Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 29:3 (Fall 2025)
Article: Brothers From Another Mother? A Progressive Covenantalist Analysis Of 1689 Federalism
Author: Richard J. Lucas

Brothers From Another Mother? A Progressive Covenantalist Analysis Of 1689 Federalism

Richard J. Lucas

Richard J. Lucas is Pastor of Teaching and Reaching at First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida and the Director of the First Baptist Center for Ministry Training. He earned his PhD in New Testament from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Lucas has co-edited Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture (IVP, 2022) and contributed to Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course Between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies (B&H, 2016).

Introduction

I’ve titled this article by using the colloquialism, “Brothers from Another Mother?”1 As this contemporary idiom is often used, it refers to two people who act so similarly that they must be brothers, yet they look nothing alike, so they must have different mothers. As applied to the two contemporary Baptist covenantal theologies, my basic thesis is that 1689 Federalism and Progressive Covenantalism (PC) are both Baptist brothers, and actually in function (and theological distinctives) end up with many similar conclusions, but they can look so different on the surface. At the risk of being overly simplistic, but for the sake of comparison,2 my contention is that the mother of historical theology birthed the modern-day version of Baptist covenant theology we now commonly call 1689 Federalism. And, similarly, the mother of biblical theology birthed PC as a contemporary version of Baptist covenantal theology. These different origins have resulted

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in different historical developments, different conversation partners, different ecclesiological settings, and different vocabularies, terminologies, and theological burdens to be protected. The consequence is that (in many cases) many proponents of 1689 Federalism and some proponents of PC, because their respective systems look so different on the surface, are largely talking past each other and often not understanding each other (which is especially the case for 1689 Federalists). It’s no coincidence that the leading exponents of 1689 Federalism have PhDs in historical theology, and the leading exponents of PC have PhDs in biblical and systematic theology. There is a disciplinary gap that is not easily crossed at times.

Even the labels that have come to describe these respective Baptist theological proposals illustrate these different origins. Though Baptists have been doing covenantal theology for centuries, the terms 1689 Federalism and PC are of recent vintage.3 Spea...