When the Paedobaptist Attends Your Baptist Church

John and Jen have visited your church for a few weeks now. They express appreciation for your teaching and stay behind after the service for fellowship with the saints.

After the morning service this week, John sidled up to you sheepishly. He said they’ve seen that communion is in the evening service tonight, but they were christened and confirmed, not baptized as believers. He asked your counsel: “Are we allowed to participate?”

Your palms get a bit sweaty as you think through a response. What do you say? And why?

If you offer an open invitation, how does that square with your Baptist convictions? If you tell them not to partake, how is that in line with Jesus’s prayer for unity in John 17?

In situations like these, there’s felt pressure to be guided by pragmatics rather than principles. There’s also a temptation to extend an unconditional welcome. This may particularly be the case if your church is small or struggling. (“Not another couple lost to the church down the road!”)

Posing this scenario might seem like the Baptist equivalent of calculating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Would telling John and Jen, “You cannot participate in communion” smack of pedantry? After all, surely there are larger issues to deal with in the church.

I don’t think so. We need to recognize that this is an important question. Fundamentally, our scenario boils down to this question: can you have Baptist churches and not just Baptist individuals?

My hope is that this article will help Baptist pastors navigate these questions with conviction and compassion.

Before I delve into counsel, allow me to lay out some theological foundations that I assume you share with me if you’re a Baptist pastor. If you’re not a Baptist, then of course you’re welcome to eavesdrop on this conversation to hear how one church is seeking to work these things out.

First, baptism is a direct command from Jesus (Matt. 28:19, Acts 2:38). It must be observed by all Christians as the first step of obedience to the Lord Jesus. ^{11 .} By “first step,” I don’t mean “spontaneously.” See Rob Kane’s article “Listen and Observe: The Benefits of Examining Baptismal Candidates” in this journal.

Second, baptism is a prerequisite for communion. This has been a basic commitment of all Christians throughout history (see Didache 9:5). Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and church membership are biblically and logically linked.

Third, the only proper subjects of baptism are believers.

These three principles will be taken as a given here and not defended. There are many other pieces in this journal showcasing that homework! With these foundations in place, this article seeks to offer guidance to Baptist pastors on how to approach John and Jen with theological fidelity and pastoral sensitivity.

1. Hold Christian Truth with Compassion

Theological triage^{22 .} Al Mohler, “Theological Triage,” 9Marks, February 25, 2010, https://www.9marks.org/article/theological-triage/. must be firmly at play in this conversation. Baptism is a secondary issue.^{33 .} A secondary issue is a non-salvation issue that, when Christians disagree on it, means they can’t be part of the same church together—areas that don’t bar someone from heaven but do make church life, at the very least, difficult to live together. Examples of this are complementarianism and baptism. While I like to joke that there will be no paedobaptists in heaven,^{44 .} Think about it for a moment before getting offended. infant baptism is clearly not a salvation issue.

However, to answer John and Jen, we must also grasp that secondary issues remain important. Sadly, this kind of thinking is a trap that many fall into in our context, particularly when it comes to baptism.

For example, English credobaptist pastors say they would never baptize an infant, but it’s common practice to wholeheartedly welcome a convinced paedobaptist to the Supper and even into membership. This approach is often couched in terms of “gospel generosity,” “humility,” and an appeal to the secondary nature of the issue.

Aside from the implication that those who hold differing views are proud and stingy, my concern with this reasoning is that by misapplying theological triage, churches who follow this strategy will increasingly lose sight of the corporate nature of the ordinances.

Having a good grasp of theological triage will help churches understand that there will be Christians with whom we will share a common eternity, but a different building on a Sunday morning. That’s what’s at stake here.

In fact, to accept that some Christians should join churches other than mine because of secondary convictions like believer’s baptism is not proud, but humble. If John and Jen are convinced paedobaptists, then it’s not divisive but loving to say they should find a church they can submit to wholeheartedly. My church should then pray for the church they end up in and work with them where we can.

This is a dynamic we’ve seen in our town. There was once a group of Christians locally who held to different secondary convictions than us about baptism, but there wasn’t another church for them to go to. So they planted one, and some of our attendees went to be a part of that church. They just celebrated their 10^th anniversary.

My experience of the Johns and Jens of this world, however, is that they haven’t arrived at their position after careful thought over an open Bible. We should help them do that.

2. Help Christians Think with Clarity

Many Christians haven’t had the chance to think through ecclesiological matters. They see the Bible as sufficient in matters of life and doctrine but don’t think it says all that much about the local church. Matters of polity may even be seen as divisive, and so the opportunity to work through these things is not possible.

As a result, many Johns and Jens often live in the tension of being credobaptist by vague conviction, but perhaps they’ve been christened as a child. They’re not so convinced of paedobaptism enough to christen their children, but they’re also not so convinced of credobaptism enough to get baptized as believers themselves.

If this is the John and Jen whom you meet, then it’s important to help them discern their theological convictions and live according to them.

So offer them a space where they can open their Bibles and work out what they believe.

What does this look like at my church?

First, we invite attendees to a three-week course that explores what it means to be members of our church. We walk through our doctrinal statement and spend a good amount of time thinking about our position on both polity and baptism. We have had visitors of this course come to Baptist convictions during this course.

Second, we would allow John and Jen to attend our monthly communion service and counsel (though not command) them to observe and not partake. Our communion service happens between our morning and evening gatherings. John and Jen would be welcome to attend these communion services for up to six months as they work through their understanding of baptism, membership, and the Lord’s Supper. If at any point they decide that our church isn’t for them, then we help them find another one.

These are just some ways we seek to hold to biblical truth while also walking alongside Christians as they come to their own convictions. After all, to help Christians follow a conscience bound by Scripture is not pedantic, but wise.