The Town of Odyssey

My pastor is overseen by the two elders of a church in Michigan, and he has close relationships with several other pastors, both in our area and out of state. This is to insure that he will not teach unorthodox doctrine or abuse his powers. We, like you, believe that it is very dangerous for a church to have no oversight whatsoever.

The congregation (only the members) have the opportunity once a year at our annual business meeting to suggest men for the offices of elder or deacon. This is done via a secret ballot, where the people may suggest a man or men whom they believe are qualified for either office. Typically, no one suggests anything, unless there really is someone who seems to be desiring the office and who has received the proper education. We did elect a second deacon to office a couple of years ago, but other than that, we've had the same elder and deacon since just after the church was constituted in 2002.

@ conquestor: Ask your brother. There are some big differences between Baptist and Reformed Baptist. He and I have had debates.

The Second London Confession says as much but it also says that the messengers or in this case other pastors "are not intrusted with any church-power properly so called; or with any jurisdiction over the churches themselves, to exercise any censures either over any churches or persons; or to impose their determination on the churches or officers."

So what would happen if a pastor or elder refused to listen to the other pastors and continued to teach heresy or abuse his powers?

I'm not entirely sure what that passage is saying, but if it disagrees with what I described to you, I'll say again that we don't agree with absolutely everything that that confession says, just the majority of it.

I would imagine that the church would vote him out and/or get another pastor seriously involved.

Reformed Baptists differ from Presbyterian church polity in that there are no hierarchal structures, i.e. officers above a church elder to depose as needed. Some might see this as a weakness, and I would tend to agree to a certain extent. However, Reformed Baptists many times (not always) have a plurality of elders, not just one "pastor". This introduces accountability with each other as they lead the flock together. I really disagree with the modern day practice of having only one pastor over everything. I think that multiple elders/pastors/shepherds/bishops would help prevent any abuse or error.


Conquestor: Many (most?) Baptists would be strongly against Calvinism. Which is sad, considering how the majority of the first Baptists were strong Calvinists. Baptists have had a strong reformed lineage, e.g. John Bunyan, John Gill, Charles Spurgeon, etc. Today, a lot of Baptists, at least here in the Southern U.S. would be deeply offended if you called them a Calvinist!

Do you believe that miracles happen in the present age?

Yes. Now, I don't think there are people whom God has given the ability to peform miracles, such as healing or speaking in tongues. I believe that God is the only one who can intervene and perform miracles today.

Why do you say people no longer perform miracles?

Would you also discount the account of miracles in the Early Church then?

From my point of view, it seems that only the apostles and the ones whom the apostles laid hands on were able to perform miracles. No one today meets those qualifications, so I don't believe there's anyone today with the power invested in them to perform miracles.

If there were miracles in the Early Church, I would suspect that they came either from the hands of, as I said, apostles or those on whom the apostles laid their hands. I don't see anywhere in Scripture that indicates that the ability to perform miracles is a continued blessing that Christians have today.

Do any of the Reformed preach evolution or is it an untouchable subject

My guess would be that most Reformed Baptist churches hold to creationism and rejects macro-evolution. Ours certainly does. However, I couldn't make a blanket statement that all do.

Do you believe that Christ will reign for a literal 1,000 years on earth after His Second Coming?

A good number of Reformed Baptists are amillennial--that is, they understand the term millenium to mean the present "church age" where Christ reigns over a spiritual kingdom, instead of a literal 1,000 year physical reign on earth. However, that is by means across the board. One of the original and most well-known Reformed Baptists, Charles Spurgeon, was more the "historic premillennialism" position. This is closest to what I hold to as well. Historic premillennialism does believe in a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth, but not a pre-tribulational rapture of the church or a millenium that is predominated by Jews as is held by dispensational premillennialism. Also, the elder at my church believes in postmillennialism.


So there are a range of views, but probably tending toward amillennialism.

My pastor is an amillenialist for sure, and I would say probably at least 90% of the members of the congregation are as well. My family came from a church where dispensational premillenialism was strongly affirmed, being influenced by popular fiction like the Left Behind series. But upon becoming members of this church, I think we're slowly moving over to the amillenial side. I know we don't believe in the rapture as a separate event from the Second Coming anymore, but I think my dad still holds to a literal 1,000 year reign. I personally have heard enough from other Reformed pastors to lean more to the side of a spiritual kingdom.

But eschatology that agrees with everyone else is certainly not a qualification for membership in our church, so it's not an issue that gets talked about all that often.