It's Only Symbolic or It's Symbolic!

On the one hand, Southern Baptist leader say that water Baptism is a symbolic action of what has occurred in the life of the believer but that if any believer is not properly Baptized by immersion, or not baptized by a church that believes in the security of the believer then he or she shouldn’t serve in the SBC. Certainly, what has occurred in the life of the believer is still the same but the symbolism isn’t there. So you have to go back and make sure the symbolism is accurate just as it was in the New Testament or who cares what the reality is.

On the other hand, Southern Baptist leaders also say that the Lord’s Supper is symbolic but it is symbolic in such that we really don’t have to do it in the way that it was done in the New Testament with other non-Baptist believers, with actual wine, or with believers outside of a local church setting. Because, yes, the Lord’s Supper is the Lords and, yes, it is represented as the whole body of Christ throughout history and not simply the local congregation, and, yes, the proper NT mode of drinking the “blood” is wine but its all just symbolism really and as long as the reality of the event is okay then it doesn’t really matter if how we do it is 100% correct because Southern Baptist churches have always done it this way and we don’t really need do it the way the NT did because we need to be more tolerant and gracious concerning the established traditions of the local Southern Baptist Churches which means that any individual believer who believes or practices a different form of communion other than that of the local Southern Baptist Church should be prevented from serving in the SBC because we really do not need that sort of thing here upsetting our way of doing things by practicing the NT form of communion and making all the other SBC members look bad by comparison by taking the mode of communion as practiced in the NT seriously while everyone else is doing it wrongly and though the person who is doing it differently is not forcing other believers to bend to his or her will, the very fact that he is not following the established way and not conforming to what we do is an effrontery that cannot be overlooked lest more people begin to follow the NT teaching on this matter.