My Election 2016 Thoughts

The 2016 elections are now just around the corner. It has been my position that I would not take a definitive position, especially concerning the presidential election, until the final hour. I wanted to get as much information as possible and I wanted to give God all of the time there is to move and work. But, as one preacher friend, reminded me just this week, "The ballots are already printed." 

This election has polarized many of my preacher brethren. There are some who imply that a vote for either of the party choices is tantamount to unchristian conduct. Others tell us a vote for anyone other than Trump is a vote for Clinton. I want to give my reasons for voting as I am.

I am going to vote for Trump for the following reasons: 

1. I voted my conscience in the primaries and did not win. 

2. A write in candidate is useless in Washington as the vote will be disqualified unless the name written in is a legally registered presidential candidate. 

3. I have enough issues with all of the “also running” candidates that none of them would be a more conscientious vote for me. 

4. That leaves me with only two choices and I am not voting for Clinton. 

5. To not vote at all would be irresponsible. 

6. A good friend, who has been fervently advocating voting our conscience and not voting for Trump, has repeatedly said he hopes Trump wins. To want him to win and to not vote for him to win is, in my view, hypocritical. 

THEREFORE; I will vote for the most viable candidate who most closely represents my own position.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

A Baptist Can Be A Baptist Without Agreeing with Another Baptist

Through the years of my study of church history and especially Baptist history, I have come to identify three doctrines that I see as the three legs that hold up a scriptural church

The preservation of the soul

Salvation is a work of Jesus Christ, which is impossible to lose.

The preservation of the scriptures

The Word of God is infallible and eternal. It has not mistakes and there is in existence a Bible that contains no mistakes. The only version of the Bible that could possibly qualify is the King James Version.

The preservation of the sanctuary

The church that Christ builds and the gates of hell have not prevailed against is neither Protestant nor Catholic. It has to be Anabaptist[1]/Baptist as only they have a claim to a history outside of Catholicism.

That said there are plenty of Baptist people who would disagree with me. That’s all right. If there any is truth that is evident in Baptist history it is that Baptists have not always agreed. Generally I think that has been because of the limitations they had in available portions of the Bible and of opportunity to fellowship with other Baptists for the continuity of faith. Mostly I believe it is because the chief tenant of Baptist faith is the responsibility of each individual to worship God according to the dictates of his or her own conscience.

I liken this to the seat of that three-legged stool. We cannot, must not, force our own conviction upon another. We have an obligation to present our understanding of the Bible to others but they have the obligation and right to search out the matter and come to their own convictions. This essentially leads to differing ideas.

Someone will object, “How can that be if the Holy Spirit of God is guiding and teaching each of us?” The answer is found, I believe, in Isaiah 28:9-13 (KJV)

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

God teaches knowledge to a people with stammering lips and who see through a glass darkly[2].

• ·       Line upon line
• ·       Precept upon precept,
• ·       Here a little and there a little

We learn slowly, gradually and imperfectly. Therefore God teaches us patiently. God isn’t teaching us differently but He is teaching us at our own level. It is a gracious act on the part of God but it means that none of us have either complete or perfect understanding. We are going to have to be gracious and patient with others who haven’t come to see things just as we have. Likely one of the two of us, or both of us, will come to change how we see things as God gives us a little more here and there.

Does this mean that we should ignore differences and even become indifferent and dispassionate about them? Not at all. It is through the:

• ·       Passionate study,
• ·       Preaching,
• ·       Discussion,
• ·       Point and counter point of conversation (even intense debate)

that we polish and perfect those truths we hold so dear.

1 Corinthians 11:19 (KJV)

For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

Heresies motivate passionate study and perfecting of doctrine.

Should believers, who are in passionate disagreement, be forced to unite in the same church body as if there were no differences. I say, “No.”

Amos 3:3 (KJV)

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

Here is, I think, the genius and the beauty of the independent, local Baptist church. We organize together with members of like faith and practice. We recognize that not every believer sees things exactly the same as we do, and we don’t fault them for it[3] but we do not ignore it and act as if these differences do not exist. In some cases we may choose to have no fellowship with them at all but even then we do not count them as an enemy but as a brother with whom we differ.

2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 (KJV)

And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.

Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Perhaps the greatest act of kindness I can do for a brother in the Lord is agree that, because we do not agree, we belong in a different kind of church - even a different kind of independent Baptist church.

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[1] I place groups such as Mennonites, Amish, and Quakers as well as Baptists in this group.

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

[3] Though we might aggressively preach and teach in opposition to what they believe.

Don't Go There!

Isaiah 31:1-3 (KJV)

Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!

Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words: but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of them that work iniquity.

Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together.

Nobody in Israel thought Egypt was perfect. Their own history with Egypt attested to that. They knew only too well Egypt's fierce anger.

But at this moment in their history Egypt looked like their best option. On the other side stood Assyria and after her, Babylon. If Egypt was worldliness, Babylon was the devil. They were prone to lean more toward worldliness that Satan.

God said that they should have leaned upon Him.

I find in this a picture of the current state of believers in America. This election appears to be between "the devil" and "the world." 

On the one side we have a candidate who is opposed to almost everything we hold sacred. I have heard that she flatly pronounced that "Christians are just going to have to change."

On the other side we have a man who appears to hold a few more of our more valued principles. He is uplifted by some as the only candidate strong enough to possibly defeat our archenemy. But he is brash, proud, outlandish and unabashedly self promoting.

He is not our preference but many believe he is our only hope.

Not so!

Our only hope is the Lord.

He has always been our only hope.

Woe to them who go down to worldliness for help!

Now, I am not of the opinion that good men cannot vote for the man. Jeremiah objected at first, (I voted my conscience in objection to the current candidate in the primaries) but went down to Egypt and did not compromise in doing so. I, however, do believe that we must be warned not to trust in this man.

Our hope must be in seeking the Lord.

Different Streams of Baptist are Different Kinds of Baptists

I style myself as one of those Baptists with a capital “B” Baptists. Typically what we mean by that is that we hold Baptist baptism as the only form of scriptural baptism since we believe that baptism must be under the authority of a scriptural church and neither any of the Protestants nor the Catholic Church qualify, and that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial to be observed by the members of a particular local church.

Sometimes those of us, who think of ourselves as capital “B” Baptists, think that we are the only Baptists who have any historical claim to the title. I don’t see it as being that simple. It is relatively popular right now to identify four historical “ideas” for the existence of Baptists:

That Baptist churches have existed and reproduced themselves since the first century.

Those who hold to this idea of Baptist origin identify with the Anabaptists.

That the doctrines of modern Baptists are traceable through the centuries and back to Christ.

Those in this camp deny that churches have established churches for these two thousand years, but that various Bible students through the centuries independently came to hold doctrines similar to modern Baptists.

That modern Baptist churches spring from Protestant churches that were influenced by the Anabaptists. 

In this way Baptists claim some link to historical churches but disassociate with some of what they consider to be the less desirable aspects of Anabaptist history.

That Baptists are merely one of the many sub-church groups that protested away from the Protestant Church of England.

This group denies any connection with the Anabaptists and see the Baptist denomination as a brand new church founded by John Smith and his contemporaries.

I am of the first bunch. I see the Baptist church origins as being outside of Protestantism and outside of Catholicism running parallel in time to them all the way back to John the Baptist. I see two possible means to link Baptist churches all the way back to Christ:

First, through the Anabaptists of mainland Europe. There is no question that these believers existed and that they were a growing, vital Christian community all the while Catholicism and later Protestantism existed. They were heavily persecuted by the Catholics and Protestants so most of what we know about them we know from the things their detractors wrote about them, but we do know they existed. We would not agree with everything every Anabaptist held to and we admit that they held to varied positions. But that their basic doctrinal premises were that of Baptists, is not difficult to argue.

Second, through the ancient churches of the British Isles. It is similarly uncomplicated to demonstrate that a Christian presence has existed in the British Isles long before the Catholics arrived there. Many of these churches compromised with Roman Catholicism over the centuries, but some did not. Believers in Wales especially claim a Christian heritage that is more ancient than Catholicism. I contend that Baptists have a right to claim that heritage as our own.

The point I want to make in this writing is that those who hold to these differing ideas of Baptist origins are more than Baptists with differing views; we are different kinds of Baptists. We may identify within the same camps, but we are not the same. Most would agree that Southern Baptists and American Baptists are not the same and that Independent Baptists are not the same as either of them. None of us would want to be thought of as the same as, say, Westboro Baptist. I mean to say that these differences run more personally than this and that we very frequently ignore them. These differing ideas of Baptist origins exist among churches that identify themselves, as I do, as Independent, Fundamental Baptist.

And here we have made a huge mistake, especially in the last fifty to seventy-five years. We have assumed that anyone who was an Independent, Fundamental Baptist was in the same camp as we. Oh, sure, we understood that there were minor differences, mostly we attributed those to personalities, but we viewed all Independent Baptists as “one of us.” The fact is, that is not the case.

• ·       I remember back in the 80’s hearing the head of one Independent Baptist missions agency claim to be the first Independent Baptist back into Ethiopia[1], ignoring that there had been a missionary associated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship there for previous to him.
• ·      I heard an Independent Baptist preacher claim to be the only Gospel preaching Baptist church in his town, but I knew for a fact that there was a church in fellowship with the Baptist Bible Fellowship in the same town[2].

The differences between the various “camps” of Independent Baptists is real. It is more than one of simple personalities. It is a difference

• ·       of philosophy,
• ·       of doctrine,
• ·       of ethics and
• ·       of heritage[3]

It is, in fact, a difference of “kind.” Mixing the “kinds” has been a mistake. It has left the members of Baptist churches confused and doctrinally compromised because of it. The leaders, the guys who wish to assemble a multitude of pastors as their followers[4] would like us to ignore the differences, in fact they wish we would stop having our distinctives and just follow them. But the differences are real. I contend that they are vital and important to preserve. 

Now, I am not suggesting that these others are not Baptists or that they have to agree with my view of heritage, origin and doctrine to be capital “B” Baptists. History will bear out that Baptists, if they are anything, are varied. What I am suggesting is that we become upfront with the differences and that we unite as Baptists with Baptists who are doctrinally, historically and ethically the same as we are and not merely with those who seem to be the most successful and camp under the very broad flag of Independent, Fundamental Baptist. The differences are important.

• ·       They are important to the health of local Baptist churches
• ·       They are important to the vitality of individual believers and
• ·       They are important to the preservation of “faith which was once delivered”  

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

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[1] Or was it Kenya? I don't remember.

[2] Though I am not aware of any specific instances, I am sure that there were BBF preachers who ignored the presence of the others too.

[3] Unless we wish to claim that heritage only goes back to the 1940’s-1950’s.

[4] And thus have the influence over their congregations.

I Am A Baptist, I Must Be Responsible

I am a Baptist.

I do not belong to any religious denomination.

I have no historical ties to any protestant system of doctrine

I am a Baptist

The historical make-ip of my forefathers is varied. It traces all the way back to John the Baptist, outside of Protestantism and outside of Catholicism. My predecessors have been prosecuted, maligned, mistreated and in many cases exterminated.

I am a Baptist

Though history clearly demonstrates the existence of Baptist believers through the centuries to the first century, their opponents have succeeded in destroying most of the historical documentation and other materials those Baptist believers produced. We are forced to extrapolate what we know about those Baptist believers from the accounts of those who hated them, persecuted them and would have eradicated the world of them.

I am a Baptist

I hold no illusion that the forebears of my faith were perfect men. I do not ask that of them. I hold that their greatest testimony was their conviction to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience as led by their study of the Word of God. 

I am a Baptist

My convictions require that I hold myself responsible to study the Word of God for myself. As a Baptist I am accountable not to a denomination, not to a Bible College, not to a famous preacher or spiritual leader. I am accountable to Jesus Christ, to the particular local church body to which I have been attached and to the doctrines my personal studies have led me to hold.

I am a Baptist.
Therefore I must be responsible for my own convictions.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields