Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 82:1 (Spring 2020)
Article: Progressive Covenantalists As Reformed Baptists
Author: Daniel Scheiderer

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Progressive Covenantalists As Reformed Baptists

Daniel Scheiderer

Daniel Scheiderer ministers at Long Plain Baptist Church, Acushnet, MA, and is completing a PhD at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary under Stephen Wellum on the pactum salutis. A version of this article was originally presented to the biblical theology study group at the Tyndale Fellowship, Cambridge, England, June 27, 2018.

At least three new systems of covenant theology have arisen in Calvinistic Baptist circles in recent decades: new covenant theology, progressive covenantalism, and 1689 Federalism (Reformed Baptists). Each group has its own proponents and its own circles of influence, but churches impacted by each proposal are generally familiar to one another. Because progressive covenantalists initially described themselves as a subset of new covenant theology, arguments against new covenant theology were often simply co-opted for use against progressive covenantalists. This article aims to demonstrate that progressive covenantalists have significant points of continuity with their Reformed Baptist brothers that facilitate mutual benefit between the two camps. To demonstrate this continuity, the covenants of works and grace and the new covenant are examined in the two systems alongside their Particular Baptist forefathers to show that all three groups operate with a basically continuous infrastructure. The benefit of such a study is that it distinguishes the progressive covenantal proposal from the proposal of new covenant theology while avoiding simplistic readings that deny the real differences between progressive covenantalists and Reformed Baptists. The study does not deny the real tension that exists in progressive covenantalists’ reinterpretation of the fourth commandment, but it sets aside that debate so that points of clear commonalities may be seen for what they are. Too often conversations about covenant theology have passed one another, and so this article aims to initiate a conversation between two groups that ought to be the nearest allies.

Progressive covenantalism” broke onto the scene in 2012 with Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum’s book Kingdom through Covenant. In its opening pages they said their proposal fell under the umbrella of “new covenant theology,” but they preferred their new term. In their later work, however, they include a great many caveats to this identification, saying that some proponents may hold to both new covenant theology and progressive

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covenantalism, but there are others within new covenant theology who make proposals counter to the claims of progressive covenantalism. In my view, it is best to understand progressive covenantalism as distinct...