Truth Unites - How Did "Low Church" Get Uncool?

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Gavin Ortlund discusses a growing tension between low church and high church expressions of Protestantism, especially the trend to be more critical of Baptist, non-denominational, and evangelical churches. Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Have you noticed that low church traditions seem to be getting more uncool these days, more than usual? I'm really curious if I'm the only one who notices this, or if others have put in the comments if you sense this, basically a kind of becoming trendy to look down on Baptists, non-denominational Christians, other expressions of low church evangelicalism. It seems like actually there's a growing tension within Protestant circles between the high church traditions that have more of an emphasis upon tradition and liturgy like Anglicanism, Episcopalianism, Lutheranism, some forms of Methodism and Presbyterianism versus the low church

expressions. Now, I'm not talking about disagreement or concern. I'm talking about an attitude towards low churchism, let's call it that, that goes beyond disagreement into kind of contempt and disdain as though these Christians were sort of, I don't know, this odious, disgusting thing, I mean, I'm putting it a little strong, but, you know, this kind of vibe against them, like they're this unsophisticated, ignorant, kind of not good for much kind of thing. Now, the same thing happens in the other direction. The low church traditions often look at the high church traditions with more than just mere disagreement, but with a kind of contempt.

Usually here, it'll be more like they're hypocrites, their Pharisees, their formalists, they're stuck in their traditions, they're relying upon outward ceremonies, and they don't have an inner heart to what they're doing and so on and so forth. But I think the condescension in this direction toward the low church traditions is having a moment right now. And again, I'm curious if that's just anecdotal to me or if other people see that. Let me know. But I think the body of Christ is stronger when we give arguments for our views without the contempt. So you, you know, crank up the logic and argumentation, make all your arguments appeal to the church fathers, do everything like that, but reduce the contempt. And therefore, I want to speak to.

this. Let me start with an observation from John Newton. He said self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines as well as works. I think about that quote a lot. I think it's so true, and I think it's true for church traditions as well. I think it's possible to feel self-righteous about which Christian tradition we belong to. So if you remember the Pharisee and Luke 18 who praise God, I thank you that I'm not like those other people. I fast and I tithe and I do these various things. See a contemporary analog to that. We can say, God, God, I thank you that I'm not like those odious, non-denominational Christians. I worship with traditional liturgy, beautiful architecture, clerical vestments,

high view of the sacraments, et cetera, et cetera. Again, it can go in the other direction. People can be kind of contemptuous of those who do have those things. But how do we know when we're following into this? I think the key, we know when we're having self-righteousness about our distinctives when we have contempt for other people. And the reason I say that is because of how Jesus is. introduces this parable for those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated

others with contempt. You can see on the screen there would have underlined and put emboldened. Contempt often reveals self-righteousness. How you treat other people reveals what kind of gospel you're functionally working with. The horizontal reveals the vertical, the social reveals the theological, etc. It's a fascinating thing to think about. And we always want to test our hearts with this. So while we're stating our disagreements, whenever we get into contempt, we want to just be open to asking the Lord to help us repent and go back to Christ alone for our justification. Now, in light of all this, what I want to do in this video is share a particular way that I see low church traditions being criticized where I think it leads to the contempt. I think it's an unfair

way of appraising this whole sector of Christianity, which actually right now is doing a lot of good for the kingdom of God, by the way. I'll say more about that at the end. Now, there's a lot of valid criticisms of it as well. Let me, if it helps it all, as a baptistic person, I don't fit in very well among Baptists. No one attacks me more than Baptists. And because I'm, you know, a lot of Baptists are very sectarian, and I'm a little, I would say I'm sort of moderately ecumenical. And I just don't fit in well culturally among some Baptists. I've very, I love church history and Latin and, you know, not exactly the things you think of with Baptists. So, so I get a lot of the concerns. We look, again, I'm not saying we shouldn't offer criticisms. I have criticisms of the low church traditions,

but there's some unfair ones that lead to the contempt. Let me identify one here, trying to identify this sector of Christendom a little bit. And that is, when we criticize, let's put it like this, we appraise a tradition by what is most visible rather than its official or best expressions. We just look at the surface anecdotally of what is, what shines out, what is most apparent rather than going to the official or best articulations and expressions of this tradition. Let me explain this by two metaphors. Metaphor number one. Suppose you grow up in Minnesota. I grew up vacationing in Minnesota. I like Minnesota. It's a cool place. Really interesting and unique place. So you grow up in Minnesota and you know a lot of liberal Lutheran

churches. In fact, let's just say that you only meet Lutherans who are liberal, as sometimes happens in places like that. And so you just think Lutherans are liberal, because that's what you can see. Now, that's a somewhat understandable error, because it's based in a real experience, albeit a limited one. But if somebody tells you about official Lutheran doctrine and other expressions of Lutheran Christianity that are more conservative, you should be willing to revise your understanding from that anecdotal picture to get the fuller picture. And if you're unwilling to do that, it could be a form of prejudice. Second example, suppose you grow up in Brazil and your experience of Roman Catholicism is that it is very nominal. In fact, so much so that you don't know any devout Roman Catholics,

and you don't know that they really exist. You just think Roman Catholics are nominal, because that's been your observation. That's been your experience in the particular village you live in. Now, that's a somewhat understandable error because it's based upon a real experience, albeit a limited one, but if somebody comes along and says, hey, that's not the full picture, there's a little more to the story here, and so on and so forth, you should be willing to revise your understanding. Okay, that's the kind of thing I want to say about Baptists and low church Christians. Baptists are the most common kind of Protestant in the United States. And so what a casual observer just picks up anecdotally about Baptists in the United States in the 21st century can have similar dynamics to what a casual observer of Lutheranism in Minnesota or Roman Catholicism in Brazil. Not trying to pick on those two, you could do this anywhere.

You could go to Eastern Orthodox somewhere in Eastern Europe. You can go to any tradition and do this. Whenever something is very visible, it's easy to just look at, oh, there it is, and now you think you've got the whole thing. But unfortunately, sometimes people seem like they're unwilling to revise their sort of anecdotal experience and observation of Baptists and other low church expressions of Christianity by just incorporating the fuller picture. And so we end up treating Baptists kind of like the person who says

liberals are Lutherans are liberal, Catholics are nominal. Let me give an example, Baptist view of the sacraments. The street level practice you can observe is Baptist believe that the sacraments are just symbols. And they're not very sacred and they're not really emphasized. And they're just purely a symbol. They're basically something we do to, like when you get baptized, you get baptized to show your faith. That's basically what's happening. Well, that may be anecdotally

visible, but that is not historic Baptist theology. And I've done a whole video arguing that real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the historic Baptist view of the Lord's Supper. You can see the thumbnail. You can check that video out if you want here. Let me talk about baptism. Because the way that a Baptist view of baptism is often framed is this. There's, on the one hand, baptismal regeneration, and then on the other hand, the idea that Baptist is just a symbol. So you have two options, as you can see on the screen. And basically, on the one side, the baptism of regeneration view is held to be, so here it's like baptism isn't just a symbol, baptism actually saves, and we're told this is explicit in the New Testament. It's unanimous in the

Church Fathers, and it's what almost all Christians believe until this recent aberration. And on the other side, you have the just-a-symbol view of baptism, which is obviously framed as kind of the cheaper alternative between these two options. Now, the way I would want to push back against this as a way of framing things that leads to a little bit of the contempt and doesn't help us appraise each other at our best is that the framing here is really just giving two options. But as soon as you ask the question, well, how does baptism save? Like, what does that mean? Like, does it happen right when you get baptized? You start to uncover a little bit of complexity, and you see there's actually in multiple views of baptismal efficacy, between, actually within those camps, but then also between

the gistice symbol view on the one hand and baptismal regeneration on the other. Let me put up just another way you could frame it. This is how Francis Turrinton basically puts it. He's a reformed scholastic theologian, and he has basically three options. He uses the phrase sign and seal for his own reformed view, and he distinguishes that from the Sosinian view on the one side, where you have the sacraments as external badges of profession, and on the other side, the Lutheran and Roman Catholic views, which he calls sacraments as vehicles and vessels containing grace and physical means or real and instrumental causes. Now, Turriton's threefold schema there is, of course, not the only way you could frame this. Okay, this is just one other option, but it starts to make

visible a little bit of what we actually have to get into in this debate, that there's more than just these two options, baptism or regeneration and just a symbol. And unfortunately, it's framed like that so much if you follow these discussions online. People try to make you choose between these two views and also the complexities within those views are not necessarily unpacked very much. So if you want to recognize that this is more complicated, all you have to do is just start asking about concrete examples. The Cornelius is of the world. Okay, in Acts chapter 10, Cornelius is speaking in tongues. the Holy Spirit, so Peter says, hey, why shouldn't he get baptized? People, this happens a lot. This is my just general observation as a minister. People get the Holy Spirit and are clearly

manifesting regeneration prior temporarily to their baptism. They're speaking in tongues before the baptism, like Cornelius. And then if you just ask about that, you know, you just say, well, how do you explain that? You will get different explanations and different accounts from those who are affirming baptism of regeneration, which is why we actually need to get into this a little bit more and kind of work through this. We have to ask how baptism saves. Here is how Turriton puts it. The question here is not, are the sacraments efficacious? For this is granted on both sides. But how do they exert their efficacy as physical causes which confer and affect grace by which an implanted and inborn power, this they maintain, or as moral causes at whose presence God operates,

this we favor. He then identifies another point of distinction between the external act of the sacrament working ex operato by the work having been done, or you can gloss that a little bit differently, versus the Holy Spirit's attending the external sign, and then he boils it down to the question of whether the sacraments of the New Testament are the true, proper, and immediate causes of justification, which, by an efficacy inherent in the signs themselves, affect and confer holiness and righteousness upon all receiving the sole external action of a sacrament. Now, you can just say Turton is completely wrong in everything he just said. You can say these distinctions and all these, like the word moral that he just used.

You can say all of that is just completely confused, erroneous, whatever. but that would be the argument to make, not just baptism or regeneration, just a symbol, take your pick. And the reason is, what Turriton is unfolding there in terms of a reformed account of baptismal efficacy, how baptism saves, is broadly followed by the historic Baptists. The Baptists are an extension of the reformed tradition, and Turriton's view is similar to what you find. Historically, Baptists spoke of baptism as an effective sign. by which language they were rejecting the idea that it's just a symbol. And historically Baptists spoke of baptism as a sacrament, a means of grace, the meeting place of grace and faith, the objectification of faith and repentance,

a sealing of regeneration, often associated with assurance of salvation, and a further endowment of the spirit. You can gather something of this in the Baptist theologian Henry Lawrence's treatment, and the way he distinguishes word and sacrament here, the word especially teacheth, the sacraments especially seal and confirm. The word indeed signifies and applies spiritual things, but the sacraments more efficaciously represent and apply. So here you've got both word and sacrament, both giving grace, both means of grace. Baptism is not just a symbol, and in fact it is sealing and confirming what the word has done. Now, someone might say, well, sealing and confirming, that's not a

big deal. That's not that much. That's just, you know, but the thing is, this is the same kind of language that the Lutheran scholastic theologians will use to describe what they regard as the exceptional cases, which almost all proponents of baptismal regeneration can affirm, namely where God regenerates a person prior to their baptism. Here's the great Lutheran theologian Johann Gerhard. When, therefore, they are baptized who have already been regenerated through the word as a spiritual seed, they have no need of regeneration through baptism, but in them, baptism is a confirmation and sealing of regeneration. Sounds a lot like what Lawrence just said, and other Lutherans will have a similar conception. I don't think that's an eccentricity in Gearhart. Francis Peeper has a similar

idea that regeneration can happen prior to baptism, and when that is the case, baptism then is the confirmation and sealing of regeneration. That's very similar to a Baptist view. Thomas Aquinas actually has a similar approach for, he frames it all differently in the Summa Theologica, but he also allows for regeneration prior to your baptism by water, and he frames that in terms of a baptism of desire. So Henry Lawrence, there's just one example of, you know, dozens and dozens of historic Baptists on this point. You could look through Stan Fowler's book, More Than a Symbol, the British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism. A lot of people are just ignorant of this whole tradition of Baptist thought.

And so I would just, you know, encourage us, this is a way, just like if you want to be fair to Lutherans, you need to say, well, hey, I may have seen a lot of liberal Lutherans, but there's a lot more out there. Or fair to Catholics or whatever, you might want to say, hey, I can't just go by what I saw in my little community over here. I've got to look at the full picture. Historically and globally, let's do the same with Baptists and other low church expressions of Protestant Christianity, so we can frame this better and basically just be more fair. Final point. Why might someone believe this whole idea that baptism, let's say we go with Turriton's threefold conceptual framework. Okay, baptismal regeneration, it's the cause.

The putting on of the water in the name of the Trinity causes that which it signifies. You got that over here. On the other hand, you got, it's just a symbol, just a bare memorial. And then in the middle, you've got his language of sign and seal. It is efficacious unto salvation, but not as cause. Okay, why might someone think go at that middle category? Well, if you want to see a full case for this, I've done a lot of videos on this as well as some dialogues, one with Jordan Cooper, one with Trent Horn.

Those might be of interest. Or if you just want to get a more succinct argument, I think I did a video in March 2022 on this. You could look up. But let me just put up a summary, just flagging some of the points. Number one, continuity with prior revelation. okay this understanding of sacramental efficacy is very similar to what we see with circumcision circumcision does not cause the person to have a circumcised heart physical circumcision does not cause that

but neither is it just a symbol that's one thing i talk about in those videos number two the book of acts whenever you see baptism in a concrete actual occurrence it never causes salvage nowhere. I've mentioned Cornelius already, but you can go through every other example, including Paul. It's when Ananias lays on his hands on him, the spirit descends. He receives his sight, Acts 9, 17 to 18. Then he rises up and is subsequently baptized. Okay, that's not an instrumental means of salvation. I need to say this, because of how much condescension comes against us, we're trying to read the book of Acts, and every single time baptism occurs. It never is evident as a cause of regeneration. Number three, so also after the Book of Acts in life today. I just meet Cornelius

after Cornelius after Cornelius after Cornelius. They are speaking in tongues and worshiping Jesus and giving every fruit of regeneration prior to their baptism while they're still in the catechetical process. So I'm going to treat them as regenerate because that's what I think they are. Number four is just the question of what a sacrament is. A sacrament is a representative, symbolic public act. It's not just a sign, but it is a signifying event. And so you have to ask the question of, what's the relationship between the sign and the thing signified? And I've used the word metonymy, which means part for the whole. People get a little lost on this. It's pretty simple, really. It's just like if I say the blood of Jesus saves, the word blood does not mean blood

versus the flesh. It means blood is representative of the larger complex of events. we associate with Jesus' death on the cross. Similarly, when we say baptism saves, we don't mean baptism as distinct from the prior conversion. We just mean as the public representation of this. Because it's a public expression of salvation, it's totally sensible that baptism would function like that. And I've given metaphors, graduation ceremony.

Okay, you can say, I graduated on May 4th because that's when you walked across the stage and got handed your diploma. That's the visible public expression. But technically, for job application purposes, you already did graduate when you finished the coursework. Or the coronation service of a monarch. You can say, you know, a new king or queen will be formally and publicly recognized as the new monarch.

Typically, the crown is placed upon their head. There are oaths. There's anointing with oil. There's formal clothing, solemn declarations, all this ritual that is the public formal expression of it, but technically it doesn't cause them to be the monarch. Technically, they already were the monarch earlier than that. And I've talked about these. But you can still say I graduated on May 13th, or you can still say during the formal act of the coronation service, we recognize so-and-so as the new king and so on and so forth. The fifth argument I've given is that faith also saves. And so you have

two causes with one effect, faith and baptism. They both save. But faith and baptism. But faith and baptism don't happen at the same time for the vast majority of people. So right there, you're into it, and you've got to say, okay, wait a second, if my next door neighbor becomes a Christian on Wednesday and gets baptized on Sunday, and he's not regenerated until baptism, if that's the cause, then now I've got to find a way to interpret the language of faith being salvific for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And so that right there, again, this isn't that complicated. And I have a lot more say about the biblical language about saving water and how complicated that is. It's not just baptism. The baptism participates in that imagery, and that's from the Old Testament, from books like

Ezekiel and so on and so forth. So I go into all that in those videos. All I'm trying to say right now is there's a little more rigor to that theology than is often recognized, and it would be good if people would engage that more. And if you criticize it, criticize its best expressions, and don't just lob grenades at the just a symbol view. Because, as I said, I mentioned at the end, it is the low church expressions of Christianity that are really growing the most right now. In fact, they're the only ones that aren't shrinking, frankly.

So that's something where we need to, you know, a way we can put it like this is, can we all learn from each other? Look, the low church expressions of Christianity, like I'm a Baptist. I'm basically a Reformed Baptist. But I got to recognize as, I mean, even the connotations of the phrase, Reformed Baptist have some real downsides. I've got to acknowledge that. So we who are in that tribe

need, we've got a lot of learning to do. We've got a lot of reforming to do. We've got a lot of work to do. But I think the body of Christ is best served if there's humility in both directions. Because actually, Baptists do some things really well. One of them is evangelism. So if you can, even if you just say, okay, here's my criticism of Baptists, but boy, there's one thing they do really well. Demons are being cast out. Marriages are being healed and the lost are coming to no Christ because of these wonderful Baptist churches. All are throughout the global South, for example, Pentecostal churches. We've got to be able to appreciate the good. And if there's humility, not contempt, we can learn from each other even while we disagree. Hopefully, this, that appeal

comes across in the spirit in which I intended. All right, let me know what you think about this. Is this worth talking about more? I feel this. Honestly, I do a lot of work defending Protestant But I've sort of gotten to a point four or five years in now where I actually feel like I've done a lot of the things I would want to do there. I'm actually seeing a tension within Protestantism that I think we need to maybe give this a little more focus to say, how do we work at these tensions within ourselves, especially the low church versus high church tension? Feels like that's an area we can work at and just give some reflection to. Both sides, both sides have a lot to learn from each other, in my opinion. So I think that's something worth thinking about. I'm curious what you think. All right, thanks for watching everybody.

we'll see you in the next one.