Issues That Divide Reformed Christians

You can imag­ine in a the­o­log­i­cal tra­di­tion filled with con­stant the­o­log­i­cal reflec­tion and inqui­si­tion that divi­sion will occur over cer­tain doc­trines. Not only does divi­sion hap­pen between reformed Chris­tians, but often the area of dis­agree­ment is a source of con­stant debate. Some reformed Chris­tians spend more time polemi­ciz­ing against one another then apol­o­gis­ing for the Chris­t­ian faith.

Let’s explore the issues in the reformed tra­di­tion. Most of these have even led to per­se­cu­tion of each other. An exam­ple would be John Calvin writ­ing against the Anabap­tists in his Insti­tutes for not bap­tiz­ing infants, and that is only one of a hand­ful of hot issues.

The Church

The doc­trines that divide reformed Chris­tians are the strongest in the area of ecclessi­ol­ogy or doc­trine of the Church (the “ekklessia”). There are two fun­da­men­tal camps in this debate: Bap­tists and Pres­by­te­ri­ans, and they argue over church polity (church gov­ern­ment), bap­tism, and the Lord’s Supper.

Bap­tism is prob­a­bly the most fiercely debated issue. Pres­by­te­ri­ans, Luther­ans, and reformed Epis­co­pals believe that infants should be bap­tized. This con­vic­tions comes from an infer­en­tial the­ol­ogy from their covenant the­ol­ogy. In short, and I can’t pos­si­bly due jus­tice to their opin­ion, they believe that infants should be given the “sign of the covenant” as male infants were cir­cum­cised in Israel’s his­tory. These Chris­tians are called Pae­dobap­tists (“infant bap­tism”). Reformed Bap­tists, most of which hold to covenant the­ol­ogy, only think that the sign should be given to those pro­fess­ing faith, and they are called Cre­dobap­tists (“con­fes­sion of faith baptism”).

The Lord’s Sup­per is some­thing that also divides. The Reform­ers debated whether there was the actual pres­ence of Christ in the ele­ments (con­sub­stan­ti­a­tion), and oth­ers thought that it was only memo­r­ial. Today, most reformed Chris­tians believe that the Lord’s Sup­per is sim­ply memo­r­ial. There is dis­agree­ment on whether the table should be open to any Chris­tians pro­fess­ing faith (open com­mu­nion), or if it should be restricted to mem­bers of local churches (closed communion).

Church gov­ern­ment is the last major issue that sep­a­rates reformed Chris­tians. Bap­tist will tell you that their con­gre­ga­tions are inde­pen­dent and con­gre­ga­tional (usu­ally ran by a plu­ral­ity of elders) while Pres­by­te­ri­ans often have a church gov­ern­ment that is ruled by pres­by­ter­ies and assem­blies. The local church would not be viewed as “inde­pen­dent” like the Bap­tists would.

There are of course dif­fer­en­ti­a­tions on how the reg­u­la­tive prin­ci­ple is to be inter­preted. Some allow more con­tem­po­rary forms of wor­ship while most do not think this fits the reg­u­la­tive prin­ci­ple. It is also worth men­tion­ing that Land­mark Bap­tists dis­be­lieve in the “Uni­ver­sal” Church as espoused by most reformed the­olo­gians, and they also believe their reli­gion doesn’t have a basis in the Protes­tant Reformation.

The Gifts

This topic, while cer­tainly able to fit under “The Church,” is a large enough debate to give it its own cat­e­gory. Most reformed Chris­tians believe that with the com­ple­tion of the Scrip­tures the Apos­tolic gifts ceased to be nec­es­sary. These Chris­tians go by the term: “Ces­sa­tion­ists.” There are reformed indi­vid­u­als who believe that they are still alive today and should be eagerly pur­sued after, and they go by the title: “Con­tin­u­a­tion­ists.” There are also reformed Chris­tians who don’t see their abo­li­tion pro­scribed in the Scrip­tures, but they are leery about them; these believ­ers go by the title: “open but cautious.”

Covenant The­ol­ogy

While reformed Chris­tians might agree on the basic ten­ants of covenant the­ol­ogy listed in the last post, there is dis­agree­ment about the nuances of covenant the­ol­ogy. The most strik­ing is that of Law/Gospel; this doc­trine strives to find out what of the Mosaic Law is bind­ing on New Covenant believ­ers today. There are some who believe that the “moral law” or Deca­logue is still bind­ing (tra­di­tional reformed), those who believe that the “civil” and “moral” law is bind­ing today (Theon­o­mists, Chris­t­ian Recon­struc­tion­ists), and there are those who believe that the Mosaic Law served a tem­po­ral pur­pose in Israel’s his­tory (Mod­i­fied Lutheran View).

While most covenant the­olo­gians use the redemption/works/grace theme as over­ar­ch­ing covenants, some repu­di­ate this dis­tinc­tion. These Chris­tians, who are tra­di­tion­ally, reformed Bap­tists, are called New Covenant The­olo­gians. They pre­fer to use the Old/New Covenant dichotomy as shown in the New Tes­ta­ment. They also tra­di­tion­ally don’t believe that Adam was under a covenant.

Escha­tol­ogy

The end times is prob­a­bly the doc­trine that has the largest range of beliefs. Just because some­one is Pres­by­ter­ian, Bap­tist, or other reformed denom­i­na­tion there is no guar­an­tee that they’ll agree on escha­tol­ogy. Most, I feel I can safely say, believe that Christ’s return will be a one-time event cul­mi­nat­ing in the final judge­ment and glorification/reprobation. These Chris­tians would not believe that the mil­len­nium described in Rev 20 is a lit­eral event; these Chris­tians go by either the Amil­len­ni­al­ist or Post­mil­len­ni­al­ist tag. There are some Chris­tians who are pre­mil­len­nial, but they are not Dis­pen­sa­tional Pre­mil­len­nial. They believe there will be a 1,000 year reign, but it won’t be a re insti­tu­tion of eth­nic Israel as espoused by Dispensationalists.

All reformed Chris­tians believe in the inau­gu­rated escha­tol­ogy (“now/not yet”) scheme con­cern­ing the King­dom of God. That is, Christ ush­ered in (“inau­gu­rate”) the end, but it won’t find ful­fill­ment until His return. That is why reformed Chris­tians say that we live in the res­ur­rec­tion, but we have yet to be resurrected.

Apolo­get­ics

It seems ludi­crous to think that Chris­tians would argue over which method to defend the faith, but the debate does exist! Most reformed the­olo­gians hold to pre­sup­po­si­tional apolo­get­ics most clearly artic­u­lated by Cor­nelius Van Til, but not every­one fits in here. Some hold to clas­si­cal apolo­get­ics which is the belief that we must first estab­lish the truth­ful­ness of the­ism. This isn’t nearly as hotly debated as some of the above issues.

The Eter­nal Decrees

The last issue that stands out as a point of divi­sion con­cerns the eter­nal decrees of God. This admit­tely a rather hypo­thet­i­cal debate, but it is some­thing that some reformed believ­ers get caught up in. The ques­tion is: When did God do His election–before He decreed the fall or after­wards? Now this doesn’t mean that the debate is over a time and space sequence of events. All would agree that the decrees of God were com­plete before the cre­ation of the world. The ques­tion is whether He saw us fallen or not fallen. Those who believe that He did His elec­tion before the fall are called Supralap­sar­i­ans (“above the fall”), and those who believe that it hap­pend after the decree of the fall are called Infralap­sar­i­ans (“after the fall”).

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