Why infant baptism

The baptism ceremony also allows parents and godparents to make a promise before God to bring the baby up within the faith of Christianity. Christian denominations that practise infant baptism include Anglicans such as the Church in Wales , Catholics , Presbyterians and Orthodox.

Baptist and Pentecostal churches baptise people when they are adults and able to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to be baptised. They do, however, often have a short service of dedication within a regular Sunday service to mark the birth of a baby.

During the service of dedication, the parents present their child in church. The story of Jesus' presentation in the Temple as told in Luke is often read.

It is such, sadly so, even from the earliest of ages. And truthfully, sad to say, it is sometimes because of our own not-so-helpful choices. Because we are promised in the waters of baptism that behaviors that could consign us to guilt, condemnation and shame in this life are stripped of that power.

No string can be connected between what we have done, or worse, that might come our way, and the presence of pain. Christ promises to give freedom in the holy flood. So we baptize those babies—as well as anyone else starving for the promise—to give them light to see as ashes come to ashes, dust comes to dust. But he did not restrict this teaching to adults. These commands are universal, not restricted to adults. Opposition to infant baptism is not a new phenomenon.

In the Middle Ages, some groups developed that rejected infant baptism, e. His words can be taken to apply to anyone capable of belonging to his kingdom. Now, Fundamentalists say this event does not apply to young children or infants since it implies the children to which Christ was referring were able to approach him on their own.

Fundamentalists conclude the passage refers only to children old enough to walk, and, presumably, capable of sinning. Fundamentalists refuse to permit the baptism of infants and young children, because they are not yet capable of making such a conscious act.

He says that they are precisely the kind of people who can come to him and receive the kingdom. Furthermore, Paul notes that baptism has replaced circumcision Col. If Paul meant to exclude infants, he would not have chosen circumcision as a parallel for baptism. This comparison between who could receive baptism and circumcision is an appropriate one. In the Old Testament, if a man wanted to become a Jew, he had to believe in the God of Israel and be circumcised.

In the New Testament, if one wants to become a Christian, one must believe in God and Jesus and be baptized. Some would say that Jesus welcomed them just to teach adults a lesson see Luke But if infants do not qualify for the kingdom of God, then how can adults qualify by being like them? There is no lesson for adults to learn unless Jesus welcomes the infants of believers into his kingdom. That kingdom, today, is essentially the church Matt. Since people are visibly received into the church by baptism, it follows that infants are to be received into the kingdom of God by baptism.

As we have seen, circumcision under the Abrahamic covenant was applied to infants on the basis of parental faith Gen. Since we today are part of that covenant through faith in Christ, the new sign of the covenant, water baptism, should likewise be applied to infants on the basis of parental faith. That theological conclusion is confirmed by the accounts in the book of Acts which reveal that whole households were commonly baptized on the basis of the faith of the head of the household.

The most detailed and informative account is that of the Philippian jailer Acts — When Luke says that the jailer heard the gospel and believed with his household, the implication is that everyone in his household went along with him. Any older household members, such as his wife, evidently became believers, too. But any young children went along with their father, following his lead with whatever limited understanding that they had.

Some would argue that there may not have been any infants in these households mentioned in Acts. However, household baptism was evidently a common practice in the apostolic church see also 1 Cor. It must have happened thousands of times, often including infants. Such is the grace of God to the children of believers!

We can only infer that the children of the first Christian converts were baptized, brought up in the Christian faith see Eph. When we look carefully at the teaching of Scripture, we see that the sign of the covenant was applied to infants prior to Christ, and presumably continued to be applied to them when Jesus changed it to baptism.

And when we look closely at the household baptisms described in Acts, there can be little doubt but that infants were commonly baptized in the apostolic church. The faith of a parent qualifies a child to be baptized and raised as a disciple of Jesus.

He welcomed them into his kingdom, and so should we. The author is the managing editor of New Horizons.