Luther on infant baptism according to McGrath:

In a paradoxical way, infant baptism is totally consistent with the doctrine of justification by faith, because it emphasizes that faith is not something we can achieve, but something which is given to us graciously. . . . Baptism does not presuppose faith" rather, it generates faith. "A child becomes a believer if Christ in baptism speaks to him through the mouth of the one who baptizes, since it is his Word, his commandment, and his Word cannot be without fruit." Baptism effects what it signifies: "So we can see what a great and excellent thing Baptism is, in that it delivers us from the jaws of the devil and makes us God's own, suppresses and takes away sin, and then daily strengthens the new person, and is (and will always remain) efficacious until we pass from this state of ministry to eternal glory."

Wow ... that is not the understanding of salvation by grace alone I thought Luther had. Whatever happened to confessing and believing? Could it be that, as often happens, Luther was so concerned with protecting God and his understanding of Him that his "system" derailed him? This still happens today when people want to try to protect God and their understanding of God as love ... or when people want to try to protect God and their understanding of God as sovereign. When are we going to stop trying to protect God with our theological systems and allow His Word to speak for itself?

From: McGrath, Alister E. Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 4th ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. McGrath here cites Luther's Greater Catechism on Infant Baptism.

Generations ...

I have just finished Mary Kassian's The Feminist Mistake. This is a great book to read to have an overview of feminism and the damage that it has caused in the last 50+ years. While there are many quotes and thoughts going through my mind, given my last post I would like to share this one first:

Principles which one generation accepts provisionally, in the context of other cultural commitments, soon harden into icy dogmas for a generation brought up on nothing else. [1]

This is valid for liberation theology, feminism, liberal theology, and any other system we set up. May we be careful in all we do, say, and write.

[1] To be honest, I did something a good researcher should not do, but I don't have the time to deal with it now ... Kassian is not the author of this quote, she quotes it from Michael Novak, Will It Liberate? Questions About Liberation Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986), 27. I did not check Novak's work for accuracy or context, but even if this is not what Novak intended, it is the warning I am trying to communicate.

Waffle House Systems

My friend and advisor is know for describing what some systematic theologians do with a Waffle House analogy. If you have ever been to a Waffle House restaurant and have ever observed the waffle making process, you might have noticed that while the waffle is cooking some dough tends to spill out and down the sides of the waffle iron. This renegade dough cooks just like the rest and I am sure that it is as tasty as the rest, but just before the waffle is removed from the iron the expert waffle maker takes a knife and cuts this unsightly waffle dough so as to produce a perfectly round waffle. Often, theologians, as they try to produce a perfect system, also take their knife and cut the renegade information that does not quite fit their system. This information is ignored, downplayed, or re-interpreted.

I am currently pursuing a Ph. D. in Systematic Theology at SWBTS (with a minor Baptist and Free church studies). Because of how the program is set up at SWBTS, last year I took reading seminars in systematic theology. During my readings I was often frustrated by how philosophical based and not Scriptural based systematic theology can be (I guess that I am a Biblical theologian at heart, not a systematic theologian). But, what frustrated me the most is that, for some people, their system became more important than Scripture itself. To be fair, when one puts anything in any kind of a system, there are bound to be some pieces that do not fit perfectly, but this is a flaw of the system, not of the raw information.

So here is my challenge: let us commit to not allow systems to define our theology. Let us commit to only allow Scripture to define our theology. Let us not pull out our theological knife and trim what does not fit. Let us make sure that we do not ignore, downplay, or re-interpret anything that does not fit our theology. Instead let us be challenged by what does not fit. Will you join me? Be forewarned, it's harder than you think ...