The Obvious

Let's go ahead and get this one out of the way:  Baptists dunk.  It's kind of a key thing they do.

For a long time after leaving the Baptist church I wasn't sure what I thought of infant baptism.  It seemed pretty clear to me that scripture advocates for taking adults to a river and putting them under water after a confession of faith.  And there are good proof-texts for that.  (For those who don't speak Christianese, proof-text is finding a few verses to support a particular belief.  The criticism of proof texts is that they are often disconnected from a consistent theology.)  However, now that I have 15 years of history as a Presbyterian I can find good solid theological arguments for infant baptism, too.  So what to do?

There are some theological points that are not very clear in scripture.  Since I'm not a theologian, one approach that I take is to consider what the theological viewpoint looks like in real life.  If its application naturally leads to a more Christ-like life, then I try to choose that one.  Take for example rewards in heaven.  Some traditions argue each earns treasures in heaven based on their deeds on Earth while others hold that every is treated equally as a result of Jesus' sacrifice.  I am motivated by treasures, so I act as if my work here leads to treasures there.  Others are made more grateful because their deeds (or lack of them) have no impact on their afterlife experience and live a life of gratitude as a result.  This is a practical viewpoint on theology.

A practical perspective on theology matters for me at this stage of parenting.  The result of infant baptism is that my children, should they eventually confirm that they are God's children, is that they never know a day when they are under God's wrath.  They will never live in fear that for some indeterminate time between when they became conscious and when they accepted Christ that they might die and land in hell.  (I fully believe in hell, but maybe that's a post for another day.)  This theology seems to be a practical demonstration of God's grace.  Is there a place for understanding God's wrath?  Absolutely.  And that can be very clearly taught without scaring little kids.  Many Baptists believe that the age of accountability is around 4 which leads them to start pushing kids to accept Christ at that age.  A decision to follow Christ should not be made lightly, and it should be made by someone who truly understands what they're deciding.  A theology of infant baptism properly delays a making a decision to follow or reject Christ to an age where they can truly make that kind of decision without instilling the fear that they're "not covered" in the interim.