, and as long as they weren't actually prevented from preaching that Word they looked forward to the renewal of the fallen Church of which they were a part.

Interestingly the first major separations from the Church of England were by (some) Puritans.

Ooo, I have so much more to say about ecumenicalism (e.g. what we can learn from the Donatists, Justification by faith as an ecumenical doctrine, the possibilities for evangelism and church discipline) but it is probably not worth saying.

In the end...

I don't know whether modern day evangelicals are more in the right than the first evangelicals but one thing is for sure 'the past is another country'.