Many people grow up in the church because they have been baptised as babies and brought up in a Christian family. That is not always the case. Increasing numbers of older people-from teenagers to great grandparents- are making their won decision to join the Church. They feel they need to express their commitment by joining a worshipping community of the Church. This is called Believers Baptism.
Baptism was originally performed on adults, first performed on Jesus by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. The water is to symbolise the washing away of sins. The pool represents Christ’s tomb.
The service starts off with hymns, Bible readings and a sermon by the minister. They are all subjected on the theme of baptism. The minister then explains the reasons for baptism.
Each person who is being baptised steps forward and explains their reasons for wanting to be baptised to the congregation. This is called a testimony. The person will tell how of how God has affected their life personally.
The minister will then take each person into the pool and immerses him or her. This means he dips them into the water on their back then lifts them up to standing again. As the person is immersed into the water they are dying with sin. As they rise up they are rising to a new life and are born again. After everyone is baptised the service will end with a hymn and a final blessing off the minister.
There are a lot of similarities and differences between the Believers baptism and the Infant baptism.
In both services water is used. This is because Jesus’ baptism took place in a river and John the Baptist (who baptised him) told people to turn away from sin and repent. He used the water to show that he was literally washing the sin away. The same idea takes place today with both baptism, although in Believers baptism the adult is totally immersed into the water where in the infant baptism water is only poured over the child’s head.
In the infants baptism the child is dressed in white and the same in a believer’s baptism. Both are to show they have started a fresh life.
In the believer’s baptism the adult being baptised stands up and makes the promises to god and the rest of the church. In the infant baptism promises are made by the god parents and parents. This is because the child doesn’t know right from wrong so is unable to commit a sin but the church feel that Baptism is still necessary because they believe everyone is born with ‘original sin’.
Some Churches like the Salvation Army and Quakers will only baptise adults, or children who are old enough to make their promises for themselves, unlike the Church of England, Methodist and Roman Catholic Church who will do both. They believe that even though someone is making the promises for them, in further life even grown up the children might not follow them. Some of them still have naming services, which are an important part of baptism but only will baptise adults.
The whole importance of baptism is for the person to let the spirit of Jesus into their lives and babies cannot do so if they don’t understand. That is why we get believers baptism.
Another important point for why some churches wont baptise babies is o the original baptism with John the Baptist and Jesus. Baptism changed the life of Jesus. Before he was baptised he was a person who had committed sin. After he was baptised he was ‘re-born’, a new person. The baptism prepared him for the life ahead of him. Babies at a few weeks old have not committed any sins. You can only commit a sin if you know it is wrong and babies don’t know right from wrong. They wont the baptism of a person as close to the baptism of how Jesus had it. That is why we get the total immersion. The main point was that he was an adult and understood for himself the promises he was making.
A believer believes that he/she is being reborn, their sins are washed away and that they can now start their life as a Christian.
The argument over the subject of whether children of people that don’t attend church should be baptised is still debated in many churches today. Some Christians believe that people that attend church wont be that bothered if there child does either and so will not bring them up in Christian beliefs. Part of this is true because some people don’t really care about the Christian upbringing.
What many of them block out is the fact that some parents are unable to go to church for varies reasons. Some parents who have illnesses making them unable to travel or have young children to look after are unable to attend. Some people who live in the country might not have a local church to go too and the only way they can go to church is if they travelled. These people may have no means of transport or maybe can’t afford financially to do this. There are a few people who work on Sundays or do night shifts the night before so are either too tired or away so unable to go too church.
I admit that there are some people that have no responsibilities on the day the service is on and are perfectly healthy but maybe for personal reasons don’t go. Going into the church maybe bring back memories of lost ones or happy times. Some people might not be able to cope with that.
Even with the people who have no reason not to go and still don’t I think that’s it only fair that they give their children the choice of their own if they want to attend church or not.
Priests are the representatives of god, so if they turn parents and their children away they are disobeying God. The main argument to stop children being baptised is the fact that Jesus was baptised as an adult. He is an example to mankind so some Christians believe they everyone should be like him as much as possible, being baptised as an adult being a first step. There is nowhere in the bible that says children aren’t allowed to be baptised because if there was then children wouldn’t have ever been baptised. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, where you live or your race. Everyone has an equal opportunity.
In Matthew’s gospel 19.14 it says:
‘Let the children come to me and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’
This explains that children along with adults should be baptised and the heaven is a place for both. In the time when many children died young parents wanted the child to be baptised before they died. Today this still happens but not as often as then but it is still important for the child to be baptised. As well as a blessing service baptism is also a service to name the child.
Even after these arguments the priest has rights to refuse baptism to a child whose parents he believes unfit to bring the child up the way of the promises. You would have thought the church would like to have as many people as possible joining the church. If they turn away people from being baptised how can they expect other people to come and prayer with them? Just because a person doesn’t go to church for any reason doesn’t mean they are not a Christian and are not good people:
Matthew 28.19
‘Go then, to all peoples everywhere and make them disciples: baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’
I don’t see why children aren’t allowed to be baptised. They may not be able to make the promises themselves but if they do want to re-new them they can be confirmed at an older age. It’s really up the parents whether or not they want their child to be brought up in the Christian church. Just because Jesus was baptised in this way doesn’t mean everyone else must be.
