This is simply another one of those ecclesiasticisms that has distracted the church from doing what Jesus told us to do. Where he set service to others at the center of a disciple's life (on his knees, towel around waist, washing feet), we keep running down paths he never talked about -- e.g., worship styles, baptism practices, who qualifies to be ordained, and on and on.

Why is it I rarely hear anyone dwelling on the many crystal clear things Jesus did talk about, such as anger, fidelity, turning the other cheek, praying in one's closet, forgiveness, considering the lilies, losing your life to find it; but let a church receive someone who has been sprinkled or, God forbid, baptized as an infant, and you'd think the foundations of Christianity were crumbling? The Judaizers of the early church fretted in much the same manner over circumcision.

Our congregations better get busy finding ways to straighten out the crooked path all these “Baptist distinctives” have created or we are not going to have any churches left. We hardly need to waste any more time defining Baptist distinctives. Forget Baptist distinctives. It is the Jesus distinctives (beautifully stated, say, in the Sermon on the Mount) that we so desperately need to practice, because it is Jesus' distinctive vision of life that has any hope of saving us from ourselves.

Bruce Wilson, Danville

---

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed