FOLLY OF OPEN COMMUNION

By PROF. H. C. VEDDER, D.D., in The Watchman

(Baptist) Boston – January 24, 1898

What is distinctive in the faith and practice of Baptists may be stated in two words, "Believers' Baptism." All that is distinctive in our faith and practice is either expressed or implied in those two words. Of course, by "baptism" is meant the New Testament rite of immersion into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and by "believer" one who makes a credible profession of a faith by which he has been born anew of the Spirit of God. In the words believers' baptism so understood, is epitomized the history of our denomination. Those words, moreover, are the present justification of the existence of Baptists as a separate religious body. They are the sole justification.

Strict communion is the only way in which believers' baptism can be adequately asserted or successfully defended. Strict communion is not excluding any from the table of the Lord: it is simply declining to nullify believers' baptism by inviting to the Lord's table unbaptized believers. If it was worthwhile to fight and win the battle of scholarship for believers' baptism, it is surely worthwhile to keep what we have won. What folly it would be for us to throw away what our fathers gained at the cost of their good name, their fortunes, their lives!

Yet that is just the folly that open communion asks us to commit. Open communion logically implies open membership – how inconsistent it would be to exclude from membership in a church those welcomed to its most sacred privilege! To abandon strict communion, is to acknowledge that we have no valid reason of denominational existence. If believers' baptism is not worth this silent assertion of its importance, it is worth nothing. Open communion is a confession that a Baptist denomination is a blunder, an anachronism, an absurdity.

If any among us are ashamed of bearing the name Baptist, they are taking quite the right course in advocating open communion. There is no more effective method of insuring that the Baptist denomination and the Baptist name shall perish from the earth.

-- Published January 24, 1898 – The New York Times

(Editor's Note: Open Communion would invite drunkards, whoremongers, idolators and all manner of unbelievers which could come into your church and desecrate the Lord's Table.)