Children, Church Membership, and Baptism

A pair of essays by Vern Poythress on the subject of the status of children in Christ's body.  Both of these are excellent and thought-provoking.

INDIFFERENTISM AND RIGORISM

Here's the first two paragraphs of this piece:

"One’s understanding of the church affects one’s understanding of baptism. Therefore I propose to open further discussion between paedobaptists and baptists by an indirect route, through looking at the church and its membership.

In comparison with New Testament standards, our practice concerning church membership can be either too loose (indifferentist) or too restrictive (rigorist). Errors of both kinds arise from poor understanding of the roots of communal Christian life. Hence we start by examining those roots."

[Published in Westminster Theological Journal 59/1 (1997) 13-29.]

 LINKING SMALL CHILDREN WITH INFANTS IN THE THEOLOGY OF BAPTIZING
Here's the concluding paragraph of the second one:

"The status of children within our communities, as well as the related question of infant baptism, is, I believe, easy to answer when our spiritual vision and our fellowship with Christ are sufficiently deep. The answer has lain smack before our eyes all the time, in the words of Jesus, “Let the little children come to me, …” (Luke 18:16). We have failed to appropriate the answer, or even to see it as an answer, not mainly because we lacked coherent, eloquent arguments, but because we lacked spiritual discernment. We need to see this one word in connection with the entire picture of redemption, as it is manifested in our access to Christ in heaven. Christians everywhere will inevitably come to agreement on this subject, in both theory and practice, as we respond more thoroughly to the realities of our union with Christ at the heavenly Mt. Zion. We must therefore avoid mere wrangling about disputed issues, baptism included, and practice the instructions of Eph 4:11-16 that lead to corporate as well as individual maturity in Christ (John 17:22-23)."

[Published in Westminster Theological Journal 59/2 (1997): 143-158.]