Baptism and babies

[ArmyMatt]

Would you baptize a severely retarded person or one with advanced dementia?

yes.

 

[Light of the East]

We disagree. Let me guess, proper = agree with you?

As I could say for your position, for 30 years I was a member of a church that practiced infant baptism, and had my own two baptized as infants, I now regret.

'

You say "agree with you" as if I am the authority and sole teacher of the principles of covenant theology. This goes back a long time before I was even here on earth. I studied this idea deeply for a number of years, taking the principles and applying them to scripture to see if they fit.

The best book on Covenant Theology is Ray Sutton's book THAT YOU MAY PROSPER. And no, he isn't Catholic or Orthodox. He wrote this as a Reformed Episcopalian bishop, which he is today. The only problem with his book is that he treats the covenant as a contract, which is Calvinistic. IN the Covenant of God, it is relationship, and the Bible uses the analogy of the most intimate relationship you can have - marriage and the nuptial bed. The language is very precise.

You sound like someone who grew up in a liturgical Protestant church, didn't know squat about your religion (like most of them) and then got "converted" by some fast-talking Tennessee Windsucker in a polyesther suit. Kinda like me.

 

[East of Eden]

'

You say "agree with you" as if I am the authority and sole teacher of the principles of covenant theology. This goes back a long time before I was even here on earth. I studied this idea deeply for a number of years, taking the principles and applying them to scripture to see if they fit.

The best book on Covenant Theology is Ray Sutton's book THAT YOU MAY PROSPER. And no, he isn't Catholic or Orthodox. He wrote this as a Reformed Episcopalian bishop, which he is today. The only problem with his book is that he treats the covenant as a contract, which is Calvinistic. IN the Covenant of God, it is relationship, and the Bible uses the analogy of the most intimate relationship you can have - marriage and the nuptial bed. The language is very precise.

I can't argue with that, but how can a two week old infant have such a relationship?

You sound like someone who grew up in a liturgical Protestant church, didn't know squat about your religion (like most of them)

Agreed, despite their infant baptism. So what good is the covenant?

and then got "converted" by some fast-talking Tennessee Windsucker in a polyesther suit. Kinda like me.

The opposite is true, I grew up in Wheaton, IL, at the time called the evangelical Mecca, went to Christian schools, Wheaton Bible Church, many of our neighbors were Wheaton College professors. There was a lot of movement then, and maybe now, towards liturgical churches (see Prof. Robert Webber's "Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail"), I became Episcopalian despite what was I'm sure my evangelical parent's objections, later moving to the ACNA Anglican world (I believe Ray Sutton is affiliated with them). For various reasons I'm attending a Southern Baptist Church, which I'm really liking. Solid Bible-based preaching and the Great Commission is being fulfilled and lives are being changed.

 

[Justin-H.S.]

I can't argue with that, but how can a two week old infant have such a relationship?

Two week olds don't get baptized. It's usually further down the line like...4 months old because by that time they've begun to start recognizing faces, and if you're a practicing Christian, the Christian life of Church and prayer, sights, sounds, and smells. The first time we put him up to the icons to venerate, he cried. Now, he opens his mouth and slobbers on them. We as his parents, facilitate that relationship the same way we facilitate his relationship with grandparents and uncles and aunts. That's our God-given duty.

Agreed, despite their infant baptism. So what good is the covenant?

Parents (are supposed to) bring them up in the faith. A lot of parents don't anymore. They expect taking their kids to Sunday School 1 day a week is sufficient to cover the rest of the week. They outsource everything to specialists.

The opposite is true, I grew up in Wheaton, IL, at the time called the evangelical Mecca, went to Christian schools, Wheaton Bible Church, many of our neighbors were Wheaton College professors. There was a lot of movement then, and maybe now, towards liturgical churches (see Prof. Robert Webber's "Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail"), I became Episcopalian despite what was I'm sure my evangelical parent's objections, later moving to the ACNA Anglican world (I believe Ray Sutton is affiliated with them).

Did you become Episcopalian because it was the trend or because you were convinced of it?

For various reasons I'm attending a Southern Baptist Church, which I'm really liking. Solid Bible-based preaching and the Great Commission is being fulfilled and lives are being changed.

I bet I know what those various reasons are, but we'll leave socio-political issues out of this. From one extreme to another.

 

[Light of the East]

QUOTE="East of Eden

I can't argue with that, but how can a two week old infant have such a relationship?

Perhaps the relationship develops, like a marriage relationship. The point is that the principle is that the child is in a relationship with the covenant community and grows into it. There comes a point in time, if the child has been catechised at home (something that far, far too many parents do not do!) that a time comes for the child to embrace the covenant and the covenant community for him/herself. In Judaism, this is Bar Mitzvah/Bat Mitzvah. In the Roman Church, this is called Confirmation, where the child is expected, having attained the "age of reason," to respond to the faith with an affirmation. Orthodoxy does not have such a ceremony, and I believe that is a serious lack in terms of covenant principles as laid out in the OT.

Agreed, despite their infant baptism. So what good is the covenant?

The covenant is a relationship in which one belongs to another. The most used analogy in Scripture regarding covenant is marriage. God spoke to national Israel as being His bride. The same language applies in the NT where the Church is called the Bride of Christ. This is very intimate language because it is the language of the newly wed which looks forward to an intimate consummation of the marital covenant in the nuptial bed. Such intimacy is a picture of the intimate relationship of Christ to His Bride, the Church. By entering covenant with Christ, we enjoy all the priviledges and perks of belonging to Him. Surely you realize that a wife enjoys a far better, more intimate, more protective relationship with her husband than just any woman on the street?

The opposite is true, I grew up in Wheaton, IL, at the time called the evangelical Mecca, went to Christian schools, Wheaton Bible Church, many of our neighbors were Wheaton College professors. There was a lot of movement then, and maybe now, towards liturgical churches (see Prof. Robert Webber's "Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail"), I became Episcopalian despite what was I'm sure my evangelical parent's objections, later moving to the ACNA Anglican world (I believe Ray Sutton is affiliated with them). For various reasons I'm attending a Southern Baptist Church, which I'm really liking. Solid Bible-based preaching and the Great Commission is being fulfilled and lives are being changed.

I would kindly but firmly challenge that last statement about Bible-based preaching. If they do not believe the words of our Lord in John 6 where He stated that one must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, and this was believed from the very beginning (hint: it is not a Roman Catholic invention as the Chick tracts I read used to tell me), then no, they are not Bible-based. If they do not have priests who administer the forgiveness of covenant violations by hearing Confession, they are not Bible-based. (John 20:23) That's just two of many I could point out. Acts 2:38, baptism for the forgiveness of sins, right there in the verse, is another.

The problem is that every Protestant denomination insists that it is "Bible-based" and yet none of them agree with each other on many specific and important issues. This simply cannot be. Is the Holy Spirit that schizophrenic??? Yes, I know....you will say that all the others are simply wrong in their interpretation, and they will say the same thing about you, yet neither of y'all hold to the interpretation which is spoken of and preached about by the Early Fathers of the Church. There is an old saying: "The nearer the spring to the source, the purer the water." Y'all are 1600+ years from the source and do not agree with the very first Christians, yet you claim you are "Bible-based." What you are is simply "our interpretation of the Bible" based, and your interpretation does not match the words of Christ nor of the first Christians.

I will, however, agree with the last part of that sentence, that lives are being changed. It wasn't the Orthodox OR the Roman Catholics who came to my door seeking to help me out of my drug abuse and hedonistic lifestyle that was killing me. It was the Evangelicals who had Jesus Coffee Houses and hit the streets with tracts. It was my Protestant friend from high school who took the time to come to my house after his conversion and try to get me saved. I should have listened to him, but I was demon-possessed at the time and it would take a few more years for me to come to a Pentecostal Bible Study where I was prayed over and freed from the demons who possesssed me. Within days I notice that the lingering effects of LSD which were driving me mad were GONE!! My heart had peace for the first time.

Meanwhile, the Orthodox were busy making periogies and the Roman Catholics were holding hands and singing "Kumbya Lord" while their priests were diddling altar boys.

Attitude? Yes, I'm sorry, but I do have a bit of attitude. In fact, a considerable attitude. I would be dead and in hell for the last 50 years if it weren't for the Protestants who helped me. If the Early Church acted like the Orthodox and Roman Catholics today, the Church would have never grown and would have stayed a Greek and Latin social club. Try getting your average Orthodox or Roman Catholic to go out door-to-door to meet people and talk with them about the Lord. Fat chance!!

I have tried to get an evangelistic movement started in my parish. Hah!! It's a Ukrainian social club with theology, and not very good theology at that. They don't even know who they are.

The world is dying all around us and we are playing church instead of dying to ourselves that the world might have life.

And for those who I have offended with this post - I'm sorry, but you might as well know the truth of my feelings rather than me playing nicey-nice. The Christian faith in the world is a mess. We desperatedly need a revival that will send us out into the highways and byways to bring them in, as the old Gospel hymn goes. And I am first among sinners and first in needing that revival.

Over and out.

 

[Justin-H.S.]

This is just a theory, and more than likely not an original one regarding the Reformed Baptists insistence on "believers baptism" is that the Baptists have pretty much got rid of any outward expression of the faith: sign of the cross, venerating icons, weekly communion, smells, bells, etc. The only thing they really have left are private prayer and reading the Bible, which we have also but are somewhat more "advanced" (as in a 5 year old can't pick up a Bible and start reading it with any kind of understanding unless he is taught).

So, from the Baptists point of view, baptism has to be a believers baptism because small children can't just read the Bible and determine what is being said, and they got rid of any outward signs of the faith that traditional Christians still practice. These traditions are all signs that children can do: venerating icons, making the sign of the cross, etc.

Baptists don't have these traditions that children can do to show their faith, so the Baptist faith turned into a mental ascent, and that's why they insist that children have to first believe in order to be baptized.

All this "has to be scriptural" stuff is just ad hoc reasoning and justification for the lack of any visible signs of the faith.

Although, I've seen Baptists wear a "Team Jesus" t-shirt to show their faith even though that isn't scriptural, either so in the end what has to be "Scriptural" is entirely up to the person using that standard. The Bible doesn't tell parents to send kids to Vacation Bible School, and yet they do.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Two week olds don't get baptized. It's usually further down the line like...4 months old because by that time they've begun to start recognizing faces

it's actually at 40 days, not 4 months

 

[Justin-H.S.]

it's actually at 40 days, not 4 months

There was the eighth day churching, and then the 40 days was when my wife came back to the church, which incidentally was Holy Saturday. His baptism will be when he's a couple days short of 4 months old.

 

[ArmyMatt]

There was the eighth day churching, and then the 40 days was when my wife came back to the church, which incidentally was Holy Saturday. His baptism will be when he's a couple days short of 4 months old.

usually the churching, mom coming back, and the baptism happen on the 40th day. 8th day is the naming prayers.

 

[East of Eden]

Two week olds don't get baptized. It's usually further down the line like...4 months old because by that time they've begun to start recognizing faces, and if you're a practicing Christian, the Christian life of Church and prayer, sights, sounds, and smells. The first time we put him up to the icons to venerate, he cried. Now, he opens his mouth and slobbers on them. We as his parents, facilitate that relationship the same way we facilitate his relationship with grandparents and uncles and aunts. That's our God-given duty.

Does he listen to sermons too? What does slobbering on an icon have to do with being born again?

Did you become Episcopalian because it was the trend or because you were convinced of it?

At the time I was convinced, it may have been part reaction to legalism in my upbringing. Now the church has swung in the opposite problem.

I bet I know what those various reasons are, but we'll leave socio-political issues out of this. From one extreme to another.

What was socio-political? ACNA is a fairly conservative group, but whatever, I've been boycotting politics since the election for my own sanity.

 

[East of Eden]

This is just a theory, and more than likely not an original one regarding the Reformed Baptists insistence on "believers baptism" is that the Baptists have pretty much got rid of any outward expression of the faith: sign of the cross, venerating icons, weekly communion, smells, bells, etc. The only thing they really have left are private prayer and reading the Bible, which we have also but are somewhat more "advanced" (as in a 5 year old can't pick up a Bible and start reading it with any kind of understanding unless he is taught).

So, from the Baptists point of view, baptism has to be a believers baptism because small children can't just read the Bible and determine what is being said, and they got rid of any outward signs of the faith that traditional Christians still practice. These traditions are all signs that children can do: venerating icons, making the sign of the cross, etc.

Baptists don't have these traditions that children can do to show their faith, so the Baptist faith turned into a mental ascent, and that's why they insist that children have to first believe in order to be baptized.

All this "has to be scriptural" stuff is just ad hoc reasoning and justification for the lack of any visible signs of the faith.

Although, I've seen Baptists wear a "Team Jesus" t-shirt to show their faith even though that isn't scriptural, either so in the end what has to be "Scriptural" is entirely up to the person using that standard. The Bible doesn't tell parents to send kids to Vacation Bible School, and yet they do.

Yes, it should be Scriptural, the pattern in the NT is conversion, then baptism. Like the RCC, the Orthodox seem to hold their traditions even with or superior to Scripture. I won't even get into Jesus' siblings........

 

[East of Eden]

QUOTE="East of Eden

I can't argue with that, but how can a two week old infant have such a relationship?

Perhaps the relationship develops, like a marriage relationship. The point is that the principle is that the child is in a relationship with the covenant community and grows into it. There comes a point in time, if the child has been catechised at home (something that far, far too many parents do not do!) that a time comes for the child to embrace the covenant and the covenant community for him/herself. In Judaism, this is Bar Mitzvah/Bat Mitzvah. In the Roman Church, this is called Confirmation, where the child is expected, having attained the "age of reason," to respond to the faith with an affirmation. Orthodoxy does not have such a ceremony, and I believe that is a serious lack in terms of covenant principles as laid out in the OT.

Agreed, despite their infant baptism. So what good is the covenant?

The covenant is a relationship in which one belongs to another. The most used analogy in Scripture regarding covenant is marriage. God spoke to national Israel as being His bride. The same language applies in the NT where the Church is called the Bride of Christ. This is very intimate language because it is the language of the newly wed which looks forward to an intimate consummation of the marital covenant in the nuptial bed. Such intimacy is a picture of the intimate relationship of Christ to His Bride, the Church. By entering covenant with Christ, we enjoy all the priviledges and perks of belonging to Him. Surely you realize that a wife enjoys a far better, more intimate, more protective relationship with her husband than just any woman on the street?

The opposite is true, I grew up in Wheaton, IL, at the time called the evangelical Mecca, went to Christian schools, Wheaton Bible Church, many of our neighbors were Wheaton College professors. There was a lot of movement then, and maybe now, towards liturgical churches (see Prof. Robert Webber's "Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail"), I became Episcopalian despite what was I'm sure my evangelical parent's objections, later moving to the ACNA Anglican world (I believe Ray Sutton is affiliated with them). For various reasons I'm attending a Southern Baptist Church, which I'm really liking. Solid Bible-based preaching and the Great Commission is being fulfilled and lives are being changed.

I would kindly but firmly challenge that last statement about Bible-based preaching. If they do not believe the words of our Lord in John 6 where He stated that one must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, and this was believed from the very beginning (hint: it is not a Roman Catholic invention as the Chick tracts I read used to tell me), then no, they are not Bible-based. If they do not have priests who administer the forgiveness of covenant violations by hearing Confession, they are not Bible-based. (John 20:23) That's just two of many I could point out. Acts 2:38, baptism for the forgiveness of sins, right there in the verse, is another.

The problem is that every Protestant denomination insists that it is "Bible-based" and yet none of them agree with each other on many specific and important issues. This simply cannot be. Is the Holy Spirit that schizophrenic??? Yes, I know....you will say that all the others are simply wrong in their interpretation, and they will say the same thing about you, yet neither of y'all hold to the interpretation which is spoken of and preached about by the Early Fathers of the Church. There is an old saying: "The nearer the spring to the source, the purer the water." Y'all are 1600+ years from the source and do not agree with the very first Christians, yet you claim you are "Bible-based." What you are is simply "our interpretation of the Bible" based, and your interpretation does not match the words of Christ nor of the first Christians.

I will, however, agree with the last part of that sentence, that lives are being changed. It wasn't the Orthodox OR the Roman Catholics who came to my door seeking to help me out of my drug abuse and hedonistic lifestyle that was killing me. It was the Evangelicals who had Jesus Coffee Houses and hit the streets with tracts. It was my Protestant friend from high school who took the time to come to my house after his conversion and try to get me saved. I should have listened to him, but I was demon-possessed at the time and it would take a few more years for me to come to a Pentecostal Bible Study where I was prayed over and freed from the demons who possesssed me. Within days I notice that the lingering effects of LSD which were driving me mad were GONE!! My heart had peace for the first time.

Meanwhile, the Orthodox were busy making periogies and the Roman Catholics were holding hands and singing "Kumbya Lord" while their priests were diddling altar boys.

Attitude? Yes, I'm sorry, but I do have a bit of attitude. In fact, a considerable attitude. I would be dead and in hell for the last 50 years if it weren't for the Protestants who helped me. If the Early Church acted like the Orthodox and Roman Catholics today, the Church would have never grown and would have stayed a Greek and Latin social club. Try getting your average Orthodox or Roman Catholic to go out door-to-door to meet people and talk with them about the Lord. Fat chance!!

I have tried to get an evangelistic movement started in my parish. Hah!! It's a Ukrainian social club with theology, and not very good theology at that. They don't even know who they are.

The world is dying all around us and we are playing church instead of dying to ourselves that the world might have life.

And for those who I have offended with this post - I'm sorry, but you might as well know the truth of my feelings rather than me playing nicey-nice. The Christian faith in the world is a mess. We desperatedly need a revival that will send us out into the highways and byways to bring them in, as the old Gospel hymn goes. And I am first among sinners and first in needing that revival.

Over and out.

No offense taken, that's what the forum is for. Yes, Bible based churches differ on things, so do liturgical churches. As the reformers said, in essentials unity, in non-essentials charity, in all things love. IMHO most believers worldwide of whatever church pretty much agree on the essentials of the faith agree on the essentials of the faith, as expressed in the Creeds for example, I'm not talking here about cults like Mormons and JWs.

Your point about RCC and Orthodox churches sometimes being social clubs I found to be true in the Anglican world as well, even the conservative churches often. It was like a WASP ethnic social club, with their Shrove Tuesday pancake suppers, etc. that a dying world couldn't care less about. I was on the vestry at my last church, we would have endless vestry meetings (how many meetings did Jesus have?). I suggested to our rector maybe he and I walk the neighborhood behind the church, knock on doors and say, "We're from X church over there, is there anything we can pray about for you and your family for the next month?" That went nowhere, the church I'm speaking of continues to dwindle as older members die off. One story about an Episcopal Church which would be funny if it wasn't so sad tells of it being suggested to a congregation that they evangelize their town, their response was why? Everyone who is an Episcopalian already goes to our church. I found the same idiotic attitude at a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church I attended for a few years, reaching out to the town wasn't needed, don't you see, Lutherans already went to our church, Methodists to theirs, etc. Like there weren't any lost people in town. Is it just possible these lifeless churches bearing little fruit are exactly what Jesus condemned in Revelation, the ones He said He would spew out of His mouth?

Meanwhile, time is short, and hell is hot.

I can see why the RCC cares nothing about the Great Commission, what with their recent infatuation with universalism. Why bother?

I don't totally disagree with your points about communion, confession, etc., my thing is someone dead in their sins, as it sounds like you may have been, who through an evangelical church outreach has been totally transformed into a new creation in Christ, doesn't really care about finer theological points, including this thread topic. They pale in comparison to his becoming born again, with sins forgiven and heaven's gates open wide.

So that's one reason I left the Anglican world, their cultural traditions, while valued and familiar to them, are simply unneeded baggage to a lost world while presenting the Gospel, as someone once did to you. There's something wrong with a church who only adds new members through birth or transfer, it was certainly not the pattern of the NT church, and it isn't the pattern of much of the Two-thirds world today, which is seeing explosive church growth comparable to NT times.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Yes, it should be Scriptural, the pattern in the NT is conversion, then baptism. Like the RCC, the Orthodox seem to hold their traditions even with or superior to Scripture. I won't even get into Jesus' siblings........

if it should be Scriptural, and belief comes first, why did you define belief in a way not found in the Scriptures?

 

[East of Eden]

if it should be Scriptural, and belief comes first, why did you define belief in a way not found in the Scriptures?

I have no clue what you're talking about.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I have no clue what you're talking about.

you defined belief earlier in this thread. how you defined it isn't Scriptural.

 

[Valletta]

Yes, it should be Scriptural, the pattern in the NT is conversion, then baptism. Like the RCC, the Orthodox seem to hold their traditions even with or superior to Scripture. I won't even get into Jesus' siblings........

We all should hold fast to the Word of God, whether Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture.

 

[Ezana]

We all should hold fast to the Word of God, whether Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture.

Right, but there's no dichotomy between the two. Holy Scripture is Holy Tradition.

 

[Valletta]

Yes, it should be Scriptural, the pattern in the NT is conversion, then baptism. Like the RCC, the Orthodox seem to hold their traditions even with or superior to Scripture. I won't even get into Jesus' siblings........

The Word of God is not "superior" to the Word of God, whether written or by mouth.

 

[ArmyMatt]

The Word of God is not "superior" to the Word of God, whether written or by mouth.

that's what St Paul says

 

[Justin-H.S.]

usually the churching, mom coming back, and the baptism happen on the 40th day. 8th day is the naming prayers.

I just know mine will be baptized in two weeks.