So grows the Lotus

Back in May of 2014, I wrote about “Tulips, Roses, Poinsettias and Lilies: a veritable theological garden.” Now ten years later, I have discovered a new flower growing in the acrostical soteriological garden – the Lotus.

Apparently “LOTUS” is the brainchild of Daniel Weierbach, pastor of Open Door Baptist Church in Prattville, Alabama. According to his book LOTUS: A Free Grace Response to TULIP (Daniel Weirbach, 2024), Weierbach wanted to create a five-letter acronym, based on flower name, that would “counter” the Calvinistic acronym TULIP, point-by-point, in sequential order. Here grows the Lotus:

• Liable Depravity - Each person is liable for their own sin, but not so depraved that they can’t choose to believe in the Gospel.
• Occupational Election - Election is never unto salvation, but is to an office, position, service, or blessing.
• Total Atonement - The death of Jesus Christ was sufficient to pay for the sins of the entire world, not only the “elect.”
• Unlimited Grace – God’s grace is unlimited in the sense that it extends to all people who have to decide to receive or reject it.
• Security of the Saints -A Christian has eternal security because of the power and promise of God.

The Lotus’s weak version of depravity encapsulates the spirit of the age, and sets the flower in array against the Bible itself. I quickly lost interest in any beauty it might have.

While looking into the LOTUS, I ran across another acrostic – PROVIDE. Not a flower this time, but evidently created by Southern Baptist theologian Leighton Flowers.

• People sin: Which separated all from fellowship with God.
• Responsible: Able-to-respond to God’s appeals for reconciliation.
• Open door: For anyone to enter by faith. Whosoever will may come to His open arms.
• Vicarious atonement: Provides a way for anyone to be saved by Christ’s blood.
• Illuminating grace: Provides clearly revealed truth so that all can know and respond in faith.
• Destroyed: For unbelief and resisting the Holy Spirit.
• Eternal security: For all true believers.

Provisionist Southern Baptists and Independent Baptists seem to be going of the cliff in rejecting total depravity. Regardless of any abuses of the terminology, we are totally depraved sinners whose only hope is Jesus Christ and not ourselves. Separated from God. No way back on our own. All of us. Totally. Hereditarily.

Theologically, LOTUS and PROVIDE seem to be two peas in a pod.

X-mas or Christmas or both?

There are Christians who spend a great deal of time saying, “Keep Christ in Christmas” or “Put Christ back into Christmas.” (Other Christians would say he was never part of it!) For the first group, “put Christ back into Christmas” is a retort against the use of “X-mas” in the place of “Christmas.”[i] I have heard this most of my life. However...

Chi (Χ or χ) is the twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet. Used in X-mas, it is not leaving out the name of Christ, but substituting or abbreviating it by using the first letter in the Greek name Christ (χριστός) for Christ. Abbreviations can make communication easier – if you understand the abbreviation. We use them in most aspects of life, especially in writing. In this abbreviation or substitution, X = Christ. X-mas = Christmas.

Some secularists say or use X-mas thinking they deliberately leave Christ out. Some scrupulous Christians substitute the X instead of using “Christ,” thinking they avoid combining the title of Jesus “Christ” with the Roman Catholic “Mass.”[ii] Nevertheless, there is longstanding documented sacred history of Christians using Chi (Χ or χ) to mean, stand for, or symbolize Christ. X-mas does not avoid putting Christ in Christmas, no matter how you slice it.

Here endeth the history lesson.[iii]

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[i] This objection may have originated in the periodical News and Views, published by the Church League of America. An article in December of 1957 titled “X=The Unknown Quantity” criticized the use of X-mas instead of Christmas. However, it is possible that this has earlier criticisms, and was only widely popularized at this time.
[ii] The etymology of the English word Christmas is Middle English Christemasse, from Old English Cristes mæsse, literally, Christ’s mass (combing the words Christ + Mass, the eucharistic service). Nevertheless, to most Westerners it just means the annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus, usually celebrated on December 25. Notice however, for example, Wednesday is “Woden’s Day,” Thursday is “Thor’s Day,” and “Friday is “Frigga’s Day.” We would lose our ability to communicate effectively in our native language if we made up words to replace all words that have offensive root associations.
[iii] This is a history lesson, not an advocacy article. I do not care that much what you choose call it. Nevertheless, I would suggest that using the full “Christmas” is less likely to be misunderstood in our culture, without having to explain which one of at least three ways you might be using “X” (as a non-Christian trying to avoid Christ, as a Christian trying to avoid placing Christ next to Mass, or as a Christian using X to stand for and represent Christ).

Abbreviations

In a previous post comment, Alex A. Hanna suggested another good resource would be a list of common abbreviations found in papers, research, books, and scholarly papers. The list below gives first an abbreviation, then its Latin language background, and what it means. If someone thinks of others to add to the list, let me know.

Abbreviations often used in writing and footnotes:

• ca. (circa, around)
• Cap. (capitulus, chapter)
• cf. (confer, compare)
• d.v. (Deo volente, God willing)
• e.g. (exempli gratia, for example)
• et al. (et alii, and others)
• et seq. (et sequens, and the words, pages, etc. that follow)
• etc. or &c. (et cetera, and the other)
• f. (sing. folio, and following )
• ff. (pl. foliis, and following)
• i.a. (inter alia, among other things)
• i.e. (id est, that is or in other words)
• ibid. (ibidem, in the same place)
• loc. cit. (loco citato, in the place cited)
• op. cit. (opere citato, in the work cited)
• q.v. (quod vide, which see)
• re (in re, in the matter of or concerning)
• s.v. (sub verbo, under the word or heading)
• sic (sic, thus)
• v. or vs. (versus, against)
• viz. (videlicet, namely)
• v.i. (vide infra, see below)
• v.s. (vide supra, see above)

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Note: Two on the list technically are not abbreviations, but are used to “abbreviate” one’s writing.

Bolo, bogo

BOLO -- Be on (the) look-out

BOGO -- Buy one, get one (free)

FOMO -- Fear of missing out

FUBU -- For us, by us

YOLO -- You only live once

The B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. Acrostic

“It has to be that way,” he said, arguing for a specific phrase as necessary and scriptural because it is that way “in every listing of the eight (8) Baptist Distinctives.”[i] Not only did this insistence violate the first of the distinctives, which teaches that the Bible is the authority in all matters of faith and practice – it also did not consider that “every listing” has it because they are copied one from the other, and also that this particular way of listing the distinctives likely cannot be found before 60 years ago. Because of this insistence, I searched for the origin of the “8 Baptist Distinctives” as most commonly presented. The common list is below; there are some with slight variations.

B          Biblical Authority

A         Autonomy of the Local Church

P          Priesthood of the Believer

T          Two Ordinances

I           Individual Soul Liberty

S          Saved Church Membership

T          Two Officers

S          Separation of Church and State

L. Duane Brown constructed the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. Acrostic” in the early 1960s,[ii] while he was the pastor of Pine Valley Baptist Church in Pine Valley (Millport), New York.[iii] He describes its origin this way:

“While pastoring at Pine Valley Baptist Church, I prepared a systematic lesson plan about the Baptist distinctives designed for thirteen lessons (a Sunday School quarterly). One of the dear ladies in the church, Esther Munson, suggested I set up these Baptist distinctives in an acrostic of the word BAPTISTS. It was mimeographed for Sunday School. I eventually set the acrostic on the plural BAPTISTS as I settled on eight distinctives (doctrine) that historically all Baptists held. A teacher at Baptist Bible Seminary requested copies for his class. Soon requests came from all over.”[iv]

The editor of Baptist Bulletin suggests Brown’s acrostic “has roots in Paul Jackson’s summary of the Baptist distinctives, published in Doctrine of the Church (1956) and his later full length book, The Doctrine and Administration of the Church (1968). Jackson’s outline is quite similar to what became Brown’s acrostic, but interestingly, Jackson never used the BAPTISTS acrostic in print.” It is certainly not unusual that Brown’s idea finds antecedents in his mentors, and quite obviously the distinctives of Baptists are of as long standing as Baptists themselves! After providing numerous mimeographs of the study, Brown put it in book format in 1969 – Biblical Basis for Baptists: A Bible Study Course on Baptist Distinctives. Later, Regular Baptist Press published the book, and recently Brown and his son revised and enlarged it in 2009.

The “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. Acrostic” is a nice mnemonic device. When thinking of the distinctives one can remember that they “spell” Baptists. However, we also have to consider whether it is helping us memorize information accurately and its most logical form. The acrostic will generally not be too objectionable to most Baptists. Most Baptists now living have probably seen it at one time or another. They likely consider it representative of Baptist beliefs. Nevertheless, some things in the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic” are not true of Baptists across the board. Were it conceived by a Free Will Baptist, Old Regular Baptist, or Primitive Baptist, the first “T” might be “three ordinances” rather than two.[v] The popular Philadelphia Baptist Confession of 1742 called “singing of Psalms” and “laying on of hands” ordinances.[vi] The old Separate Baptists often referred to nine rites as ordinances – baptism, Lord’s Supper, love feast, laying on of hands, feet washing, anointing the sick, right hand of fellowship, kiss of charity, and child dedication.[vii]

Were the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic” compiled in more recent times, the last “S” might be revised into something other than “Separation of Church and State.” I grew up with this terminology, and most Baptists know what they mean by it. On the other hand, its use has fallen in to some disfavor because of its recent use as a club to beat Christian thought out of the public square. We have separation of church and state, they say, you cannot erect a cross in a public place. Strike “In God We Trust” from our money. Purge “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Public schools must expel Christmas programs. All this in the name of “Separation of Church and State.”

Others have seen the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic” as weak. Some have tweaked it, as follows:

B          Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice
A         Autonomy of the local church
P          Priority of Regenerative Church Membership
T          Two Ordinances: Lord’s Supper & Baptism
I           Individual Separation
S          Soul Liberty
T          Two Offices: Pastor and Deacon
S          Separation of Church and State

Richard Weeks of Maranatha Baptist Bible College (now Maranatha Baptist University) dispensed with the acrostic altogether for the acronym BRAPSIS₂, recognizing the need for a logical order – since some distinctives logically flow from other distinctives.[viii]

B          Bible, the sole authority of faith and practice
R          Regenerated and immersed church membership
A         Autonomy of the local church
P          Priesthood of the believer
S          Soul liberty
I           Immersion and the Lord’s Supper, the only two ordinances
S          Separation 1, Separation of Church and State; 2 Separation: ethically and ecclesiastically

In “Where’s the “C” in the Baptist Distinctives?” Colin Smith stresses the need of a “C” for congregational church government – a very distinct Baptist doctrine and practice that is absent from the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic.” Smith writes, “There is no way of looking at these alliterated points as formal theology. Instead, the usual outline is simply a group of things that are kind of true about the church…” and even calls the acrostic “dangerous because people who use it don’t have to think logically.” He outlines six main points: Biblical authority; Regenerate church membership; Priesthood of the believer; Congregational church government; Two ordinances; Individual soul liberty.

I am not as critical of the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic” as Colin Smith and some others. I recognize it as an attempt to put together some things that Baptists believe in a form that may be easily remembered. Obviously, the acrostic is not exhaustive in detailing Baptist faith and practice. At best, it is a beginning, not an end. My experience with a dogmatic assertion that a Baptist doctrine (distinctive) must be stated as found in “the eight (8) Baptist Distinctives”[ix] revealed another weakness – the tendency of the wording of a human document – a recent one at that – to become entrenched in the mind in contradiction of the primacy of biblical authority!

May we wisely use tools such as the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic” as well as the corrections that have been suggested for it – always bringing every thought into subjection to the word of God.

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[i] Specifically, the assertion was that Baptists believe “the priesthood of the believer” rather than “the priesthood of believers” or “the priesthood of all believers.”

[ii] acrostic, noun. “a series of lines or verses in which the first, last, or other particular letters when taken in order spell out a word, phrase, etc.”

[iii] L. Duane Brown graduated from the Baptist Bible Seminary in Johnson City, New York “where he studied theology with Paul R. Jackson.” Other churches pastored by Brown include Southwest Calvary Baptist Church in Houston, Texas and Parsippany Baptist Church in Parsippany, New Jersey. He also served as president of Denver Baptist Bible College (which merged with Faith Baptist Bible College in 1986). I determined he was still living in Ankeny, Iowa in September 2016, and have found no death notice since that time.

[iv] “Who Invented the B.A.P.T.I.S.T. Distinctives?,” Baptist Bulletin, October 28, 2010

[v] Footwashing is or has been considered an ordinance by many Baptists.

[vi] See chapter 23 and chapter 31 of The Philadelphia Baptist Confession of Faith.

[vii] In Customs of Primitive Churches (1768) Morgan Edwards, long-time clerk of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, advocated several more ordinances than listed in his association’s confession of faith – so that his list greatly resembled the Separate Baptists view.

[viii] “Richard Weeks and the BRAPSIS Distinctives.” See also “The Logic Of BRAPSIS.”

[ix] By which he meant the “B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic.”

DAISY: the Five Points of Arminianism

In a previous post I linked to a soteriological acronym called "Daisy." The link is no longer good, so I found the information and am posting it below.

ARMINIANISM: DAISY*

D: Diminished depravity – Humanity is depraved, but God uses prevenient grace to restore man’s ability to respond to Him.
A: Abrogated election – God bases His election on His foreknowledge of those who freely choose Him.
I: Impersonal atonement – Christ died for everyone, making salvation possible for everyone.
S: Sedentary grace – God calls everyone to salvation, but many freely reject it.
Y: Yieldable justification – The saved can fall from grace and lose their salvation.

*The DAISY acronym is much harder to pin down as there are several different versions (I’ll discuss another when analyzing Arminianism). Also, many Arminians do not like the acrostic. Several versions of DAISY have been pushed by Calvinists as caricatures of Arminian theology. Many Calvinists seem to also enjoy making the lame joke that the Arminian flower is a daisy because they pull the petals off saying, “God loves me. He loves me not.”

f and ff: An Explanatory Note

The following brief explanation was written by Elder C. C. Morris and first appeared in the July-August 1994 issue of The Remnant. It also appeared in the November-December 2015 issue and appears here by permission of the author. I have been asked about the “f” and “ff” abbreviations in the past and asked Elder Morris for permission to post this on my blog for others who have questions about this usage.[i]

f AND ff: AN EXPLANATORY NOTE
By C. C. Morris

Bible references, or citations, are usually given in the order of book, chapter, and verse. The verse number is usually separated from the chapter number by a colon or period.

“Isaiah 53:6” and “Isaiah 53.6” both mean the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, verse 6. “Romans 3.6-10” means Romans, chapter 3, verses 6 through 10.

We were recently asked about the use of “f” and “ff” which we sometimes use in our scriptural references. These two notations, “f” and “ff,” are short, convenient and widely used ways to abbreviate a Biblical citation.

“f” means “and the following verse.” For example, “Genesis 3.15f” means Genesis, chapter 3, verses 15 and 16, which is also sometimes written, “Genesis 3.15-16” or “Genesis 3:15-16.”

“ff” means “and the following verses.” “ff” implies at least two or more verses. For example, “Acts 2.23ff” means Acts, chapter 2, verse 23 and the following verses – at least two more verses, through the 25th verse, but maybe more. Usually the citation’s context itself will clarify how many more verses are meant.

We thank you for your questions. It is by your questions and comments we learn of your concerns. By our learning from you, the reader, we hope to continue making THE REMNANT a quality paper you will appreciate receiving.

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[i] [From the blog author, R. L. Vaughn] For those curious about the etymology, the abbreviations derive from the Latin folio ‎(“page, leaf” “on the next page”). Outside of Bible references it may be used for page ranges in a book. For example, “256f.” would stand for pages 256-257. Another abbreviation that I often use is the abbreviation “cf.” It stands for the Latin word confer which means “compare.” For example, “Cf. Acts 2.23” means to compare Acts, chapter 2, verse 23 with the verses or topic being discussed.

What are “CMEs”?

“CMEs” are Christmas, Mother’s Day and Easter churchgoers.

I heard this recently and thought that other inquiring minds might also be dying to know.

Tulips, Roses, Poinsettias and Lilies: a veritable theological garden

Several years ago I posted on Calvinism and other acrostics. Since that time I’ve noticed a few other theological acronyms blooming. Here’s some of the old and new.

The oldest and most established flower, of course, is the Tulip.
* The Five Points of Calvinism

Others that have appeared in the soteriological hot bed, though not necessarily flourished, include:

Roses
* “Roses” (an Alternative to TULIP)

Two different Daisies (one of which sounds more like a caricature of Arminian theology than a flower planted by an Arminian)
* The Five Points of Arminianism
* DAISY: The 5 Points of Arminianism

The Lily
* Malcolm Yarnell’s Lily

Lilac (an “Arminian” list also crafted by a Calvinist)
* The Poisonous Petals of the Arminian LILAC

As if Calvinism needed another, there is always the Aster:
Absolute predestination
Specific atonement
Total inability
Effectual calling
Reliable promise

Perhaps the best supported of the new acronyms is the Poinsettia, sporting many more than the traditional five petals.
* Doctrinal Statement -- “Poinsettia: a new flower in the soteriological garden”

Calvinism and other acrostics

Below are several acrostics vying to replace the old standard T.U.L.I.P Calvinistic acrostic. Also included in Malcolm Yarnell's non-Calvinistic L.I.L.Y.

Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints

G.r.a.c.e., By an unknown author
God’s Sovereign Election
Radical Depravity
Accomplished Redemption
Called Effectually
Endurance of the Saints

Timothy George in "Amazing Grace":
Radical Depravity
Overcoming Grace
Sovereign Election
Eternal Life
Singular Redemption

Phil Johnson's outline (not an acrostic) of Calvinism based on I John 4:19 - "We love Him, because He first loved us." The outline is as follows:

• Perverseness of our fallen state - (We could not love Him first)
• Priority of God's electing choice - (He loved us first)
• Particularity of God's saving work - (He loved us)
• Power of His loving deliverance - (We love Him because)
• Perfection of His redemptive plan - (We love)

Roger Nicole suggests the following replacements (the first is not an acrostic):
Radical and Pervasive Depravity
Sovereign, Divine Election
Definite Atonement (or Particular Redemption)
Effectual, Saving Grace
Perseverance of God with the Saints
      and Gospel
GRACE is:
Obligatory (that is, indispensable)
Sovereign (in choice)
Particular (in redemption)
Effectual (in operation)
Lasting (that is, secure)

Preservation of the Saints
Absolute predestination
Specific Atonement
Total inability
Effectual Calling
(Paste can also be rearranged to "tapes", or "specific" can be changed to "limited" to then spell "Petal")

Malcolm Yarnell's The Lily:
Lord: Jesus Christ Alone
Integrity: Say what you mean, and Mean what you say
Love: The ethics of our Savior
Yieldedness: Discipleship is the Call of God upon us