It may have been a first for a “Baptist” church. On Sunday morning, April 19, at First Baptist Church, Dayton, Ohio, Pastor Rodney Kennedy performed an infant baptism. For the congregation it was a special moment where the congregation spontaneously broke out in applause, Kennedy said. He called the service “just a really high and holy moment.”
However, performing an infant baptism moves Kennedy and the church beyond the definition of what it means to be Baptist because of the history of the term and the theological understanding of baptism generally embraced by Baptists.
Most scholars agree that Baptists grew out of the English separatist movement, which wanted to break with the Church of England and institute what they regarded as biblical practices. For those who became Baptists, a primary concern was the nature of the church. They insisted upon a church made up only of the redeemed.
In 1609, John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, early Baptist leaders, argued that baptism should be administered only to believers and that this voluntary confession/baptism should form the basis of the church. Since the church must include only true Christians, baptism must be applied only to professed believers, they said.
Believer’s baptism
Such reasoning flew in the face of the practice of the Church of England, Roman Catholics, Lutherans and some reform church groups like Presbyterians. These groups all embraced infant baptism and each baptized infant was then a member of the respective church.
By the early 1640s those advocating believer’s baptism and church membership only for believers began to be called Baptists. Other theological understandings also marked these early Baptists that separated them from those who shared only their belief in a “believer’s church.” Among those were religious liberty and congregational government.
But opposition to infant baptism was at the core because of its theological implications. Baptists argued salvation was personal. It was an act of God’s grace based on confession, repentance and faith. An infant could not confess, repent or believe the contended.
Church membership was only for “true Christians” — those who confessed, repented and believed. That excluded infants.
Baptism, as expressed in “A Declaration of Faith of English People” published in 1611 by Helwys, stated, “Baptism or washing with water is the outward manifestation of dying unto sin and walking in newness of life (Rom. 6:2–4) and therefore in nowise appertains to infants.”
Baptists argued the prevailing New Testament sequence was preaching, hearing, believing, repentance, confession and then baptism.
This view of baptism challenged the prevailing view of that day. Roman Catholic, Lutheran and other traditions taught that baptism was necessary for the remission of the original guilt that newborn infants have as descendants of Adam and Eve. Baptism, following the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, was able to take away that guilt.
Martin Luther specifically condemned those who advocated believer’s baptism for teaching that children are innocent until they attain the use of reason and could make a personal confession of faith.
Some reform traditions practiced infant baptism as a sign of a covenant of grace. This teaching held that infant baptism was a sign that the child belonged to the covenant community just as circumcision marked Jewish boys as members of God’s family. No later baptism was necessary.
Luther argued infant baptism was an ancient practice of the Church. Those who disagreed with him responded that infant baptism was introduced in the third century as a way of identifying infants with the Church.
Kennedy explained that baptizing infants is just the next step for First, Dayton, because the church has accepted into membership those with infant baptism from other Christian bodies for 50 years.
“I want to move closer to the ecumenical fellowship of the Christian Church and by accepting infant baptism, and then practicing it, we are not set off from Presbyterians and Methodists and Catholics,” Kennedy said.
If ecumenical fellowship is based on what the Bible teaches then Kennedy may be moving in the wrong direction. In 1982 the World Council of Churches published the now famous Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry papers of its Faith and Order Commission which met in Lima, Peru. Under Article IV, Baptismal Practices, is Section A, Baptism of Believers and Infants, the section reads, “While the possibility that infant baptism was also practiced in the apostolic age cannot be excluded, baptism upon personal profession of faith is the most clearly attested pattern in the New Testament documents.”
In a later paragraph of that section, the World Council of Churches declared, “Baptism is an unrepeatable act.”
If the normal New Testament practice is believer’s baptism and baptism is an unrepeatable act, then it would behoove all Christian groups to consider practicing the clearest teachings of the Bible which, according to the World Council of Churches, is believer’s baptism.
Incorporating a child into the family of faith is important. Standing beside a family as members model and teach the Christian faith is important. The Christian community acknowledging responsibility to help a child grow in the Lord is important. Publically acknowledging these and other commitments is important.
‘Faith proceeds to baptism’
But infant baptism is not the way for Baptists to accomplish these goals. As English Baptist theologian George Beasley-Murray wrote, “In the New Testament it is everywhere assumed that faith proceeds to baptism and that baptism is for faith” and hence “faith comes to baptism. The idea of baptism creating faith is not on the horizon.”
Infant baptism is contrary to the Baptist understanding of salvation. It is contrary to the Baptist understanding of baptism. It is contrary to the Baptist understanding of the Church. It is contrary to the historical meaning of the word “Baptist.”
That is why a church that practices infant baptism does not stand in the historic and theological stream known as Baptist.
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