Baptizing babies, versus baptizing believers.

As I wrote yesterday, when I was a baby I was baptized. My grandparents’ church believed in the practice of baptizing babies. The formal term for this is pedobaptism, although frequently—even among Americans!—you’re gonna see the British spelling and pronunciation, paedobaptism 'pi.doʊ.bæp.tɪ.zəm Mainly because, I suspect, when you talk about pedo– anything, people immediately think of pedophilia, and we’re not going there. But paedo– stuff reminds people of pediatricians, and they’re okay! So let’s talk paedobaptism then.

Baby baptism, or infant baptism, is the standard in older churches. They figure we, as Christians, have a covenant with God. And exactly like the ancient Israelis, part of that covenant obligates us to make sure our descendants grow up to follow God. The Israelis (and the Jews today) ritually circumcised their baby boys as their way of declaring, “This kid’s gonna grow up to follow God,” so paedobaptists baptize their baby boys and girls as a way of declaring the very same thing.

It took a few centuries for baby baptism to become the standard, but it’s locked in now. Orthodox, Catholics, and Ethiopians do it; Lutherans, Anglicans, and Moravians do it; and some Presbyterians, Methodists, Nazarenes, and Congregationalists do it—it’s become a controversy in their churches. The reason for the controversy is the Anabaptist movement. The ana– prefix means “re–,” because all the first Anabaptists were originally baptized as babies, figured that didn’t count, and got re-baptized.

The Anabaptists started in the early 1500s: A number of central European churches decided one shouldn’t be baptized until we make a conscious decision to follow Jesus. It’s a view which kinda makes sense—why baptize a baby who may grow up to never follow Jesus? I mean, your parents might intend to raise you Christian, but you have other ideas… and for that matter, your parents might change their minds and raise you as nothing whatsoever, much as some of my Christian family members have.

Perhaps you’ve encountered this phenomenon—I certainly have—where people don’t follow Jesus at all, yet imagine they’re Christian because their parents had ’em baptized. So if you ask ’em, they’ll tell you, “Oh, I believe in Jesus”—but they don’t know what he teaches, don’t produce good fruit, aren’t religious at all, and aren’t even good people. In what way are they Christian? Well they were baptized.

Anabaptist churches still exist, but the Anabaptist idea of believer baptism (or if you wanna use the formal term, credobaptism) was adopted by lots of Protestant churches. Namely the Baptists. And like I said, it’s become a controversy among some Protestants: Some of the churches which still do baby baptism have a noisy faction which wants ’em to stop it. Presbyterian churches especially; Jean Calvin believed in baby baptism, but a whole lot of Presbyterians have adopted the Anabaptist view.

I was baptized Catholic, but I was raised in believer-baptism churches, and still go to those churches. So my custom is believer baptism. The Anabaptist view is what I was taught, it’s what I’m pretty sure the scriptures encourage, and I think it makes way more sense.

But honestly… I read Calvin’s Institutes. I can see the point of view of those Christians who prefer baby baptism. And if there’s deliberately a later ritual in which those people who were baptized as babies can confirm they really do intend to follow Jesus… I don’t really have a problem with it. The important thing is you’re following Jesus. If you’re not, neither type of baptism matters, ’cause you’re not Christian!

I know, I know; it’s a controversy, so people are gonna demand I take sides, and preferably theirs. And demand I get enraged at the folks on the other side. Nope! Follow Jesus either way, and I don’t have a problem. Escalate this debate into a holy war, and I have a big problem—with you.

Those who do escalate things.

The first Anabaptists got serious pushback—from both Roman Catholics, and fellow Protestants who still baptized babies. To the paedobaptists’ minds, these Anabaptists were undermining Christendom’s covenant with God. You’re supposed to baptize your kids Christian, and make sure they become Christian. Not hold off baptism till the kids become believers, and risk the chance they might choose not to follow Jesus. What kind of loony pagan lets their kids exercise that level of free will over their eternal destiny?

Because there was no such thing as separation of church and state back then, some Christian nations passed laws banning Anabaptist teachings and churches. Back then, heresy would usually get you the death penalty—unless you recanted. Which people frequently did, ’cause they’d rather lie to the government and live, than stick to their principles and be tortured, and die in a nasty way.

So yeah: You could get killed for your beliefs about baptism. Which should never be the case, but that’s how Christian nationalism works. Starts with just one person in power who says, “No, that’s an area where we shouldn’t be free to disagree,” and suddenly there’s a law and people get persecuted.

There are certain churches where they won’t let me participate in sacraments with them because I’ve been rebaptized. There are other churches where they don’t want certain Christians to worship with them because they were baptized as infants and haven’t been rebaptized. Neither church should be legalizing over this issue. Again, the proper issue is whether these worshipers follow Jesus! But somebody in the church leadership has a bug up their behind about baptism, so here we are.

Problem is, nearly every church has taken a a side on this issue, and thinks the other side is simply wrong. Doesn’t even bother to look into why they believe that way. If you go to your paedobaptist pastor and ask to be rebaptized ’cause you’re a believer now, he’ll look at you funny and say no; if you go to your credobaptist pastor and ask her to baptize your baby ’cause you’re gonna raise her Christian, she’ll look at you funny and say no.

Christians get pretty darned fixed on this issue, and good luck moving ’em! So… maybe, just to make things easier for you, stick with a church which believes as you do. If you like the baby baptism idea, go to a baby-baptizing church. If you think we should only baptize believers, go to a believer-baptizing church. Go where you’re comfortable… unless of course the Holy Spirit tells you to switch, ’cause he thinks you’re too comfortable to grow.

And regardless of where you plant yourself, don’t shun the Christians who believe otherwise. Remember, the important thing is following Jesus. Got it?