Dean Taylor Responds to Critics About “Simple Interpretation” - Dean Taylor

And again, want to re-refer back to some previous episodes you've done with us. This is ac these are actually from episode 1, I'm going to say, of Anabaptist Perspectives, way back when I interviewed you the very first time. Can I say that back then? So, so you were talking about the, the essence of Anabaptism in that simple reading of Scripture. And they brought we had different people point out some things on the sacraments that'd be fun to read. So this is one person, and I'd love to hear your reactions to both these comments, reading both. So they're writing YouTube comments. So, quote, "Anabaptists, we believe in the Word of God without a complicated interpretation. In other words, we take the Word of God at face value."

And then there's like a couple spaces: 1 Peter 3:21, "Baptism now saves you." And then another space, Ephesians 4:5, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." And then this person ends with the line, "Also Anabaptists, baptism doesn't do anything, let's just rebaptize you." Ow, okay. So, so that's I'm not sure who that person was. I couldn't figure out who there was. And then another person left a very similar comment, actually, and just said this, quote, "Anabaptists, we just take Scripture at face value. 1 Peter 3:21, 'Baptism now saves you.'" And then the Anabaptists respond by saying, "No, not that one."

Not that one, yeah. So, you know, so that again, that's some of the critique that comes out with these kinds of conversations. It's like, well, it says it right there. And I'm assuming these are maybe someone who's Roman Catholic or something saying, you know, "Hey, one baptism." You know, "The baptism saves you. Why are you guys rebaptizing everybody?" It's a very fair criticism. And I think it's why I think why I think it's important to embrace, in my argument, to embrace an actual tradition is because it helps us to humbly look at a subject where we've said something, overstated some things, we've said some things well, we've said some things poorly. It's also helped us to see how we've been influenced by different movements.

You know, if you look at the, you know, obviously the guys from the very beginning of the 16th century were fighting against very, you know, brutal views of transubstantiation. Later on, a generation later, you're talking about the rise of Calvinism, and they're debating with that. It wasn't until they started fighting against the spiritualists that you see some of these deeper things of communion, things coming out. When you come into America, you have a lot was going on through the revivalism of the Methodist and some of those things, and you have reactions to that. Then you get to the 1920s, and you have fundamentalism. And a lot of us, what we're even having today, which I personally think go ahead and brand me a heretic, but I personally think there were many things that we got good from the fundamentalists.

There was a low view of Scriptures, which I think was hurting us. The fundamentalists helped us with that. But with the other things, it brought us into a lot of problems, too, of either how we define things or how we're reacting to fundamentalism. And so I think that many of, you know, Harold S. Bender and many of the key people who put our words into writings during the 1950s were writing right at the edge of that fundamentalism coming in in Goshen University and all that kind of a thing. And so, yes, I think that a lot of these comments are fair.

And so this is why I didn't call it the Anabaptist view of sacraments. I wanted to call it Anabaptist and the sacraments, so that we can engage in this. I do think if you look at all of the Anabaptist movements, including bringing in the German Baptists and the different early writers, the Hubmeyers and the Marpecs, it gives a more developed picture. And then even with that, again, I want to argue, I don't think this should isolate us from gaining information from other people who've written on the sacraments and what we can gain. I listen very carefully to what people are saying in their arguments on the real presence and transubstantiation, these kind of things. And I think I'm very I'm blessed by the reading.

I disagree, and I disagree where that leads to. But at the end of the day, yes, he's right. Many of us have said this and have gone off into extreme or one thing to the other. Again, I'm part of what would be kind of like a kingdom of people who really love ordinances and sacraments and stuff like that. And I'm cringed sometimes at the way I see these topics presented from very shallow, superficial understanding on the other side. And they talk about the sacraments and the real presence, and they have no idea what they're talking about as far as what they were arguing in the 16th century. It's just completely off.

So all that to say, amen. I take the criticism, and I embrace, you know, some things that have been said abusive or wrong both ways. Yeah.