Words Truly Mean Things

Recently, Pastor Chris Cousine from Covenant Presbyterian Church in Cochrane interacted (here) with an article I wrote titled “Can Baptists Be Truly Reformed?” I appreciate his kind and thoughtful response. I believe we share an important conviction: words are important, and they mean things.

In my original article, I was pushing back against the tendency for any Calvinistic Baptist to use the label Reformed. In that sense, I was “gatekeeping” the term, arguing that it should properly be reserved for those Baptists who consciously stand within the Reformed confessional tradition. Pastor Cousine, in his response, engages in a similar kind of gatekeeping, though in the opposite direction, suggesting that the term should be reserved only for the historic Presbyterian and paedobaptist traditions. So, in the same spirit of kindness and brotherhood, I would like to interact with his article.

Words truly have meaning, and we should be careful to define them. When words lose their meaning, we lose the ability to clearly describe reality. For example, if I start calling zebras “horses,” the word "horse" doesn’t completely lose its meaning, but it becomes much broader. Now, if I want to talk about what we traditionally call a horse, I may have to add qualifiers—perhaps “striped horses” and “plain horses.” It becomes less precise, but still workable. The real problem comes when we start using the same word for entirely different things. If butterflies were also called horses, then the word horse would eventually become meaningless. It would no longer point clearly to any particular reality. This is why definitions matter.

With the word "Reformed," Pastor Cousine rightly points out that historically it has included “confessional standards, ecclesiastical standards, and sacramental standards.” In its most precise historical sense, the Reformed tradition includes covenant theology that leads to paedobaptism and a particular form of church government. But when we speak of "Reformed Baptists", we are not speaking of an entirely different animal. It is not butterflies and horses. It is much closer to horses and zebras.

Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians share so much theological DNA that it is reasonable to see them as belonging to the same broader theological family. Because of that shared heritage—common confessions, similar covenantal frameworks, the doctrines of grace, and a shared Reformation lineage—Reformed Baptists have historically used the term "Reformed" with the qualification "Baptist."

In fact, the similarity is sometimes acknowledged even in practice. There are churches today that practice what is sometimes called "baptismal catholicity," where elders or members may subscribe either to the Westminster Confession or the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession. I am not necessarily advocating for that model, but its very existence demonstrates how close these traditions are. To continue the analogy: zebras and horses are close enough that they can even produce hybrids called "zorses." Interestingly, those hybrids are usually sterile. Perhaps nature is telling us something about these kinds of mixtures. Time will tell.

Pastor Cousine also writes, “You cannot remove the covenant sign from covenant households and somehow still claim to be expressing the same covenant theology.” On this point, I actually agree. Reformed Baptists are not claiming to hold the exact same covenant theology as Presbyterians. Baptist covenant theology—often called 1689 Federalism—has its own distinctives. We do not claim the systems are identical. Rather, we claim that they share the same historical and theological roots.

Reformed Baptists still see the church as composed of covenant households (or at least they should), but we differ in how the covenant sign ought to be administered. The disagreement is real, but it exists within a shared theological framework that grew out of the Reformation. So, when I say that Reformed Baptists can be “truly Reformed,” I do not mean that they are indistinguishable from the historic Presbyterian tradition. I mean that they are similar enough to be considered part of the same theological family.

An alternative label sometimes proposed is "Particular Baptist." But this term has its own limitations. The early Particular Baptists were primarily defined by two things: Calvinistic soteriology and believers’ baptism. Their covenant theology was not yet fully uniform or systematized. Some held views closer to the paedobaptist covenant framework, while others were less developed in this area. A more defined Baptist covenant theology emerged later and was codified in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. And not all Particular Baptists subscribed to the 1689 Federalism. Because of this, many churches today that identify as "Reformed Baptist" actually hold a theology that is much closer to the historic Reformed tradition than the broader Particular Baptist movement as a whole.

Pastor Cousine concludes by asking whether the historic Reformed tradition can be meaningfully separated from paedobaptism without becoming a “closely related but nevertheless distinct ecclesial tradition.” On this point, I would gladly agree: Reformed Baptists are a distinct ecclesial tradition. That is precisely why the qualification matters. We are not simply “Reformed.” We are “Reformed Baptists.” Just as Congregationalists and Presbyterians represent distinct but clearly Reformed traditions, so too do Reformed Baptists.

For some Christians, this discussion may sound like a silly debate over terminology. But Pastor Cousine and I would both agree on this point: words matter. And because words matter, it is worth having the conversation.

Nino Marques