The Childers-Childers Debate
A Virtual Cross-Time Debate Between Jeff Childers 1996 and Jeff Childers 1998 About the Identity of the New Testament Church
1996 Second Rebuttal
(Resolved: The Church founded by Jesus Christ is the so-called Protestant denomination, the Church of Christ, and not the Roman Catholic Church.)
This is a great opportunity which I have here been afforded to defend the truth in the light from the attacks of error. I commend my opponent, our host Martin Beckman, and all of my Catholic readers for their sincerity in investigating the truth. It is my greatest desire that God may use me to lead souls to his one fold, the Church of Christ.
This rebuttal will be shorter than what has become the standard. I feel that I can better serve the truth by providing the simple gospel plan rather than vain human reasoning as my opponent has done. In this forum, I wish to briefly cover three important topics: baptism, apostasy, and authority. If the Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise, next time we will examine numerous areas where the Roman Church has veered from the New Testament pattern.
INFANT BAPTISM
My opponent offered a number of arguments in favor of infant baptism based on the Catholic doctrine of original sin. We have already shown from the scriptures that original sin is unbiblical. Infants, therefore, do not have any sin. Since baptism is for the remission of sins, infants need not--must not be baptized.
My Catholic friends, please realize that no denomination--not even the Catholic Church--baptizes infants! No infant has ever been baptized in the history of Christianity. How can I assert such a thing? It is indeed very simple. Baptism means immersion. As I pointed out before, the two words are interchangeable. This is why many people in the brotherhood have taken to referring to our Lord’s forerunner as "John the Immerser."
The following is a scholarly discussion of baptism:
"Baptism, consisting of the process of immersion, submersion, and emergence (from bapto, to dip) is used (a) of John’s baptism, (b) of Christian baptism...; (c) of the overwhelming afflictions and judgments to which the Lord voluntarily submitted on the Cross...
"BAPTIZO, to baptize, primarily a frequentative form of bapto, to dip, was used among the Greeks to signify the dyeing of a garment, or the drawing of water by dipping a vessel into another, etc. Plutarchus uses it of the drawing of wine by dipping the cup into the bowl (Alexis, 67) and Plato, metaphorically, of being overwhelmed with questions (Euthydemus, 277 D)." (1)
My opponent reasoned from the scriptures that infants COULD have been part of the households which were baptized, that Paul COULD have been baptized standing up, and a litany of COULDS. Dear friends, all of these things COULD NOT have happened, because baptism IS immersion. It is as simple as that.
THE NATURE OF THE APOSTASY
My future self has objected to the idea that the Church could fall away and be restored. He has cited a number of passages which speak of God’s guiding the Church. However, the Church is made up of human beings. Human beings have, from the beginning, always been free to accept or reject God’s love and protection. Just like the people in the days of Noah, the people of God today could conceivably turn away from him. Should they do so, one can not fault God. God has not failed to live up to his promise. Rather, man has failed time and time again to live up to his end of the bargain!
Our visitor from the future has tried to distinguish between an apostasy FROM the Church, which is possible, and an apostasy OF the Church, which is impossible. This sounds plausible until one opens the Bible, searching the holy scriptures to see if these things are so. My Catholic friends, I don’t ask you to take my word that your Church is a product of an apostasy of the true Church. I do, however, ask you to take God’s.
Knowing that evil was working in the Church from the very beginning, God inspired the apostle Paul to warn Timothy and the Thessalonian church of the coming Great Apostasy. In this warning, the inspired writer gives us profound insight into the true nature of the apostasy, culminating in the advent of the Man of Sin, whom many good brethren have identified with the mysterious Anti-Christ.
"Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will turn away from the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic utterances through the hypocrisy of liars with branded consciences. They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." (1 Timothy 4:1-3)
"Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship, so as to seat himself in the Temple of God, claiming that he is a god--do you not recall that when I was still with you I told you these things?" (2 Thessalonians 2:3-5)
Paul describes the apostate Church. It is a Church which requires abstinence from foods. This is the Roman Catholic Church with all her fasts and times of abstinence! The apostate Church is one which forbids marriage. This is again the Roman Catholic Church, which forbids her priests to marry, forcing them to renounce a good and holy thing. The apostasy culminated in the advent of the papacy, where the pope rules over the Church claiming to be equal to God.
The Church of Christ fell away. Through the ages, many tried and failed to restore her. The ruins of their failures are the sects of Protestantism. True Christianity is neither Catholic nor Protestant. It was restored by the work of Alexander Campbell and Barton Warren Stone in the nineteenth century. Today, one can become a member of the true Church of Christ through baptism for the remission of sins.
Many non-Christians call Alexander Campbell the "founder" of the Church of Christ. This is inaccurate. The Church of Christ took the name of her true founder, the Lord Jesus Christ. What Campbell and the pioneer preachers who followed him did was to open the eyes of those in the sects to the true Church founded by Jesus in 33 AD.
A number of my brethren in recent times have over reacted to Campbell’s image as the Church of Christ’s founder. Not wishing to be considered "Campbellites" or to be confused with latter day apostates like the Christian Church, the Boston Crossroads Church, or the Disciples of Christ, a number of well meaning Christians have tried to distance themselves from Campbell. This is a very unfortunate trend. I am not a Campbellite. Alexander Campbell did not found my Church. Still, I respect Alexander Campbell and thank God for him. To my brethren who read this, please realize that if it weren’t for Alexander Campbell, you yourself might be in one of the denomination instead of the true Church of Christ!
AUTHORITY
All of this boils down to the issue of authority. In my next essay, I will challenge my opponent to defend a number of Catholic doctrines which are not found in the Bible. The apostle John gives us this stern warning: "Anyone who is so ‘progressive’ as not to remain in the teaching of Christ does not have God." (2 John 9) Here the apostle plainly states that we must not go beyond what the Bible teaches. If we do, as my opponent and all the papists have done, we do not have God. My future self, my Catholic friends, and all readers, please ask yourself: Have I been so "progressive" as to go beyond the new Testament doctrine of Christ?