Peter declares that we must be prepared to give a defense of our faith to everyone who asks (1 Peter 3:15). It is in that spirit that we begin a series of posts to defend certain scurrilous accusations made by someone unknown to me but posted on the internet. His web page asserts that “a church of Christ preacher cannot clearly answer” his points. I intend to answer each point from Scripture and disprove that claim.
I suspect, although I do not know, that the writer has had a bad experience with the church. The incendiary nature of his comments do not suggest one who is approaching the subject in love. His anger is palpable. I have sent email to him at the link he offers and informed him of my writing. He is welcomed to leave his comments here so long as he does so in a respectable fashion. As always, your comments are welcomed too. We trust they will be posted in spirit of love.
The truth has nothing to fear from honest inspection. The writer has created a number of “straw men” on his web site. A straw man is created when one creates erroneous, imprecise or previously non-existent claims and then argues against them as if his opponent held those positions. Some of the positions he asserts are not held by the majority of churches of Christ and we will highlight those. Is it possible that some brother or sister somewhere in the world at some point in time held an odd belief contrary to the bulk of church members? Certainly. But it is neither fair nor honest to impute fringe ideas to the whole of the church. Likewise, it would be unfair for us to assume that all Baptists hold the same views as this particular writer. In any case, we will vigorously defend his challenges.
His questions may be reduced to the following 7 categories. We will address each in a separate post. Should significant questions or comments be offered, we will address them at the end of these planned posts.
- Must one be baptized by a “Church of Christ elder?”
- The name of the church of Christ.
- “What if” questions related to baptism.
- The nature of repentance.
- The nature of baptism
- The nature of God’s authorizations for items used in worship.
- Miscellaneous comments, charges and questions.
We will begin each of the following posts by quoting verbatim from his website. We hope that these lessons will prove instructive for all.
Other posts you may be interested in reading:
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