From our humble beginnings, we here at CredoCovenant have sought to address cultural issues from a Reformed Baptist perspective. We don’t claim to approach these issues from the Reformed Baptist perspective, but from a Reformed Baptist perspective. Some of our interactions, dialogues, monologues, diatribes, essays, and musings may at times have been seen as less than “confessional.” That’s to be expected, because different people have different expectations of what qualifies as confessional.
As I’m sure many of you have noticed, we have not written in a while. Many of our contributors, as you might expect, have gone through many life changes over the years that have hindered their ability and / or their desire to publish content on the internet. I personally have been focusing on pastoring my family and reorienting myself to a new career after stepping down from the ministry due to financial hardship. Hence, we haven’t published new content in well over a year on this site.
Yet, as you have doubtless noticed, the site remains up as a resource to those who find it makes our confessional documents more easily searchable, and as a record of where we have been thus far in our discussion of the things that matter to our contributors and to our readers. As I think about what it would take for us to get the website back on its feet, I have admittedly wrestled with the idea of scrapping all of the old content and starting fresh, but that might come across as intellectually dishonest. We have a past, and it has helped shape our present. If I have deleted any posts, it is because I have found them to be less than pertinent, unhelpful, or simply not in keeping with our goal to be a collaborative community of writers who desire to engage the culture as Reformed Baptists.
A further consideration, at least for me, is the renewed interest and emphasis on classical theism in the Reformed Baptist community and its implications for epistemology, natural theology, and our further engagement with the culture on issues such as justice and hamartiology. I am still thoroughly convinced that most, if not all, of the conclusions we have presented in our discussion of cultural issues on this site are correct. However, these new (or perhaps more accurately: new for me) considerations require deep thought and engagement the likes of which I have not attempted on this subject.
I have noted on other platforms, as well as this one, that I am grateful that the issues we have long addressed here on CredoCovenant are now being addressed by much more prominent writers with larger audiences. I’ve long had a concern, however, with the fact that many of them seem to be making these issues all about themselves and focusing a lot of their energies on responding to the backlash they receive rather than keeping their focus on the ideas. Now, I would add to that a concern with addressing the issues with a purely biblicist approach rather than a classically Reformed approach. If we are to address an issues that have their beginnings in the world, and that are infiltrating the church, we have to be willing to address it where we have common ground with the world: in the realm of general revelation and natural theology. Hopefully, we will have more to say on that later.
As I continue to consider the future of CredoCovenant and the content that will be posted here, I am hopeful. I would like to see it become a site that is still varied in its authorship, and with peer reviewed articles and essays on cultural issues that matter to Reformed Baptists, but with a handful of contributors (myself included) that are committed to thinking deeply about these issues from a classical Christian perspective. As I look at our Baptist forefathers, particularly from the 17th and 18th century, I am convinced that they would hope that this would be our emphasis. Heretofore, I know that I personally have approached many of the issues we write about on this site from more of a biblicist perspective than a classically Christian perspective, and I don’t think that approach is the best way to honor my Particular Baptist forefathers.
Therefore, let us think deeply and historically about the issues we seek to tackle moving forward. I hope you will continue to join us as we seek to enter into the cultural conversation from a Reformed Baptist perspective, a perspective deeply rooted in historic, creedal, classical Christianity. I am hopeful about the future, and I hope you are as well. Soli Deo Gloria!
