Should one get re-baptized if they were baptized as a child?

[Polar Bear Quest]

As a child I was baptized in church but I was too young to really know about God. As I grew up I slowly moved away from God and eventually became an atheist. I turned my life around a few years ago and came back to God and am wondering should I be re-baptized.

 

[JoeP222w]

As a child I was baptized in church but I was too young to really know about God. As I grew up I slowly moved away from God and eventually became an atheist. I turned my life around a few years ago and came back to God and am wondering should I be re-baptized.

Since you did not know God at an early age, by your own admission, you were not baptized as a child. You merely got wet.

If you get baptized now, professing faith in Jesus Christ, you are not getting "re-baptized" but baptized for the first time.

 

[dysert]

Throughout the Bible, baptism is done for adults after their profession of faith. It's an outward sign of an inward change. Since you didn't know what you were doing when you were "baptized" as a child, I think the biblical answer is that you should get baptized as an adult, now that you can profess your allegiance to Jesus Christ.

 

[joshua 1 9]

As a child I was baptized in church but I was too young to really know about God. As I grew up I slowly moved away from God and eventually became an atheist. I turned my life around a few years ago and came back to God and am wondering should I be re-baptized.

Adult baptism is different from child baptism. As a child the parents, Godparents and church family makes a commitment to do all they can to raise the child as a Christian. As an adult we make a commitment ourselves.

 

[Ken Rank]

As a child I was baptized in church but I was too young to really know about God. As I grew up I slowly moved away from God and eventually became an atheist. I turned my life around a few years ago and came back to God and am wondering should I be re-baptized.

My personal view is yes. You'll get many different answers here but I think it comes down to this. Baptism is a picture of being immersed into the death of Christ and coming out of the water a picture of being raised to walk in the newness of life. We do this because we have confessed our sins and submitted to him as Lord. Neither of these concepts (confessing sin, submitting to the Lordship of another) is something we can grasp as a child and certainly not as a baby. Therefore, if we make this life altering decisions as an adult, it makes sense then, especially in light of verses like Acts 2:38, that baptism be done when we make that confession and submission.

A side note... even in Jewish culture, which is really what we are dealing with in the NT (Yeshua and the early disciples were Jewish, after all)..... a child might have been circumcised as an infant but he wasn't considered part of the nation, he wasn't counted in the census, until he was an adult.

 

[Daniel9v9]

Well, as I'm sure you are aware of, there are regrettably different views on baptism. There is a lot that can be said, but my main encouragement would be to:

1. Read everything the Bible has to say about baptism and being born again.
A few verses I would highlight are: Mark 16:16 Galatians 3:27 John 3:5 Ephesians 4:5 Matthew 28:19

2. Providing we are baptised into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - there is no need for further baptisms, and neither is there any evidence for multiple baptisms (into the triune God) in Scripture, nor historically speaking. The early church explicitly recognized only one baptism and opposed multiple baptisms.

Baptism is not our own work for salvation, but it rests in God's promise of salvation, which is a free gift according to God's grace, apprehended by faith.

In other words, you only have to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

I don't know if any of this helps at all, but I'm happy to clarify

 

[Albion]

As a child I was baptized in church but I was too young to really know about God. As I grew up I slowly moved away from God and eventually became an atheist. I turned my life around a few years ago and came back to God and am wondering should I be re-baptized.

No. In fact, you cannot be re-baptised since baptism is a once for all times event. Some churches will go through the motions, it's true, but unless there was something defective in the original baptism, such as it being done with Coca-Cola or in the name of some other God, it's done.

You CAN, however, reaffirm the vows your sponsors took on your behalf when you were a child or even receive the rite of Confirmation, depending on the church involved, which does this same thing.

 

[FireDragon76]

No, and in fact my religious tradition would not knowingly rebaptized someone who had a valid baptism as a child. We would consider it sacrilegious to do so, for much the same reasons that Albion points out.

Lutherans baptized both children and adults, but child baptism is normative for us. We do not have a voluntaristic or intellectual notion of faith, and we consider faith a gift, so it is normal for us to want to share that faith with the people we naturally love the most, our own children. We have a deeper spirituality of baptism than some churches that see it as only a profession of faith.

So you should not be rebaptized. Just accept the faith you were adopted into as a child, that you are maturing into it as a Christian. Do not let anybody convince you that your baptism was not valid.

Wandering away from God is not that rare for a Christian. But the fact we seem to wander away from God does not mean that God wanders away from us. In baptism, God makes a promise to us, that we belong to him. We can reject that promise for ourselves and walk away from faith, but that doesn't change the reality that a promise was made for us.

 

[SkyWriting]

No. In fact, you cannot be re-baptised since baptism is a once for all times event. Some churches will go through the motions, it's true, but unless there was something defective in the original baptism, such as it being done with Coca-Cola or in the name of some other God, it's done.

You CAN, however, reaffirm the vows your sponsors took on your behalf when you were a child or even receive the rite of Confirmation, depending on the church involved, which does this same thing.

Unless you feel a desire to be baptized again.
If one feels that desire, they should switch
to a church that allows it.

 

[grasping the after wind]

As you can see there are differing thoughts on this depending upon one's denomination and one's thought process. I do not see the necessity of as someone put it "getting wet" again. IMO Baptism is not really about the symbolic event but about the internal change. If you have already been symbolically baptized your spiritual baptism i.e. joining of the family of Christ by submitting to the authority of Christ as your Lord and Savior, ought to be sufficient. However, if it is meaningful to you to undergo a second symbolic as well as a spiritual baptism I see nothing wrong in that. In my denomination, your original symbolic baptism holds real significance as welcoming you into the Body of Christ and we practice "one Baptism" so you would be discouraged from doing it again. However, as many other people in my denomination and I suspect is the case in other denominations, I do not always agree with the official stance of my denomination as to what we need do or need not do.

 

[Albion]

Unless you feel a desire to be baptized again.
If one feels that desire, they should switch
to a church that allows it.

As I said, there are some churches that go through the motions, and you are saying that if a person "feels" like he needs it, he should find one and duplicate a sacrament that cannot be duplicated but only imitated. Something like getting a new small pox inoculation every week because you want extra protection.

I find that a difficult line of argument to sustain, not to mention the recommendation that anyone shop around until he finds a church that will do what he wants, regardless.

 

[SkyWriting]

As I said, there are some churches that go through the motions and you are saying that if a person "feels" like he needs it, he should find one and duplicate a sacrament that cannot be duplicated but only imitated. I find that a difficult line of argument to sustain, not to mention the recommendation that anyone shop around until he finds a church that will do what he wants, regardless.

There are no churches that "go through the motions" to please anybody.
Baptist churches are not rare.
Shop around till you find a church that fits you and your beliefs.
Learning about other denominations and even other churches
within a denomination is big therapy for everyone.

 

[Albion]

They do go 'through the motions,' however, to the extent that they will re-enact a perfectly valid baptism conducted in a church that happens to be of a different denomination. We do not baptise people into any denomination, even if people like to talk that way ("I was baptized Lutheran" or "I was baptised Catholic"). We are baptized into Christ's church and once you are "in," you are in.

That said, "go through the motions" may be an unkind way of putting it, I agree.

P.S. It's interesting to see a pie chart constructed so as to make the Baptists look as though they constitute the largest Christian denomination. LOL

 

[FireDragon76]

I find that a difficult line of argument to sustain, not to mention the recommendation that anyone shop around until he finds a church that will do what he wants, regardless.

Indeed. A healthy respect for spiritual authority is a good thing. We should also consider whether rebaptism is obeying the commandment to honor our parents, who chose to do what they saw as best for us. Rather than negating our past spiritual journey, we can honor it and build on it. Anabaptism fails to honor that altogether.

I consider myself lucky I was only baptized is a child at age 2 1/2, and despite wandering through evangelicalism as a teenager, I was never baptized again. Once I had a Methodist pastor sit me down and he explained why it was wrong to do so, despite feeling pressure that my original baptism was not right. On further research on my own, I came to see the wisdom of his decision. Baptism is about what God does, not about what we do.

 

[grasping the after wind]

As I said, there are some churches that go through the motions, and you are saying that if a person "feels" like he needs it, he should find one and duplicate a sacrament that cannot be duplicated but only imitated. Something like getting a new small pox inoculation every week because you want extra protection.

I find that a difficult line of argument to sustain, not to mention the recommendation that anyone shop around until he finds a church that will do what he wants, regardless.

I and others have a problem with the idea that some kind of magic takes place in the trappings of a Sacrament. I am sure you agree that God does not need the symbols to accomplish His ends nor does He do the bidding of people because they say the right words or make the correct gestures. Unfortunately , there seems to be many people that think this is the case. They seem to think that by performing a ritual, God is bound to favor them and so their whole religious life revolves around making sure certain rituals take place while ignoring the religion the rest of the time. He is not bound by the sprinkling of water, the sprinkling of water is an outward sign of an inward change. If there is no spiritual component the ritual hold no more weight than being caught in a summer shower. Baptism is from God not from the rituals of men. However, the rituals hold significance in that seeing an outward sign that reflects the inward change we are reassured and we more easily recognize the significance of what is happening. Repeating those rituals does not IMO harm anyone nor necessarily disrespect the real Baptism that takes place through the Holy Spirit and not through or being necessitated by a ritual. In the case of infant baptism, I can see the point of those that do not consider that they received the Holy Spirit since they have no recollection of it happening. It is not my understanding or that of my denomination, but I can see someone's point without agreeing with it and recognizing that their POV is not based upon something ridiculous or malignant makes me less likely to condemn it.

 

[FireDragon76]

Sacramentalism can be hard to accept because it deeply offends human pride. To think a little baby is as much a Christian as an adult with a masters of divinity, is indeed scandalous to those with intellectual pride, as it should be. After all, our Savior instructed us to receive the Kingdom as little children, or we would not enter it.

 

[Radagast]

As a child I was baptized in church but I was too young to really know about God. As I grew up I slowly moved away from God and eventually became an atheist. I turned my life around a few years ago and came back to God and am wondering should I be re-baptized.

The answer is dependent on denomination. So ask your pastor.

 

[dreadnought]

As a child I was baptized in church but I was too young to really know about God. As I grew up I slowly moved away from God and eventually became an atheist. I turned my life around a few years ago and came back to God and am wondering should I be re-baptized.

I was baptized as an infant and have never felt it necessary to be re-baptized. It's hard to believe I'd be burned throughout all eternity because I didn't get baptized as as adult. But then, what harm would it do to get baptized again?