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The blog’s regular readers may recall that some time ago I wrote a post entitled Answering Scott Brown’s Challenge Concerning Age Segregated Education (back in august of 2014). This post sought to publicly notify Scott about a series of articles I had written in response to his own assertions that he had never heard a Biblical defense of age segregated education and that this was because there was no case that could be made. Then, after repeated attempts to contact Scott to let him now about the articles and to challenge him either to respond or to retract his assertions, I followed up with a post entitled Will Scott Brown Answer My Challenge?

Well, almost three years have gone by now, and I have yet to see any response from him. Should I then conclude, as he has done, that not hearing a public, Biblical defense of someone’s position is due to the fact that that there simply is no credible defense that may be offered?

Published by Keith Throop

I am currently serving as the primary teaching elder of Immanuel Baptist Church in Bloomington, Illinois, where I have been since 1993. My fellow-elders are George Drye, Brent Flint, and Ben Murphy, each of whom also resides in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Together, by the grace of God, we make up one pretty good pastor! I received my B.A. in Biblical Studies from Columbia Bible College (now Columbia International University) in Columbia, South Carolina. And I received my M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. And, by the way, my last name has a silent 'h' and is pronounced 'troop.'

4 thoughts on “Apparently Scott Brown Will Never Respond to the Case He Said Could Not Be Made”

  1. I’d like to see the articles you mentioned. Are they on the Internet somewhere or must they be purchased? Thanks.

    Reply

    1. Scott Brown had said that he had never seen a Biblical case made for age segregated education in churches, and he said that the reason for this was that no case could be made. I made a case in a series of articles and then challenged him to respond, repeatedly, which he never did, despite my repeated postings and efforts to contact him. It is a three part series of articles entitled “Is Age Segregated Sunday school Biblical?” They may be found here on the blog:

      https://reformedbaptistblog.com/?s=age+segregated+sunday+school

      This article offers some information about the background of the debate and also lists the links to the articles, although I just saw they still point to the older version of the blog, which I will try to fix today:

      https://reformedbaptistblog.com/2014/08/14/answering-scott-browns-challenge-concerning-age-segregated-education/

      I welcome your feedback. 🙂

      Reply

      1. Pastor Keith,

        I appreciate you taking the time to make those available to me. I read the first two carefully and scanned the third. At some point I will try to read it more carefully as well. I do not think this issue is a hill to die on. My stance on it is probably somewhere between Timothy Paul Jones and Voddie Baucham. I agreed with most of your individual points. However, I’m not sure you convinced me that systematic age segregation is biblical. I need to think on it some more.

        I’d like to mention a couple of things. You almost make it sound like FIC parents are trying to keep their kids out of church and out from under the authority of church leaders. The few FIC people I have been exposed to are quite the opposite. They want their kids in church and they want them to learn from biblically qualified leaders. They just want to be a part of that learning process rather than turning their kids loose in a room full of other kids. It could well be that I just haven’t been exposed to a proper representation of the movement.

        The second thought I have is really just pragmatic. You talked about the elders of a church designating their authority to teach to other members. I have no problem with that. However, when I observe evangelical churches today, what that becomes in practical terms is: “let’s find any willing, warm body to teach ‘class X’ so we can keep adding new classes and so grow the church.” Ultimately, in many cases, the age segregated Sunday school ends up being almost a consumeristic endeavor rather than a way of making disciples under biblical leadership. I’m not sure how that is better than letting families stay together under the teaching of an elder or other qualified teacher.

        I noticed in a comment that you told someone your church does not have “children’s church.” I’m not sure why you are okay with age segregated SS but not with children’s church. However, I applaud you for keeping kids in the service. I think that model best reflects the picture we see in Scripture. I wish my church functioned that way.

        Thanks again for giving me access to your articles. I enjoyed them and will try to look over them again.
        Blessings to you.
        Scott

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