Is There A Baptist Theology on Ordination

Live The Trinity has a good post up at No Baptist theology of ordination?.

He of course is a Baptist Minister in Baton Rouge that is very involved in student ministry at the LSU campus. First his post is well surprising because he is quite open talking about a possible controversy (perhaps in his own faith community but if not with the larger Baptist in the area maybe).

However I think he hits on a many good points. I left the Baptist Faith in college so I always just assumed perhaps the topic of "ordination" might be picked up in more detail later in more adult advanced Sunday school. Well guess not because well there is not much to be said about it.

There is a lot to think about here. I will not go into a long scriptural / Church Fathers Catholic thing on this since that has been done in ten million other places. See for instance here and here. A interesting link on that last link Dialogue With a Presbyterian Pastor Regarding Ordination, Priests, and Vocations For Everyone seems relevant.

So we sort of see the tension here. Maybe they are viewed as LAY PLUS.

On a sort of related topic of protestant vocations and ministry this post makes me want to write that book I always wanted to do. A sort of alternative history based during the Civil War where we have all these Baptist and Methodist and Presbyterian sisters , nuns, monks, and brothers running around. Contrary to what some people think none of these people are "Ordained" in Catholic Church (Except for some Monk Priests). It is sort of interesting to think what Protestant history and theology would have been liked if they had incorporated this ancient practice from the beginning.

When you think about it a good bit Catholic life has been done by the non ordained when we look at these various orders.