Doug Wilson Says ‘Children of Obedient Believers Will Become Believers.’
“Now many children of believing parents do not become believers themselves. At the same time, children of obedient believers will become believers. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it’ (Prov. 22:6). The sovereign God uses means to accomplish His purposes in election, and His appointed and revealed means for the conversion of covenant children is obedient parents–not elect parents who are disobedient in how they bring up children.”1 – Doug Wilson
OPINION: As Christian parents, one of our deepest desires is for our children to place their faith in Jesus for salvation. However, Doug’s teaching here is contrary to Scripture and is more along the lines of a prosperity “name it, claim it” pseudo gospel.2 He speaks truth in his first sentence—that not all children of believers become believers. But then he expounds, “children of obedient believers will become believers”3 (emphasis added). Meaning if you are obedient, your children will follow Christ. This conversely implies that your children will not be saved if you are disobedient. This teaching presents a serious problem, as it implies that parents’ works cause the salvation of their children. Doug goes so far as to say: “…faith in the promises of God concerning our children is the instrument that God uses to accomplish the fulfillment of His promises.”4 Such teaching is anti-Christ. And it places a burden on parents that is not theirs to bear.
In Against the Church (the book that Doug told me contains his current beliefs), he affirms this position again:
“If a kid was baptized, educated in the covenant, catechized until his eyes bulged out, and all the rest of that drill, and apostatized in a terrible flame-out as soon as he left home, what does that do to the promises? Nothing! Let God be true, and every man a liar. But notice what saying this necessitates. It requires us to acknowledge that when the words don’t come true, it was the men who were lying, not God.”5
Carefully examine what he is saying: If a child of believing parents falls away from the faith, it is not because God’s promise to save the children of believers failed, but because the parents are liars. The parents must not have fulfilled the necessary works or faith to ensure their child would believe and persevere to the end. This is not the gospel. God’s word is clear: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13, NASB95).
Contrary to Doug’s claims,6 God gives no promises that guarantee the children of believers will be saved.7 Even Doug backpedals at times by saying such things as: “No human parent has met all the conditions of works that would ensure godly offspring.”8 Yet he continues to teach that if we just believe enough then God will fulfill his promise regarding our children.9 When Doug references verses like Proverbs 22:610 he fails to exegete the text properly. As D. A. Carson states in his book Exegetical Fallacies: “A proverb is neither a promise nor a case law. If it is treated that way, it may prove immensely discouraging to some believers when things do not seem to work out as the ‘promise’ seeks to suggest.”11 Doug elsewhere cites Acts 2:39 as a direct promise to believers that guarantees their children are saved,12 he fails to exegete the text properly. Read Acts 2:39 and observe what is said and what isn’t said: “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself” (Acts 2:39, NASB95). John Robbins explains:
“There are three recipients of the promise: ‘you,’ ‘your children,’ and ‘all who are afar off.’ All three groups receive the same promise; children are not singled out for any special promises. So ‘all who are afar off’ have the same promise of the Spirit as ‘your children.’ Furthermore, the last clause of the verse, ‘as many as the Lord our God will call,’ modifies and limits all three referents…Therefore, the promise of the Holy Spirit is made only to the elect, not to all of Peter’s audience, nor to all their children, nor to all who are afar off, but only to as many as the Lord our God will call from all three groups.”13
E. Calvin Beisner rightly observes: “simply being the child of believers, or even being the baptized child of believers, does not guarantee salvation…the promise of salvation is to all who believe, and only to them.”14 (If you want a more detailed interaction with the Scriptures Doug Wilson and other Federal Visionalists use, read E. Calvin Beisner’s excellent essay: Evangelizing Our Children: A Reformed and Covenantal Practice).
Among Doug’s followers, we’ve observed significant, unnecessary, and unbiblical pressure on both parents and children to maintain a facade of perfection. The children are under pressure to externally act “Christian” lest, as Doug puts it, their “works of the flesh make their lack of regeneration manifest to all.”15 This results in the creation of little self-righteous Pharisees who do not understand their need for the Savior (also complicated by the emphasis Doug gives to baptism, see article here). And the parents also struggle to keep everyone in line, for fear that they will be seen as failures who are disobedient or do not have enough faith in God regarding the supposed promises regarding their children. It is an awful, unbiblical, Christless existence.
My prayer is that Doug would repent of this gospel distortion and that he would bear fruit in accordance with repentance by publicly admitting his error and removing all resources that teach this error from publication. And that he would publicly seek forgiveness from the families that have been damaged by such a grievous teaching and distortion of the gospel.
Want More Context?
https://contrast2.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/a-presbyterian-finally-gets-acts-239-right/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAqhpb-UF40
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/are-children-assumed-to-be-saved/
https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/213232214116948
https://www.apuritansmind.com/book-reviews/the-black-list-reformed-is-not-enough/
https://reformed.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Federal-Vision-Doug-Wilson-and-Infant-Baptism.pdf
https://heidelblog.net/2013/11/for-those-just-tuning-in-what-is-the-federal-vision/
https://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=207
https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/praying-our-childrens-salvation
Footnotes
Footnotes
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Douglas Wilson, Standing on the Promises: A Handbook of Biblical Childrearing, Canon Press, 1997, p. 86, Kindle Edition. ↩
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For an explanation and refutation of the prosperity gospel, see: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/prosperity/
Doug himself does not see the connection from his own writings, but he did see the connection when Canon Press (the publishing house he founded) sent a mass marketing email on November 16th, 2023 with the subject: “The Wilson Family Secret Sauce” containing the message “Pastor Wilson’s family hasn’t had a single apostasy across four generations. In fact, they haven’t even had one black sheep on the outskirts of orthodox, biblical Christianity. That’s more than most evangelical families can claim. Too many of us have had to watch grandparents, fathers, mothers, siblings, or children abandon the faith in the name of ‘liberation.’ So what’s in the Wilson Family Secret Sauce? It’s not gentle parenting, or joyless legalism, or modern psychology. It’s 2,000-year-old, cask-strength biblical wisdom on how to build faithful households. And they’re handing out bottles of the stuff in these books.” The books were on sale for $110.70 (see: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=365328106009152&set=pcb.365350606006902). Wilson rightly retracted the email, saying: “It really did come off like a child-rearing version of the prosperity gospel. And some of it wasn’t exactly true, and the parts that were true should not have been said like we were shaking three feet of tin foil at you.” https://web.archive.org/web/20240618195455/https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/yeah-that-was-really-bad.html And while I applaud Doug for retracting (something he doesn’t often do—though in this case it was a retraction of something he didn’t do directly), he still fails to see how his teaching, that is still being published, fed the mind of the person who wrote that email for Canon Press. He still teaches “a child-rearing version of the prosperity gospel” even though it is more veiled than the email was. ↩ -
Douglas Wilson, Standing on the Promises: A Handbook of Biblical Childrearing, Canon Press, 1997, p. 86, Kindle Edition. ↩
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Douglas Wilson, “Reformed” is Not Enough, Canon Press, 2002, loc. 2293, Kindle Edition. ↩
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Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, Canon Press, 2013, p. 160, Kindle Edition. ↩
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“God gives multitudes of promises to us concerning our children. Believing these promises is faith.” (Douglas Wilson, “Reformed” is Not Enough, Canon Press, 2002, loc. 2279, Kindle Edition.)
“Can we fulfill our covenant responsibilities (by believing) and yet have God fail to fulfill His promise? It is not possible. This is the historic Presbyterian view of children in the covenant.” (Douglas Wilson, “Reformed” is Not Enough, Canon Press, 2002, loc. 2308, Kindle Edition.) “In short, in all eras, God commands parents to bring children up with Him as their God, and He promises that such a faithful upbringing will not be futile.” (Douglas Wilson, To a Thousand Generations: Infant Baptism - Covenant Mercy to the Children of God, Canon Press, 1996, loc. 700, Kindle Edition).
A fellow Federal Vision proponent (also known as Auburn Avenue Theology), Steve Wilkins, states it even more plainly: “Traditionally, the Reformed have said, we have to view our children as presumptively elect or presumptively regenerate. And therefore, Christian, if we are willing to take the Scriptures at face value, there is no presumption necessary. Just take the Bible. And this is true, of course, because by the baptism, by baptism the Spirit joins us to Christ since he is the elect one and the Church is the elect people, we are joined to his body. We therefore are elect. Since he is the justified one, we are justified in him. Since he is the beloved one, we are beloved in him.” (AAPC 2002, Wilkins, The Legacy of the Half-Way Covenant (47:50–48:28) https://redeemertwincities.org/media/twsktyq/the-legacy-of-the-half-way-covenant)
Doug tries to disconnect parents’ faithfulness from works resulting in their children’s salvation and ends up asserting instead that God has promised to save the children of believing parents and that all we have to do is believe that God will save them (which then means if your children are not saved, it is because you didn’t believe God—again in line with a type of prosperity “name it, claim it” gospel): “But this unfaithfulness is not the same thing as ‘inadequate works.’ Every human parent has inadequate works. No human parent has met all the conditions of works that would ensure godly offspring. Godly children are not the result of our works. They are God’s reward, God’s covenant blessing. If God were to have my children turn out on the basis of my works—on one of my good days—they would all be in the penitentiary. But he offers to give me my children and their children after them. What must I do? I must believe Him when He offers them to me.” (Douglas Wilson, “Reformed” is Not Enough, Canon Press, 2002, loc. 2308-2322, Kindle Edition.)
Doug also writes: “[S]ome are troubled because we speak so freely of our little ones as Christians, as saints, as heirs of salvation. This language makes people think we are asserting that we have somehow decoded the secret decrees, and that we have discovered that God’s secret counsel has predetermined the ultimate salvation of this child and that one. But no, we speak this way because the covenant requires it of us. We believe, therefore we have spoken. But at the same time, we really do believe it, and this faith of ours is one of the instruments God uses to instill that same faith in our children. Doubting over our children is an excellent way to teach them to doubt. Believing over them enables them to grow up in an environment of believing.” (Douglas Wilson, “Union with Christ: An Overview of the Federal Vision,” The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons, Knox Theological Seminary, 2004, pp. 2, 3, 7)
“So we believe the terms of the covenant, and we believe that God has promised us our children. We talk like we believe it because we do.” (Douglas Wilson, “Union with Christ: An Overview of the Federal Vision,” The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons, Knox Theological Seminary, 2004, p. 4.) “God promises that our children will serve Him faithfully, but He does not promise that they will serve Him automatically. We are summoned to believe these promises, and our faith in what He has declared is His instrument for bringing the promises to fruition.” https://web.archive.org/web/20241211170803/https://dougwils.com/the-church/s16-theology/god-promises-us-our-children.html “Bringing up our children is a covenantal obligation. Because we are Christians, we know that no covenant is kept by our works. Rather, this covenant, like all others, is kept by Christ and is appropriated by us by faith. This means that parents must receive grace by faith. Now the faith that appropriates is a faith which also works, but the work performed by this faith is not the basis of your children “turning out.” That is offered by the grace of God. Do you believe it?” (Douglas Wilson, Federal Husband, Canon Press, 1999, p. 93, Kindle Edition.) ↩ -
https://web.archive.org/web/20241211164947/https://www.reformedontheweb.com/miscellaneous/evangelizing-our-children-e-calvin-beisner.pdf and https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/praying-our-childrens-salvation ↩
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Douglas Wilson, “Reformed” is Not Enough, Canon Press, 2002, loc. 2308-2322, Kindle Edition. ↩
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The full context of the previous quote shows this contradiction: “No human parent has met all the conditions of works that would ensure godly offspring. Godly children are not the result of our works. They are God’s reward, God’s covenant blessing. If God were to have my children turn out on the basis of my works—on one of my good days—they would all be in the penitentiary. But he offers to give me my children and their children after them. What must I do? I must believe Him when He offers them to me.” (Douglas Wilson, “Reformed” is Not Enough, Canon Press, 2002, loc. 2308-2322, Kindle Edition.) ↩
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Douglas Wilson, Standing on the Promises: A Handbook of Biblical Childrearing, Canon Press, 1997, p. 86, Kindle Edition. ↩
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D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 1996, p. 137, Kindle Edition. Bruce Waltke gives some helpful insight to this Proverb: “The proverb, however, must not be pushed to mean that the educator is ultimately responsible for the youth’s entire moral orientation. ‘Rather, it gives a single component of truth that must be fit together with other elements of truth in order to approximate the more comprehensive, confused patterns of real life.’ Other proverbs recognize that the youth’s freedom to choose sin (cf. Ezek. 18:20) and apostatize by taking up with villains (Prov. 2:11–15) and whores (Prov. 5:11–14). The book is addressed to youths, not parents. Were the parents ultimately responsible for his moral choice, there would be no point in addressing the book to youth (see 1:4). Moreover, Solomon himself stopped listening to instruction and strayed from knowledge (19:27)” (Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 15–31, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2005, p. 206). ↩
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Doug cites this verse as proof and states: “If anyone at that time had seriously maintained this meant the children of believers were now to be excluded unless they came into the covenant on their own as a separate individual, this would have been, in the first century, an incomprehensible doctrine.” (Douglas Wilson, To a Thousand Generations: Infant Baptism - Covenant Mercy to the Children of God, Canon Press, 1996, loc. 131, Kindle Edition). Also in Mother Kirk: “God has given His people great and precious promises, but He has not given them to us as isolated individuals. His promises are to us, and to our children after us (Acts 2:39). We gather in the presence of the Lord household by household, generation after generation (Acts 16:15; Lk. 1:50). We, therefore, affirm, with much gratitude, the doctrine of covenantal succession.” (Douglas Wilson, Mother Kirk: Essays on Church Life, Canon Press, 2001, p. 47, Kindle Edition.) ↩
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https://web.archive.org/web/20241211164947/https://www.reformedontheweb.com/miscellaneous/evangelizing-our-children-e-calvin-beisner.pdf ↩
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The complete quote: “We accept covenant children as having a true heart of faith, and we teach them how to grow from immature faith to a more mature faith, unless and until works of the flesh make their lack of regeneration manifest to all.” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, Canon Press, 2013, p. 34, Kindle Edition.) ↩