I am convinced that the ordinances of Christ ought to take place in Christ’s church, and not simply in private or outside of the gathering of God’s people under the authority given to them by Christ. For Baptists and baptistic free churches, this means they take place particularly in the context and under the authority of the local church. This is because the ordinances are part of what Jesus means when he tells Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. 16:19).”

Binding and loosing is particularly related to the proclamation of the gospel and to making disciples of those who respond in repentance and faith to that proclamation, namely through the means of grace – preaching and the ordinances. Baptism, while certainly a testimony of the baptizand’s profession of faith, is also an exercise of the local church’s charge to bind and loose – they affirm the baptizand’s confession and vow to edify them in their walk with Christ. Additionally, baptism is the first step in the lifelong process of church discipline. That term is not pejorative; rather, “discipline” simply refers to the continued formation of an individual through regular practices. The local church is integral in the discipline of the life of a believer; that role begins in baptism, and baptism is a continual reminder for the disciple and the church that s/he belongs to Christ and needs to be conformed to Christ.

Baptism is also part of how the local church manifests Christ’s kingdom; it is a visible sign of Christ’s death-defeating, resurrecting work in the baptizand’s life, and in that proclamation it also reminds other Christians of their own union with Christ’s death and resurrection. It is therefore a visible sign not only of and for the individual, but also for the congregation and for and to the world. This is why I continue to uphold the importance of the ordinances taking place in the context of the local church – they are instituted by Christ as part of the means by which the the local church exercises its authority and manifests Christ’s kingdom.

All this is particularly relevant to our current political climate. News dropped this weekend concerning the GOP nominee bragging about sexually assaulting women in a 2005 recording. Some evangelical leaders are dismissing this charge, and encouraging others to do so as well, on the basis that Trump has made a private confession of Christ and prayed privately to be forgiven of what he said in that tape. Voters are being encouraged to take this as a sign that he is a changed man.

I would be delighted to know that Trump, or anyone, has made a genuine conversion, and that they have turned from their sin and to Christ. The point here is that the Church has historically affirmed that conversions are part of its communal life, and, for baptistic churches, they are particularly and especially part of the local church’s communal life. Talk of Trump’s conversion, on the other hand, is being bound and loosed by a handful of televangelists who testify to his private change and private confession. This is part of a larger move in evangelicalism, rooted even further back in the revivals, that “tests” conversion through private, individual, emotional experience instead of via the binding and loosing of the local church. We do not have the ordinances as visible signs, or discipline as the long road of communal obedience, with private professions that are not bound and loosed in the context of the local church. We are instead asked to take a leap of faith and believe in private professions, rather than seeing them worked out publicly in the life of the local church.

I, for one, will stick with the Apostles and the subsequent wisdom of the Church and my Baptist forebearers. Confessions of faith take place within the communal life of the local congregation, and are part of the church’s “binding and loosing” of the gospel through the ordinances and discipline.