We're Going to Get What We Deserve

The Constitution of the United States starts with "We the people."  We live in a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, so whoever wins tomorrow in the presidential election will be by the people of the United States.  I wish I could report differently to you that the people of the United States abhor abortion and homosexuality and class warfare that they without doubt will not vote for President Barack Obama tomorrow, but I don't know.  I think Romney is going to win, but that I'm not sure indicates something very bad on its own.

Late in the campaign, Mother Jones's David Corn revealed a talk that Governor Mitt Romney gave to some donors in a fundraiser, covertly recorded on a cell phone, in which he said that 47% of Americans cannot be persuaded by his lower tax argument because they are not paying federal income tax.  His words were used by the major networks and Democrats to smear Romney as not caring about 47% of the people, as you know.  It wasn't a surprise that they demogogued the issues.  However, what Romney said, I believe, was true, and it is something I've been saying for awhile.  The nature of politics today is that you get into the most trouble when you say what you really think out loud and in public, like with Obama with his "you didn't build that" comment.  The Democrats begin every election with a coalition of special interests that almost guarantees a certain number of votes at least somewhat close to that 47%.  I think that it is possible in almost perfect conditions for an anti-abortion Republican to make that around 45% that Democrats are guaranteed.  I don't know that it could get any lower unless there was a very popular, liberal third party candidate that took some of the 45% away from the Democrat.

What am I talking about?

The Democrats by nature get the homosexual vote, which Gallup tells us is 3.6% of the country, but you also have the pro-homosexual vote, which includes Hollywood types that will make this their priority issue.  

The Democrats get 95% of the black vote (not because of race, because that can't be true, as you know).   Only 40% of blacks support homosexual marriage, when 65% of Democrats support it, but as Van Jones said during this election season, "if President Obama came out as gay, he wouldn't lose the black vote."  That will help you understand the litmus test there.

The Democrats get the traditional feminist vote, the ladies who demand equal pay with men, who basically hate men and want to become the power in this country.

The Democrats get the illegal immigration support vote, which includes at least 70% of Hispanics, many of which who are dedicated Catholics, who couldn't care less about the abortion issue next to easy and criminal access for Latin illegals.  You could call this, "Let's turn the United States into a country as bad as where we came from."  You wonder why people left their former country to come here?  Willingness to vote on that one issue should make it clear.

The Democrats get those who watch late night talk and comedians who only tell jokes on Republicans, so they feel social pressure to go with the crowd of people.  They don't want to be a joke.  Almost everyone knows this is true.  Kids get mocked and bullied in the public school and so most know how to dress and act like the crowd requires to fit in.  There are gangs of roving metrosexuals and their girl and boyfriends, who, like, love Obama.  He's so like kewl.

If you think that Mitt Romney can persuade these above voters, then please look at the evidence that shows that blacks and Hispanics are hurting exponentially worse from the policies of the present administration, but still voting for Obama.  What can he say if people won't even vote for self-interest?  The only way Romney might be able to do better with Hispanics is if he were Hispanic, spoke half the time in Spanish, and went to the left of Obama on immigration by giving amnesty to every illegal in the country.  Would that be worth it to you?   Here in California, Geraldo Cafe' (Jerry Brown), won the governorship based on the issue of an illegal immigrant maid, who was hired by Meg Whitman unwittingly.  She fired the lady because she lied on her application with a false social security number.  If she hadn't fired the woman, Whitman would have lost for hiring an illegal immigrant, but since she fired her, she lost because she was mean to a Hispanic.  Who can win in a situation stacked like that? 

And then President Obama gets the female contraceptive vote, the pro-abortion vote, the food stamp vote, the free college grant vote, the teacher union vote,  the union vote period, the government worker vote, and the pot smoker vote.  Most Jewish Americans can't be persuaded for Romney --- 78% voted for Obama in 2008.  President Obama gets the green vote (if that doesn't go to the Green Party).  He gets the atheist vote (remember the Democrat party booing God at its convention).  This is all in addition to the dedicated Democrat, who was born into a Democrat family and is completely loyal based on that tradition.  To him, Republicans represent a form of evil.

So when Romney said 47%, he knew what he was talking about.  In the very worst conditions for a President, which are about like what we have right now for President Obama, Romney still only has a shot at best to picking up maximum 53-55% of the popular vote.  Why do you think the Democrats want Obamacare?  It represents another coalition of people dependent on government, that will move it from 47% to over 50% to seal the deal for all time.  If Obama wins, look how he won it.  He won it because he gave other people's money to the auto worker unions in Ohio and Michigan, two swing states.  He had every other state because of his coalition of special interests, and where he couldn't get those, he created another special interest, people who would be paid off, bribed by stimulus money.  These are not the sharpest tools in the drawer by the way, these single issue, selfish people (here's a sample of the people that might be continuing to run [down] the country).   Part of their brains have been deadened awhile ago, so that with their dropping IQ, they see Joe Biden's rise.  That is no guarantee that General Motors or Chrysler will keep afloat.  You would think that they still need to be able to sell cars, you know, automobiles that people want to buy, like other manufacturers have to do in what we thought was a free market.  But for a little while, as long as someone will keep redistributing wealth, he can cobble together enough with a motivation of greed in order to keep in power.

Would any Republican or conservative have a chance with the kind of mistakes that Obama has made?  Every little misstep or even just exaggerated non-misstep of Romney is highlighted and put on a loop for a week by the major networks, who are a mouthpiece of the Obama campaign.  But Obama is picked up on a hot microphone telling the Russian president that he just needs to get through this election and he can do what he wants in giving the Russians the concessions they need on missile defense.  The Obama administration sends out the U. S. ambassador to the United Nations six days after Benghazi to tell the country that it was only a demonstration that got out of hand over a youtube documentary.  It doesn't matter that known rapist and impeached President Bill Clinton has helped "save" the Obama campaign.  If Paul Ryan made only one or two of the gaffes that Joe Biden makes every two or three days?

What we see happening is the country we live in.  It's the effects of 40-50 years of exclusively evolution being taught in our public schools.  It's the effects of an attack on the Bible in American secular universities and now even Christian ones.  It's the effects of turning the church into a social club and crazy church growth methodology, leading to churches full of unconverted members.  It's the effects of hours and hours of television watching.   It's the effects of easy divorce and premarital sex and single parent families, where kids are growing up without supervision.  It's the effects of the churches almost completely abdicating on cultural issues.  We should be thankful that by the grace of God it isn't worse than it is.  It seems like it should be.  And then we've got people like Matt Olson, the president at Northland, the Christian university in Wisconsin, coming out last week and saying that things are better than ever with the young Christians that he is seeing.  He says they're more solid than the older people, because they don't care about the cultural issues, which do more to get in the way of evangelism.

Whatever happens tomorrow, we're going to get what we deserve.  It could be the date that we  all look back at as when the inmates began truly running the asylum.  There's no wonder that gun sales are going up at a very rapid pace.

Comments on Luther’s 95 Theses

Since “Reformation Day,” October 31, a celebration of Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses, has just passed, I thought it would be appropriate to post the following brief study of the Theses.

Are Luther’s 95 Theses a presentation of classic Protestant theology?  Contrary to widespread public opinion, Luther’s 95 Theses have nothing to do with justification by faith alone—which is not supported, but rejected, in them.  Nor do they utter a word of protest against the Catholic Mass, the sacramental system, Mary worship, the Pope, or numerous other Roman Catholic heresies.  They certainly say nothing against baptismal regeneration, a heresy that Luther clave to his entire life.  They do not even condemn the practice of paying money to get Papal pardons—on the contrary, they anathematize those who deny Papal indulgences, and they support the existence of Purgatory.  The idea that Luther had been born again, and consequently condemned Roman Catholicism in the 95 Theses, is pure myth.

The only thing condemned by the 95 Theses is the abuse of indulgences—and even here, Luther put his Theses on the door of the Roman Catholic “church” in Latin, so that the common people could not understand what he wrote.  He only intended to debate in Latin certain abuses of indulgences with other faithful servants of Rome.  Indeed, many of Luther’s theses would be heartily endorsed by the Catholic counter-reformation.  I give a sample of his theses below, with brief comments.

3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.

Luther affirms that without Catholic mortifications of the body there is no repentance.

7. God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His vicar, the priest.

How Protestant is this?

17. With souls in purgatory it seems necessary that horror should grow less and love increase.

So, according to the 95 Theses, Purgatory exists, and souls there increase in love over time.

18. It seems unproved, either by reason or Scripture, that they are outside the state of merit, that is to say, of increasing love.

In Purgatory, souls are earning merit before God so that they can get into heaven.

25. The power which the pope has, in a general way, over purgatory, is just like the power which any bishop or curate has, in a special way, within his own diocese or parish.

The Pope has various powers over people in Purgatory.

29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be bought out of it, as in the legend of Sts. Severinus and Paschal.

Various Catholic legends have some authority in teaching us about who wants to get out of Purgatory and who does not.

30. No one is sure that his own contrition is sincere; much less that he has attained full remission.

Nobody can be certain of his own salvation.

56. The “treasures of the Church,” out of which the pope. grants indulgences, are not sufficiently named or known among the people of Christ.

These treasures through which the Pope grants indulgences should be better known.

58. Nor are they the merits of Christ and the Saints, for even without the pope, these always work grace for the inner man, and the cross, death, and hell for the outward man.

Both the merit of Jesus Christ and of dead Catholic “saints” are a means through which saving grace is received.  Note that salvation is by sanctification, rather than through justification by faith alone.

69. Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of apostolic pardons, with all reverence.

Bishops and curates are to have all reverence for pardons given by the Pope to people, and admit those who are carrying them to the territory of their bishoprics in the Catholic State-Church.

71. He who speaks against the truth of apostolic pardons, let him be anathema and accursed!

If you deny the ability of the Pope to grant indulgences, you will be eternally damned in hell.

73. The pope justly thunders against those who, by any art, contrive the injury of the traffic in pardons.

The Pope should thunder against those who deny, by any means, that one can purchase with money remission of various penalties.

91. If, therefore, pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of the pope, all these doubts would be readily resolved; nay, they would not exist.

Indulgences should be preached in accordance with the mind of the Pope—then all would be well.

Thesis 94

94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell;

Thesis 95

95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace.

Christians should be diligent to do good works and follow Christ in order to be saved, since by such means they enter into heaven, rather than by having assurance of salvation, for assurance of salvation is bad.

Are these 95 Theses really something to be excited about?

--TDR

Unbelieving Arguments That Don't Add Up

I'm getting ready to do several home improvement projects and to prepare I've been watching some how-to videos at youtube.   Some kind of system at youtube causes unrelated videos to show up in the sidebar, and one popped up with Christopher Hitchens, the famous atheist, answering a question in one of his debates.  Hitchens, who died this last year of cancer, was well read and very talented rhetorically, yet unconvincing.   Aristotle divided up persuasion into three aspects:  ethos (character), logos (reasoning), and pathos (emotion).  Hitchens utilized pathos very well.  He didn't bring anybody with him, just entertained those already with him and made everyone else mad.

Since I live near Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area, I talk to atheists at a more regular clip than most, and if I get any to talk to me (they normally won't), there are a couple of typical lines of thought they take.  One I had a couple of months ago.  He was angry at the truth of one plan of salvation.  He didn't like the idea that Jesus was our only salvation and everyone else was condemned to Hell.  I asked him if would also be angry if there was only one cure for a deadly disease.  Nope.  That froze him.  He couldn't work up the intensity over that.  However, that "argument" is a typical atheist argument.  Salvation through Jesus Christ can't be true, the Bible can't be true, because there is no way that God should condemn people if they won't believe in Him.  They're OK if "nature" condemns someone to death who won't take advantage of the one cure that's available.  They have a bias against the God of the Bible.  They start with rebellion as a default position.

Another popular Hitchen's screed I'd watched him give again and again with memorized talking points polished by multiple usages is one about the God of the Bible or Christianity taking away freedom and giving people only the one point of view.  He likened God to Big Brother, the point being, of course, that if you didn't like Big Brother, then you wouldn't or shouldn't like the God of the Bible or Christianity.  Again, it's not really an argument that Hitchens offers, just a well-worded complaint.  Complaining isn't an argument, except for liberals.  I bring you back to pathos again, which works well in the era in which we live.  Hitchens delivered his complaints with utter disdain of the God of the Bible and believers.

God is Who He is.  He's told us Who He is.  And He is God.  We've got to accept the One, the actual One, the only One we've got.  If you don't accept Him, it's not like you can go find another one you like better, when there's only one.   

Hitchens simply offered the only alternative to the God of the Bible, what you liked better.  Someone asked him what his purpose for life was, and I thought it was ironic, because it was in fact what Jesus said would be the purpose of any unbeliever, that being, eat, drink, and be merry, or in other words, no purpose.  Hitchens wanted to eat, drink, and be merry, and get away with it.  With the God of the Bible, he couldn't, so he just dismissed God.  He couldn't complain and mock God out of existence any more than anyone could Hitchens.

Atheists like Hitchens resign themselves to all sorts of inevitability:  death, pain, the common cold, headaches, gravity, sunburn, insect bites, dripping faucets, and traffic.  In other words, a lot about their lives doesn't go like they want it to go.   They choose to put up with a lot in order to keep living.  But they won't put with God if He's sovereign.  They won't be told what to do, even by their Creator.

Hitchens writes a book.  He's the owner.  Do you think he would put up with people using his creation for whatever or however they wanted?  Of course not.  He created it.  He wrote it.  It's his property.  He's Big Brother over whatever it is he made.  He's a bigger dictator over his own material than God is over what He made.  He wouldn't stand for not doing what he wanted with his own property.

Like I said, the unbelieving arguments don't add up  They aren't true and that's also why they don't work.  It's God's world.  He created us, and that's why even unbelievers act like Him, and then they complain when He acts like Him.  God is justified in how He acts and on most occasions unbelievers aren't justified in how they behave.  But they feel entitled to act as His judge.

We are God's.  That was an argument that Jesus made when He said 'render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.'  Caesar's image was on the Roman coin, so Caesar could require taxation.  God's image is on us, so He can require submission to Him.  We should assume that we're better off doing what He said.  And even if we don't assume that, it's still true.

Worship and the Ark Narrative of 1 Chronicles, pt. 4

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

The individual psyche of a post-exilic Israelite was wrapped up in national hope (real hopey-changey).  In addition to explaining again how they had gotten there, it provided a basis for confidence for the nation.   The God of the ark narrative (1 Chronicles 13-16) was the LORD (Jehovah), the covenant keeping God of Israel.  His mercy (lovingkindness, Old Testament love) endured forever.  God would deliver out of faithful love for His people.  We will see this point made in the psalm of 1 Chronicles 16.

The central figure of God's plan is David, featured as the main character of the genealogies (1-9), superseding Saul (10), and divinely enthroned via mighty men (11-12).   The Davidic covenant pointed to the eternal king, who would sit on David's throne, a buoy of hope to an Israelite treading water in a diminished new national era.  Recorded as David's first act is bringing the ark to Jerusalem, an attempt met by great failure.  Again in the final chapter (16), that defeat came from a wrong thinking about God, a necessary underpinning for the true and eternal worship God sought from men.

I believe an amazing statement is made by David in his fruit of repentance (15:2):  "None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him for ever."  Last part.  The Lord chose the Levites "to minister unto him for ever."  Forever.  You read that right.  If God chose the Levites to minister unto forever, that meant that (1) God wasn't through with Israel and (2) He wanted to be and would be worshiped for ever.  This worship in this period of Israel's national history was a cross section or microcosm (whichever way you might choose to look at it) of eternal worship.  The Levitical worship was a shadow of the eternal reality.  And, of course, Jesus makes us both kings and priests.  Perhaps we see here that worship in the eternal state might be an eternal reality reflected in the Levitical worship.  We know that a similar worship will occur in the millennial kingdom.  Whatever worship we're doing now even in our churches operates within a larger context of perpetual worship of God.  We're in a line of worshipers with God's purpose fulfilled in worship.

David went back to God's Word to remember what God had said.  Remembering, functioning based on inspired written record, is a primary message of the ark narrative.  The priests bore the ark on the staves "as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord" (15:15).  The LORD had chosen them to carry the ark of God.  David was God's choice as king.  Others were God's choice for other tasks.  Worship required different offices of men (the male gender) who met specific qualifications.

From 15:3 to 15:26, the Levites are listed who led this worship.   You cannot miss music here.   They carried the ark.  They played music.  Singers.  Instruments of music.  Psalteries.  Harps.  Cymbals of brass.  Trumpets.  Chenaniah "instructed about the song, because he was skilful" (15:22).   Someone could judge whether people were good or not.  For there to be skill, there must also be a lack of skill in some.  The unskilled were excluded.  I read that once or twice a year, W. A. Criswell, at First Baptist Church in Dallas, had a night where an hour or two of special music was sung by people who wanted a chance to sing a solo. That's how he dealt with that unique problem.  Churches have strayed widely from the point of music in worship.

The Levites had a process of sanctification they went through.  They had a means God ordained to set themselves apart for this task for God.  These worship tasks should not be seen as ordinary or mundane.  They are holy to God.  The worship of churches becomes more and more casual, more worldly, and purposefully so.  It's called contextualization.  Man has become the center of church worship instead of God.  We don't know who God is killing because of it, like Uzzah, but He isn't happy with it.

Sanctification related to proximity to God.  The ark not only represented God's presence, but His special presence was in fact there, like God's presence was in the burning bush with Moses. Moses had to take off his shoes, not because there were different elements in that ground, but because he was nearer the special presence to God.  The approach to God must be different, special, sacred.  To have something be sacred, something must be able to be sacred.  There must be something sacred.  We can know what the sacred is.  We've known it in the past, because we cared about the sacred.  Today churches are rushing to the common.

The worship of fundamentalism and evangelicalism has in large become common and profane, driven by man-centeredness.  Much of this relates to what is convenient to and comfortable for men.  Another idea is that it is evangelistic, and a perversion of the incarnation is placed upon it with a term, incarnational.  The church is becoming like the world like Jesus became man by taking on a human body.  This is a deep, dark, twisted deviation from God.  It's bad enough that they are doing it, but even worse that they think of a theological justification that attacks the incarnation of Christ.

The profanities of fundamentalism and evangelicalism are different.  Fundamentalism has often taken to the kitsch, the carnival and merry-go-round, Western bumpkin every man.  The idea has perhaps been accessibility to a certain segment of people, who are entertained by a toe-tappin' hoe-down, and somehow equivocate that with some spiritual happening or revivalist tradition.  Evangelicalism just sent the worship form and method to the non-essential and almost anything goes.  They will use the most vile and profane with almost nothing barred from acceptability.  These are violations of sanctity.  The sacred is lost and God is not worshiped, despite what the intentions might be.

(more to come)

Were the Reformers Heretics? part 5

Please note that the entire series entitled "Were the Reformers Heretics"? can now be viewed by clicking here as one complete essay.

The post below originally went from the sentence "Reformed confessional statements continued to link the sacrament of baptism and the forgiveness of sin in the manner of John Calvin" to the sentence: "Those who grow up in Reformed families ... salvation was sealed to them in baptism."

Worship and the Ark Narrative in 1 Chronicles, pt. 3

Despite wonderful intentions and likely a very good heart, David had been wrong on the outward appearance, the actual doing of the worship with the ark in 1 Chronicles 13 (part one).  He could have concluded that God was done with him, but God communicated that He wasn't finished through various means in 1 Chronicles 14 (part two).  These are the first two chapters of the ark narrative in 1 Chronicles, which sits at a pivotal place in the book, so as to emphasize worship of God.  And what is the emphasis in this emphasis on worship?

The emphasis isn't the spirit of the worship, although that is likely why David's good intentions did matter in that certain way.  If he didn't care, he could have been a replay of Nadab and Abihu.  David put a lot of oomph into his worship effort with the musicians and the rest of the display of ceremonial grandeur.  He's not going to stop that.  However, the emphasis is on what is that people are doing, what they are actually giving God.

We live in an era in which people deny objective beauty.  This smacks in the face of Christian history.  It also defies logic and natural law.  If there is no beauty, then there is no ugliness, and then it doesn't really matter what we serve up to God, except that we like it.  In the modern and postmodern anthropocentric world view, beauty is a matter of personal taste.  It was never thought that way by Christians until those of this age.  It wasn't even how people thought in Western Civilization until the Enlightenment.  What this does for church growth is attract unbelievers, because they are totally into personal taste.  The church relates with the world more than ever.  Much more to say here, but let us move on within the ark narrative itself.

One sort of odd point in chapter 15 is the first verse, and only the first half, which takes a brief detour to David making him houses.  Houses, plural.  Whaaat?  Likely this emphasizes the polygamy of David and the distraction that way.  I believe it is a mini shot at David and a small reminder of something that threw him off his game.  There is a contradistinction with David's "houses" and God's tent.  David would lose out on opportunity to please God with his self-gratification.  Narcissism does that kind of thing.  Let that be a lesson.  Our own agenda can be a distraction from the necessary time required not to skip things like priests carrying the ark on poles.  Putting that aside then, we move on to the subject at hand, the ark moving to Jerusalem.

We see David adjusting his initial approach, this time paying attention to what God had said about worship.  He prepared a place to put the ark, a tent.  Later would come the Solomonic temple, but for now, it was the same house as had served during the trek through the wilderness.  That had worked because it was Scriptural.  David wanted something more extravagant, but he would never have that opportunity.

In v. 2, we see David get back on the right track by taking care of some of the detail he had missed the first time as non-essential.  The Lord chose only certain people to do certain things.  For instance, He hasn't chosen certain people to pastor churches, as seen in 1 Timothy 3.  People are disqualified, including all women.  Protesting that doesn't help men or women.

And then we see that part of the worship was gathering.  A lot is put into that in chapter 15, listing various peoples and groups that were part of the assembly.  Corporate worship requires getting together.  People have to deem God worth it.  Today we're seeing less gatherings, more emphasis on convenience.  Some will say that they don't think they need to assemble to worship God.  When worship is actually gathering, not gathering eliminates the worship, no matter what the intentions might be while someone sits at home maybe watching Charles Stanley or listening to Chuck Swindoll.

(to be continued)

Worship and the Ark Narrative in 1 Chronicles, pt. 2

As we read Scripture, we not only look to find out what the words say, but what the balance of them says.  You really do want to emphasize what you see the Bible emphasize, because God is emphasizing it.  As I mentioned in part one, you get the genealogy of David, the fall of Saul, the enthronement of David, the explanation of David's rise, and the action of David in his kingship is a worship act, as represented by the ark narrative.   Based on the flow of 1 Chronicles, you can see that the ark and worship is the emphasis.  It is given the position and space, as if everything up to that point was leading to the ark story.  The reign in Israel is about worship.  God is seeking for true worshipers.

We left off with chapter 13.  The vuvuzelas take a melancholy aimless slide to a few helpless bursts of exhalation and then silence.  The long, quiet march home, vacant stares, incredulous head wags, looking like refugees seeking asylum.  Chins dragging on the ground.  The approach is rejected.  God is distant.  And there is no plan B.

David is now at a very productive square one.  Introspection.  Sent back to the sacred writings he should have pored over in the first place.  This wasn't for him.  It was for God, and no amount of sincerity can replace truth.  God desires what He does, and He is God, not us.  Worship recognizes who He is and gives Him what He wants.

How bad are we?  How horrible have we been?  Will we not hear the voice of God again?  Is God through with us?  Do we never again enter His presence?  Are we destined to never ending emptiness?  We deserve punishment.  We shouldn't just assume God's fellowship.  He is righteous.  He is holy.  There is none like Him.  And who are we?

The scent of cedars accompanies God's make-up message.  From a delivery of lumber and the arrival of masons and carpenters, David perceives the confirmation of the Lord.  Sweet confirmation from God.

The Philistines align themselves for invasion, David inquires of the Lord, and God answers.  He did as God commanded, Israel smites the enemy, and fear falls upon all the nations.  By the grace of God, he's ready to move the ark again.  God seeks for true worshipers.

Were the Reformers Heretics? part 4

Please note that the entire series entitled "Were the Reformers Heretics"? can now be viewed by clicking here as one complete essay.

The post below originally went from the sentence "Ulrich Zwingli was closer to the Anabaptist position that baptism ..." to the sentence: "Reformed theology after his death continued to feel his influence, but generally was closer to the sacramental baptismal theology of Calvin ..."