Why I’m not a Baptist
Recent events turned my attention again to the issue of paedobaptism, a subject I have not really thought about since 2008, when I debated credobaptist Gene Cook on the subject. However, a friend, Bnonn Tennant, recently posted a simple argument which he takes to conclusively prove credobaptism. Steve Hays then gave a good reply. This lead me to collate some old files – notes, really – that I had written in 2008 as I prepared for my debate with Gene Cook. I’m posting it here in PDF format for those interested. However, caveat lector: I wrote these, as I said, circa 2008. The writing is very rough (most of it was written for notes, stream-of-consciousness style!), and though I think my writing has improved over the years, I did not want to take the time to do what would amount to an entire rewrite of 40 some odd pages! I’d also like to think that I agree with most of what I wrote, though by now I may reject some of the arguments I made back then. I did not want to spend the time going through the arguments with a fine-toothed comb. However, despite the poor(er) writing and clearness of arguments, I think there are several unique arguments here, arguments I have not seen made elsewhere by paedobaptists. Finally, a note on structure. The file consists of three parts. The first is basically my opening argument for my debate with Cook. The second part is a unique argument I developed, using the arguments of Brian Rosner on Paul’s teaching on excommunication in 1 Cor. 5. This argument is very rough and far from finished, but the nuts-n-bolts are there. The final section is a dozen (or so) very detailed responses to several (a dozen or so!) popular arguments credobaptists have either used to argue for credobaptism or against paedobaptism.
PDF link below