Oh those ironical Reformed Baptists!

[meda]

So those crazy Calvinists are now posting clever little lists about why lesser Christions should not join a reformed church. The smugness, it burns.

 

http://reformedbaptistfellowship.org/20 ... st-church/

[ladidah]

The sermons are too long and complicated.

Translation: The sermons are hour-long exercises in pseudo-intellectualism.

[julie paradox]

I love "crucial doctrines like election or depravity"

[julie paradox]

Also: is a regular altar call a normal thing in the US? Over here we tend to assume that anyone coming to church either has committed already or is interested and will let someone know when the time comes. Reading this I get the impression (I realise it could be entirely erroneous) that many churches invite public commitments at every service.

[kittypie]

JP - the altar call is practically a requirement in most Southern Baptist churches. Most mainline churches do not do an altar call.

[snarkbillie]

Also: is a regular altar call a normal thing in the US? Over here we tend to assume that anyone coming to church either has committed already or is interested and will let someone know when the time comes. Reading this I get the impression (I realise it could be entirely erroneous) that many churches invite public commitments at every service.

Every conservative church I've ever been to had an altar call every service. Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, Independent Christian, etc. They see preaching as a means to get converts.

[debrand]

1

. The doctrine is too defined.

Come on…. I mean the Second London Baptist Confession (1689) is 40 pages long! It does not define crucial doctrines like election and depravity so ambiguously that even an Arminian could affirm them. If you define your doctrine too clearly that will exclude a lot of people, and isn’t our main goal to get larger in number?

.

So much for Bible Alone. It sounds like they have no room to condemn Catholics on this issue.

2. The worship is too “regulated.â€

.

There’s no children’s church, no children’s sermon, no skits, no choir specials, no praise team, no choir cantatas, no testimonies. In fact, all they sing are psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to tunes that are too square to ever be covered on the local pop station

In other words, these are boring services! You won't even enjoy the singing. We try to make our services as uninteresting and dull as possible.

3. The expectations are too high.

.

If you miss a service, someone is likely to call and ask how you’re doing. The church is so small that everyone has to pitch in and do something. You can’t just fade into the woodwork. The membership covenant is taken too seriously

Translation: We are a nosey bunch who will intrude into your private life and bug the crap out of you.

[debrand]

6. There’s not enough “freedom†in the Spirit.

.

There are no people speaking in tongues, raising their hands while singing praise choruses, giving prophecies or “words of knowledge.†It’s almost as if they believe that the extraordinary offices and gifts ceased after the time of the apostles, and now all they talk about is how the Spirit speaks through the Scriptures!

Again, we are pretty damn boring. Hooray! That means we are way more godly then those Pentacostals.

[Fat Actress]

Having grown up in a Reformed Baptist church, I find this list completely true and completely repugnant. It's all about reading between the lines. Take #2, for example. Let's think about why children's church became standard. When we began understanding childhood developement, we recognized that children are not able to make it through an hour and a half sermon, sitting completely still. Reformed baptists "have high standards" for their children. Translation: beat your two, three, and four year olds into submission. Growing up, our church actually had a designated "spanking room" complete with a strap hanging on the wall.

[indigospeakeasy]

That is horrible Fat Actress. I'm sorry you had to live through that!

That list makes me roll my eyes. The smugness!! It burns, indeed!

[ladidah]

Growing up, our church actually had a designated "spanking room" complete with a strap hanging on the wall.

:shock: I'm so sorry.

Conservative U. S. churches that have no Baptist influence rarely have altar calls. (A lot of the "non-denominational" and other denominational churches that do altar calls have been influenced by Baptist and/or revivalist traditions.)

[QAF_Rocks]

Growing up, our church actually had a designated "spanking room" complete with a strap hanging on the wall.

Ugh, that turns my stomach. :(

I wonder how common this is in conservative churches. When I read Kyria Abrahams' I'm Perfect, You're Doomed (about growing up as a Jehovah's Witness) she mentioned that her Kingdom Hall had a "beating room."

[Burris]

I hear power is as addictive as crack. If so, then the proud Mr. Riddle was high when he wrote that list.

[Fat Actress]

I commented on that blog post with a list of abuses of power against women and children. My comment obviously did not get approved. Would have been interesting for them to try and explain why women can't even offer a prayer request on Wednesday night prayer services - they have to write it down and pass it to a man. Why it's common for wives to call up the fathers of teenage girls in the church to complain about how their "immodesty" is causing the husband to lust. Or why pastors thought they had the right to preach against female weight problems & subsequently require certain women to begin dieting and be regularly weighed in. The list goes on and on and on

[fluttershies]

I mean, isn’t every member a minister?

Yeah, the concept of the priesthood of all believers is clearly a crazy non-Biblical idea. Wait.....:roll:

[apple1]

... Growing up, our church actually had a designated "spanking room" complete with a strap hanging on the wall.

I have been in churches, most of them Baptist, not Reformed, regularly for a large percentage of my life (and I am not young).

I can say (with much relief) that this is the first time I have heard of this.

I have no words to say how horrible this is.

(I have said before, and will say again, I predict a great split between groups of Baptists, southern Baptists in particular, between those that are Reformed/Calvinistic and those that are not. The theological and practical divide is just too great. Denominations have split before over MUCH less).

[Eclipse]

1.

So much for Bible Alone. It sounds like they have no room to condemn Catholics on this issue.

My thoughts exactly when I read that.

[Eclipse]

JP - the altar call is practically a requirement in most Southern Baptist churches. Most mainline churches do not do an altar call.

What exactly is an altar call?

[salsa]

short answer - it's an invitation issued by the pastor to come forward and make a public confession/profession of your faith.

longer answer - a manipulative pleading for people to come forward and confess that they are sinner/s (maybe even outlining their primary sin) to the pastor and to confess that they are in need of God's saving grace and that they believe that through Jesus is the only way they can be saved. They are then declared "saved." (I suppose they put them in Tupperware and save them for later). And I have witnessed some extremely manipulative calls. UUUGGGHHH. It never ceased to amaze me that people didn't resist just on principle of having been so obviously manipulated. I won't outline some of the techniques.

But it's not all bad. In more mainline cases, it's a call for people to come and pray, to speak to the pastor if they want, and if they are feeling God calling them to new life, to say that to the pastor.

eta: it's most effective if it follows a fire-and-brimstone sermon, people are singing, "Just as I Am," and there is a poor playing on a poor-quality electric organ with the vibrato turned on. :drool: