You are not the first former student who harbors some ill feelings towards the grader (consider us like sports referees). If it makes you feel better, send it back to me, and I’ll take another look at it.

You’re on your own on the marriage thing! I’ve got issues of my own.

You are right on. The initial three tiers are as different from the fourth tier as are the proverbial apples and oranges. And that’s my point: the harshest discussions in the local church often surround non-biblical (i.e. cultural) issues. I find that this tiered taxonomy of beliefs helps the local church to gauge how much we should invest in these conflicts.

I particularly like the way you compare this to marriage. By the way, I’ve often distinguished my leaving socks around the house and hesitance to vacuum the living room as “cultural differences of opinion” between me and my wife. She doesn’t buy it.

On a personal note, in the last century you were a grader for one of my SWBTS professors (Dr. Kent maybe?) substituting for him on occasion. Those classes instilled in me a passion for the OT that continues to this day. Thanks! (Though I should’ve received a higher grade on my term paper: “An Argument for the Mosaic Authorship of the Didache”).

In your post you have brought out “truth” vs. practice. It is truth that we remember Christ in His communion. It is truth that all churches have plural qualified leadership. It is truth that we restore (Matthew 18) all those in the church. These are non-negotiable according to the Holy Spirit.

The practice of such seems to be where the mud slinging gets started. Many churches ignore restoration, aspiring leadership, and communion in a variety of methods, which is indicative of the maturity of those (everyone) called to serve Christ in His church. You show me a church that restores the unity provided by the Spirit, intentionally affirms qualified men to lead and remain qualified, and is careful to observe the table of the Lord….there you will find a group of sinners returning to their first love.

Blessings,
Chris

I enjoy your posts and I eagerly await the one you have previewed. I too have thought of the sandbox metaphor.

Bruce,
We’re on the same page. One weakness with my suggestions that that the first three tiers are doctrinal while the third is clearly cultural. So these four tiers represent beliefs moreso than doctrines.

Daniel,
I think the third tier stands pretty well on its own. Each of these beliefs could be used as a litmus test for church membership in any one particular (or Particular:) Baptist church. (But so could a Tier Four belief as well). I like Rick’s comment above. These could distinguish Baptists, but need not divide Baptists. To use your example, you could have a minority in a church that believe in closed communion, but the majority favoring open (or vice-versa). Thus you have a belief that “distinguishes” Baptists within a single congregation.

To expand on the last two sentences, and bounce off Chris’s post just a little, I agree that these are petty issues. However, I warned against treating them as trivial because it is these very issues that form the bitter root of church splits. Churches don’t split over the virgin birth or Manichaeism. Churches split over petty things, not because they are petty people or even because the things themselves are that important. They split because they feel marginalized or polarized or somehow disenfranchised from the decision making process. Whether this is justified or not is an interesting question.

One does not hear of Catholic churches splitting (at least not since the Great Schism), in part because the congregation is already disenfranchised. At the root of our church splits is the expectation that all members have an equal voice and each opinion has as much weight as any other.

This is why I say that the issue is petty, but not trivial. It goes to the very root of our polity and setting expectations in our congregations. We value the voices of the congregation and imbue them with power. Whether the voices use this power responsibly is a whole ‘nother issue and one worth discussing. What are our pastors doing to equip members to be responsible with their voices?

It’s interesting that you put closed communion in tier 3. It makes me wonder if we need yet another tier. You can disagree about closed communion and still be Baptist, but you can’t disagree about it within one particular church. There are a few other doctrines that would fall into this same category such as plurality of elders, the role of church discipline, etc.

I think you have unintentionally given me a topic for a future post when you said….

“In my role as an intentional interim pastor, I am currently serving a church that has had a degree of conflict in the past.”

It would be a good topic to discuss if an “intentional interim pastor” is a real critter in Christ’s church.

…………………………

Your post though has brought out the trivial level of religious practice. These fourth tier listings remind me of a group of toddlers that have spent about ten minutes longer in the giant sandbox than intended. I do think you are right that the typical Baptist church of late is more prone to whine about a storage building or placement of the flowers in the sanctuary….the reason,…because they probably have a stake in that game (buying a door on the shed, or buying the flowers asking their aunt placed them nicely on one end of the remembrance table while accidentally moving the big white bible out of its spot).

Maybe a simple solution is get rid of “all” of the stuff and begin to worship God in spirit and truth. That would really heat up the bench warmers!

Blessings,
Chris