PART ONE     PART TWO

Tucker Interview

After already publishing parts one and two in this series, Tucker Carlson teased an interview with Douglas Wilson.  This is a boon for he and his brand.  Immediately Wilson wrote a post to welcome the Tucker audience with links to his numerous ventures.  This gives even greater importance to exposure of Wilson.  The content of the Tucker trailer also dovetails closely with this series, because Wilson mentions the gospel.

Wilson surprised me with his representation of Christian nationalism (another still ongoing series here, here, and here).  It differed from his norm (see my part three).  He gave no hope for Christian nationalism in the United States, except through gospel preaching.  In many expositions of Christian nationalism, I don’t remember his saying that.  Maybe I missed it.  Postmillennialists and theonomist-types like Wilson, who envision their bringing in a physical kingdom on earth, don’t usually convey utter hopelessness remedied only by hot gospel preaching.

Perhaps the whole interview (presently behind the Tucker paywall) will reveal more.  Wilson sounded good about the gospel, but he left out infant sprinkling and child communion, something he mixes with the gospel.  Shouldn’t he urge Tucker’s audience also to sprinkle its infants?  It’s important in his vision of Christian nationalism.

Roman Catholicism

Not Sola Scriptura

Roman Catholicism passed down infant sprinkling among many other scriptural perversions.  It condemned maybe as many people to Hell as any false doctrine.  Protestants continued in a system of false interpretation and doctrine, albeit better than Roman Catholicism, yet still misleading.

Protestants point to the Latin, sola scriptura, scripture alone, as their heritage.  Yet, tradition still guides much of Protestantism.  Infant baptism isn’t scripture alone and this challenges the Protestant embrace of sola scriptura.  Keeping significant aspects of Roman Catholicism, Protestants also point back to the Catholic fathers as theirs too.  Wilson has pieced together a patchwork of belief and practice that required the beginning of a new denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).  Jesse Nigro in The North American Anglican writes in his analysis of Wilson:

[H]is trajectory has led him into the broader pool of “Reformed Catholicism” that Anglicans occupy.

Catholic Church

Nigro was praising Wilson.  Protestants fork off the Roman Catholic line or trajectory, not in the succession of New Testament Christianity or true churches, separate from the state church, since Christ.  Roman Catholicism and its stepchild Protestantism resembles little the belief and practice of the church of the New Testament.  Scott Aniol writes in his review of Wilson’s book, Mere Christendom::

I am aware that Wilson’s church recognizes Roman Catholic baptisms and welcomes them to the Lord’s Table, but this Baptist considers Roman Catholicism a false religion.

In his book, Reformed Is Not Enough, Wilson wrote (pp. 73-74):

The visible church is also Catholic in an earthly sense, meaning that it is no longer confined to one nation, as it was before under the law.  The visible Church is composed of anyone in the world who professes (biblically) to believe in the Christian faith.  When they make this profession by means of baptism their children are attached with them.  The visible church is to be understood as the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Church is the household of God, and outside of this Church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

Baptism and Salvation

Later in his section on sacerdotalism, he writes:

Baptism and salvation are not mechanically or magically linked.  But in the ordinary course of life, they are linked, and we are to speak of them as though they are.

Furthermore, Wilson writes (p. 111):

By means of baptism, baptism with water, grace and salvation are conferred on the elect.

Paedocommunion

Wilson and Child Communion

In addition to the heretical practice of infant sprinkling, Wilson endorses and practices child communion, inviting the toddlers to the bread and the cup.  Wilson writes:

At the very center of the strong family emphasis that you will find in our churches, you will also find our practice of communing our children at the Lord’s Table. This is unusual in Protestant churches, and in some places it is even controversial. . . .  [I]n our churches, the Lord’s Table is not protected with a profession of faith; the Lord’s Table is regarded as a profession of faith.

What do Wilson and others imply by children partaking of the Lord’s Supper?  They can partake worthily because they have repented, believed, and received forgiveness of sins.  Children who cannot believe, do not have the capacity to do so, are said to make a profession of faith through the Lord’s Table.  However, the Lord’s Table is a table of examination.  A man examines himself and then eats the bread and drinks the cup.

The Wickedness of Child Communion

1 Corinthians 11:27-28 say:

27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.  28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.

So much contradicts clear scripture and biblical teaching with participation of children in the Lord’s Table.  Wilson argues that paedocommunion follows paedobaptism, when he writes:

[T]he apostle Paul compares the entire congregation to one loaf of bread (1 Cor. 10:17). And it is our conviction that all who are bread should get bread.

This is a typical turn-of-phrase or rhetorical flourish intended to persuade in some doctrinal or practical position.  Wilson sounds interesting, but he’s false.  His teaching confuses the gospel.  It brings God’s judgment down on unworthy partakers of the table.  Finally, it corrupts the true nature of the church.  One can truly say that paedocommunion is false worship.  It is not an act of faith in God, but man-ordained, human innovation.

More to Come