I enjoyed the comments of the two previous writers - David, and R. Eric Sawyer. Both have taken the time to think through the issue. Mr. Sawyer, I appreciated your thoughts on the "one-ness" before God. David, you wrote clearly on the accuracy of the Greek terms and the distinction between them. Your compassion and humble take for the believers of that time shows the difficulty of the decision of the Anabaptists. I come from that tradition, the Church of the Brethren. My husband has been a Pastor for many years and this struggle is real, although, people are not being put to death for it (here). But, many still receive the persecution from family members for not baptizing their infants.
Mr. Sawyer, the last point you made was the quote from your daughter, in essense: "why shouldn't my son be dedicated to the Glory of God?" Exactly, the Anabaptists do dedicate their children to God, they do not leave them adrift. This is the heart of the matter, as true circumcision is a matter of the heart.
Jennifer Rath
I come from an Anabaptist tradition - Church of the Brethren. My husband who is a Pastor has dealt with this issue over the years.
David - 14 years ago
Well I completely agree that everyone who is born again should dedicate themselves to raising (training) (modeling) faith in Jesus / the scriptures to their children. Its biblical i.e. Timothy, Joshua and his house hold and in numerous Old Testament scriptural commandments. And in as much as humanly possible dedicate the child to that tutelage. A ceremony to publicly announce this is well within our Christian liberty and sprinkling water on the forehead of a child is one method. But there is one problem...rhantizō is the Greek word for sprinkling. Baptizō is the Greek word for submerge or immersion. So to accurately describe this ceremony you would not call it infant baptism but rather infant rhantism.
I believe in the five solas of the reformation and the basic foundations of grace commonly referred to as the five points of Calvinism. But let us not stop reforming or rather restoring the teachings of scripture. It is obvious that infant (sprinkling) was a hard tradition to give up. Many Anabaptist were killed for it. I don't know if I could have given it up if I had lived in those times; traditions like superstition hold great sway over people and breaking away from the Catholic Church was a huge first step to take. Even though faith alone was accepted by many, there was still great comfort in infant rhantism. Not to mention the fact that government run religious organizations need not worry that anyone born within their borders knew no future except that of which the state ordained. Unfortunately loving the truth came at a great cost to those God blessed with the faith to stand for the truth as many were murdered for condemning infant sprinkling and not only by Catholics but by those who called themselves reformed.
"We are aliens and strangers here on earth" this world is not our home.
Having spent my formative spiritual years as a Baptist, and my parenting (now grandparenting) years as an Anglican, this is an issue that has captured no little attention form me, and I think I have come to some terms with it.
First, my children were baptized as infants, mostly as an act of submission on my part. I deeply thought, and still think, God had directly called me into the Anglican/Episcopalian church, and not as a missionary. He called me to work in that vineyard, and sit under that teaching. What I have come to understand over the last 30 years is that there is a lot more to our “one-ness” before God than we westerners like to think. I believe there is something real about my children being “in me” in the same way that I was “in Adam” and am “in Christ”; and that my wife and I are “one flesh,” the church is “one body” and the God Himself is “Three in One” Fundamental reality is plural-unity (neither exclusively corporate, nor exclusively individual, but something deeper) and in the things He has made, the more like Himself, the more things exhibit this quality.
My priest at the time said that, baring a functioning local community (and this was in the Capital C community days in the Episcopal Church) paedo-baptism probably makes no sense.
It is something I see only dimly, as through a mist, and could well be wrong. But I think that Baptizing infants, in the context of being “one Body” and modeling the family an the Church after what we see in the Holy Trinity is sound.
My daughter has a simpler take on it: She is a thoroughly evangelical Episcopalian, and her husband, like me, a reformed Baptist. They struggled a great deal with this issue as well, but as my daughter said,
“why should the only item in my home, not dedicated to the Glory of God, be my son?”
I enjoyed the comments of the two previous writers - David, and R. Eric Sawyer. Both have taken the time to think through the issue. Mr. Sawyer, I appreciated your thoughts on the "one-ness" before God. David, you wrote clearly on the accuracy of the Greek terms and the distinction between them. Your compassion and humble take for the believers of that time shows the difficulty of the decision of the Anabaptists. I come from that tradition, the Church of the Brethren. My husband has been a Pastor for many years and this struggle is real, although, people are not being put to death for it (here). But, many still receive the persecution from family members for not baptizing their infants.
Mr. Sawyer, the last point you made was the quote from your daughter, in essense: "why shouldn't my son be dedicated to the Glory of God?" Exactly, the Anabaptists do dedicate their children to God, they do not leave them adrift. This is the heart of the matter, as true circumcision is a matter of the heart.
Jennifer Rath
I come from an Anabaptist tradition - Church of the Brethren. My husband who is a Pastor has dealt with this issue over the years.
Well I completely agree that everyone who is born again should dedicate themselves to raising (training) (modeling) faith in Jesus / the scriptures to their children. Its biblical i.e. Timothy, Joshua and his house hold and in numerous Old Testament scriptural commandments. And in as much as humanly possible dedicate the child to that tutelage. A ceremony to publicly announce this is well within our Christian liberty and sprinkling water on the forehead of a child is one method. But there is one problem...rhantizō is the Greek word for sprinkling. Baptizō is the Greek word for submerge or immersion. So to accurately describe this ceremony you would not call it infant baptism but rather infant rhantism.
I believe in the five solas of the reformation and the basic foundations of grace commonly referred to as the five points of Calvinism. But let us not stop reforming or rather restoring the teachings of scripture. It is obvious that infant (sprinkling) was a hard tradition to give up. Many Anabaptist were killed for it. I don't know if I could have given it up if I had lived in those times; traditions like superstition hold great sway over people and breaking away from the Catholic Church was a huge first step to take. Even though faith alone was accepted by many, there was still great comfort in infant rhantism. Not to mention the fact that government run religious organizations need not worry that anyone born within their borders knew no future except that of which the state ordained. Unfortunately loving the truth came at a great cost to those God blessed with the faith to stand for the truth as many were murdered for condemning infant sprinkling and not only by Catholics but by those who called themselves reformed.
"We are aliens and strangers here on earth" this world is not our home.
David
Having spent my formative spiritual years as a Baptist, and my parenting (now grandparenting) years as an Anglican, this is an issue that has captured no little attention form me, and I think I have come to some terms with it.
First, my children were baptized as infants, mostly as an act of submission on my part. I deeply thought, and still think, God had directly called me into the Anglican/Episcopalian church, and not as a missionary. He called me to work in that vineyard, and sit under that teaching. What I have come to understand over the last 30 years is that there is a lot more to our “one-ness” before God than we westerners like to think. I believe there is something real about my children being “in me” in the same way that I was “in Adam” and am “in Christ”; and that my wife and I are “one flesh,” the church is “one body” and the God Himself is “Three in One” Fundamental reality is plural-unity (neither exclusively corporate, nor exclusively individual, but something deeper) and in the things He has made, the more like Himself, the more things exhibit this quality.
My priest at the time said that, baring a functioning local community (and this was in the Capital C community days in the Episcopal Church) paedo-baptism probably makes no sense.
It is something I see only dimly, as through a mist, and could well be wrong. But I think that Baptizing infants, in the context of being “one Body” and modeling the family an the Church after what we see in the Holy Trinity is sound.
My daughter has a simpler take on it: She is a thoroughly evangelical Episcopalian, and her husband, like me, a reformed Baptist. They struggled a great deal with this issue as well, but as my daughter said,
“why should the only item in my home, not dedicated to the Glory of God, be my son?”
I think she has a point.
Blessings!
-R. Eric Sawyer