Re: sacraments as means of grace (was Re: [asa] Pregnancy & Communio)

Hi Coope,

You wrote:
I mention the former possible meaning to clarify Murray’s citing,
> which I suspected might be considered an erroneous view of the SB
> church, which it is not, I feel safe to say. Just trying to eschew
> obfuscation. J

Just to help eschew obfuscation; my remarks had nothing whatever to do with the SB church.

They were taken from our own Baptist Union of Victoria doctrinal statement/constitution and merely reflect the facts that (1) Baptists don't speak as as a monolithic entity on the question at hand; and (2) the idea of sacraments as a means of grace can lurk behind the use of language which we might initially see as quite antithetical to that sort of view.

So, I was speaking as an Australian - more specifically a Victorian - Baptist in order to make the point that whatever US Baptists might think on the question of the sacraments, there is one stream of Baptist thought (mine!) which certainly does NOT think "symbol only" is a valid theological point of view.

Actually, as an overly lengthy aside, I have quite a difficult time trying to convince people of two points: first, that our Australian Baptist tradition ought to be traced back to UK rather than US Baptists - which point is important because it determines how one might legitimately appropriate or appeal to Baptist tradition in the Australian context. Second, that the UK Baptists were reacting not against Roman Catholicism but Anglicanism - which is important given that our (Australian) formulations of sacramental theology (among other things) need to be seen as standing across from Anglican rather than RC formulations. My stream of Baptist tradition, in other words, never really cared to argue against the idea of the RC Mass, its metaphysical assumptions and its soteriological implications for the simple reason that this simply wasn't the issue at hand. Indeed, some early Baptist statements of faith - the London Confession of 1644, for instance - don't even discuss the Lord
 
's Supper. Those that do treat it tend to be VERY cursory and for any substantial treatment of the nature of the Lord's Supper one should really turn to those for whom the matter was a substantial issue: Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et al with the Lutheran treatment being perhaps the most substantial.

Need I add that the early UK Baptists would have essentially taken the Calvinist line? Indeed, it's interesting to note that by the time of the Second London Confession of c.1677 the Lord's Supper IS mentioned and the discussion is almost identical to that of the Westminster Confession (almost a "cut and paste"). In the Westminster Confession the essential point seems to me to be maintaining some idea of the Lord's Supper as REALLY efficacious (i.e. not merely "symbolic") but without ascribing "magical" properties to the elements. Point being that early English Baptists don't seem to have had much problem with the Anglican view of the Lord's Supper - they recognized that something significant happens in this sacrament and this significance does not rely upon an Aristotelian metaphysic by which the elements are endued with properties over and above that of ordinary bread and wine. In short, they seem to have been quite comfortable with the Anglican notion of sacrament in as
 
much as it accepted the idea of the sacraments as a means of grace but rejected the more fanciful Roman Catholic speculations on the nature of the elements as well as the ritualistic accretions of the Roman Catholic mass (lifting up of the host, etc).

But, back to the main point: no I WASN'T trying to say anything much about Southern Baptists - indeed, my whole response centers on the fact that while my position is Baptist it's NOT Southern Baptist and I no more speak for SB believers than they do for me! Certainly no Southern Baptist would consider our Victorian doctrinal statement authoritative and so my citing same certainly doesn't constitute "evidence" in regards of SB views on the matter.

Blessings,
Murray

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Received on Thu Nov 6 19:29:06 2008