QUESTIONS - Should Presbyterians & Baptists Work Together？
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Summary
In this episode, Dr. James White and Dr. Joe Boot discuss the role of Calvinism and Calvinism's relationship with Calvinism, and why it is not only appropriate but necessary to work with others in the Christian community.
Transcript
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Patrick C. While I agree that being ecumenical is a slippery, dangerous slope,
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working alongside Catholics, Five Point, Armenians, etc.
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Would you say it is biblically acceptable for us in the Calvinist camp
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to work alongside Reformed Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, etc.
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in things such as abortion, abolition, missions, trips, etc.
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Yeah, yeah, it was a pleasure to meet you, Patrick.
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I enjoyed meeting you guys and getting to spend some time with the church there,
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with Faithful Stones in Buffalo, New York at a conference that I was invited to speak at last
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week. So that was a pleasure. But to your question, yeah, I think that, I mean, if that's
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what you're citing as examples, Reformed Baptists, Presbyterians, absolutely. Anglicans, you know,
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it would depend. You know, some Anglicans are more faithful and some Anglicans have completely
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denied the gospel, that they would not even qualify as being orthodox. And so it would
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depend with Anglicanism. That's kind of what you had with Martin Lloyd-Jones. And Martin Lloyd-Jones,
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and I believe it was John Stott, that had a lot of arguments with one another over
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whether they should stay and try to reform Anglicanism or whether they should leave
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because it was heading in such a bad direction. But so I can't speak for all Anglicans and I'm
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not familiar enough with Anglicanism to know, you know, what percentage of Anglicanism is
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Orthodox and how Orthodox it is. But I will just speak, you know, using your example of
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Presbyterian and Reformed Baptists. I think Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists should be
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able to partner on everything except for baptizing babies. I think that we should be able to partner
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on everything, on ending abortion, abolishing abortion. Yeah, there are Presbyterian abolitionists
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and there are Reformed Baptists abolitionists. I think that we should be able to absolutely partner
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on those kinds of things. You know, the conference that I'm going to be holding May 5th through the
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7th, May 5th through the 7th of next year. It's called the Theonomy and Postmillennial Conference,
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focusing exclusively on the goodness and the rightness of God's law and how to apply it to
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every realm of life, including the political and economic spheres. And then the hopefulness
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that faithfulness to God will ultimately, maybe not in our lifetime, but ultimately will be
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successful. Everyone believes that Christ wins. The post-millennialist believes that Christ wins
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through his church. The pre-millennialist believes that Christ will win despite
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a losing church, a dying church. The post-millennialist believes that Christ will
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win through a victorious church, that Christ is reigning now and he will continue. Of the increase
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of his government, there will be no end. He is continuing to expand his rule and reign
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through the church on earth. The church is the tip of the spear, and that's not through coercion.
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That's not the church, not an ecclesiocracy where the church becomes the head of the state and
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bears the sword. No, God is changing the world, advancing his kingdom on earth right now through
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the church, not through coercion, but through persuasion, not a sword, physical sword that
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belongs to the state. And I do believe in a separation of church and state, but rather
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a spiritual sword that has been given to the church. And that as the church continues to
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seek to be faithful to fulfill the great commission, which includes preaching the gospel
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and conversion and baptism, but it also includes discipleship with teaching people to obey all of
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Christ's commands. And I think implicit in that teaching people to obey all of Christ's commands
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in every realm of life, including civil politics, as the church does that, as it does that faithfully
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and stops being pietist, but actually chooses to be Christians, faithful Christians, the world,
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I believe, will change. And so with this conference, Theonomy and Postmillennialism,
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May 5th through the 7th in Georgetown, Texas, I've got Dr. Joe Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar,
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and Dr. James White, and myself. Some are Baptists, some are Presbyterians. And yet,
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we are happy and excited to partner with one another in encouraging Christians to know the
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law of God, to esteem and cherish the law of God, and to apply the law of God with an eager and
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hopeful expectation that obedience to Christ matters and that it actually makes an effect
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on the world that we live in. That's theonomy and postmillennialism. I understand that there are
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more particular elements of theonomy. And again, there's a sliding spectrum of how theonomic you
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are. But again, in general, this is a generalization, but in general, theonomy and
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post-millennialism is simply saying God's law and God's law works. God's law and God's law works.
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And we've got both Baptists in this conference and Presbyterians that agree on that point.
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And we are excited to partner together. So I think we can partner with Presbyterians and Baptists
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on a lot of things, but that's in part because reform, I'm speaking of particular Baptist,
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reform Baptist, reform Baptist and reform Presbyterians are both reformed. But partnering
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beyond that with people who are not reformed, I would say you can still partner, but you can just,
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you partner on less. Like for instance, I've had guys on my show, Steve Days from The Blaze.
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I think he is a genuine, orthodox, born-again Christian, but he's not reformed.
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And he's, as far as I can tell, he's not post-millennial.
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But he has a very keen sense of the political landscape, and he has a spine, and he's bold,
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and he's not interested in a mere conservative resurgence.
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He's not interested in just getting the nation back to 2008 Obama, but he actually wants
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You know, he says all the time, revival or bust, you know, I would say reformation or
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bust, but he says, when it comes to America, we can't just turn the clock back 10 years.
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Steve will say that Christ or chaos, revival or bust.
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And so me and Steve can partner and we have, and I hope that we continue to, we can partner
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on plenty of things, uh, but we will be able to partner on less things, uh, than I would
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be able to partner, for instance, with Toby Sumter and, you know, Gabriel Wrench and,
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And so, you know, because we, we also, there are differences between us, but less differences.
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So, yeah, I think in this, in this particular moment, when the enemy is at the gates, um,
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you need every fighting man you have, every fighting man you have. Um, and so I think that
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if you got some Arminians who are willing to fight, like best example I could think of is
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Calvary Chapel. I don't like Calvary Chapel's theology. Calvary Chapel doesn't believe in
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church membership. Calvary Chapel is Arminian. Uh, pretty much all Calvary Chapel is, is pre
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millennial. Yeah, Calvary Chapel, their theology sucks. But when the state came with their tyranny
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with COVID, a bunch of reformed guys who have better theology, they weren't willing to actually
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apply any of it. They turned out to be pietists and they closed their church down, not for a few
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weeks, but for months and months and then mandated mass. You can't come to the Lord's table at church.
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you can't come to Christ unless you have faith plus a mask. Anytime you start doing faith plus,
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that's not a good sign. Reform guys did that. And a bunch of Calvary Chapel, Arminian pre-millennial
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anti-church membership guys like Jack Hibbs in California stood their ground and said,
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no, this is nonsense. And they stood their ground just as firm, if not more firm than John MacArthur
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it. So yeah, like in this particular moment, I think, I think a lot of arguments, theological
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arguments, some of them, it's just like you said, Patrick, like some of them, it's this guy's a
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heretic, we can't partner. But a lot of theological arguments within the overarching banner of
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orthodoxy, a lot of theological arguments are the luxury of times of peace. But in times of war,
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you take every fighting man you can get. America is willing to team up with the French
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if Great Britain is trying to destroy us. Doesn't mean we're always going to be fans of the French,
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but desperate times call for some alliances. Big news. Really big news. Our next right response
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conference is in the works. We've got a number of things already lined up and organized. This is
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what we've got so far, the whole conference, three days long on post-millennialism and theonomy.
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And the speakers, Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly,
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Pastor Joel Webin. We've got a great lineup. We've got great topics. If you want to find out
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dates and location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website,
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rightresponseconference.com, rightresponseconference.com. Thanks so much for
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listening. But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment and leave us a five
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