Baptists & Baptism

The Alabama Baptist speaks with Timothy George, dean of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School, about the topic of Baptists and baptism.Q: Why do Baptists and other Christians practice baptism? 

Q: Why do Baptists and other Christians practice baptism? 

A: We practice baptism because we follow Jesus who asked us to do that. It is part of what we call the Great Commission. It is at the very core of the mandate we as believers received from the One we regard as our Lord. That is one level of answer. There is a deep, rich theology of initiation related to baptism which flows from that so it isn’t merely a command we are obeying. Baptism also is an entrance into a new life in Christ, as Paul talks about in Romans 6. Baptists often cite it as a central New Testament text about the meaning of baptism. We are buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life. So I think we baptize because Jesus asked us to as a way of identifying with Him and because it marks our entrance into the Christian life in a special way.

Q: Is there a relationship between baptism and the name we hold as Baptists?

A: As best we can tell, the term Baptist was a term of derision — of abuse-baptizer and dipper. Some Baptists are called dippers because the word ‘baptisto’ in Greek means to immerse or to dip beneath the waters. It was a term in the early 17th century that became attached to those who practiced baptism by immersion. That became almost as universal as anything among Baptists. Baptism by immersion has been a key for Arminian Baptists, Calvinistic Baptists, for all different kinds of Baptists. But it did draw the attention of those who were opposed to the Baptist movement, particularly Anglicans in England at the time and Presbyterians and others who thought this was an unusual and somewhat weird way to baptize when infant baptism was the universal practice. It is hard for us now in our culture to think ourselves back into that condition. Baptists were a small, harassed and even persecuted sect. The thing that made them stand out was this practice of baptism. It didn’t take too long before Baptists began to own that name for themselves.

Q: What is the role of faith as it relates to baptism?

A: Well it has to be integral to baptism. Baptism divorced from faith in any context does not have the meaning the New Testament attaches to baptism. Baptists have always insisted that baptism presupposes two things. One is faith; the other is repentance. Both are the work of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, not just human acts and responses but what God is working in those drawn to Himself. I think sometimes in our speaking about “believer’s baptism” we neglect the repentance part. If you go to Russia today or many places in Eastern Europe the Baptist Christians are called Repenters. Repentance means saying “no” to something; it means turning your back on something, going in a different direction. Repentance has to be associated in a negative way along with faith in a positive way when embracing faith not just as mental assent but fiducial trust. Trust is as close as we can come. Clinging to, depending on, that is what faith means. Faith has to be twined with repentance. Repentance without faith does not lead to salvation. Faith without repentance is not genuine faith in the New Testament sense of the word.

Q: How does that relate to the concept of the Believer’s Church?

A: Another phrase that has come into our discussion is ‘regenerative church membership.’ Baptists say the Church is composed of those who are regenerated, who trusted in Jesus Christ, who have been born again and have the Holy Spirit living within them. In baptism and through repentance and faith, we announce that. So the Believer’s Church is an intentional church community and, in the European context especially, it is contrasted to the state church or to the legally established church which sometimes includes everybody who is born into a certain parish. To be an Englishman, as one would say, is to be an Anglican. Well in the Believer’s Church movement, not only Baptists — although Baptists were leaders in this — said church membership required an intentional act of repentance and faith and commitment.

Q: Can a community such as a congregation make a commitment for another person be they an infant, a child or an adult?

A: Of course, infant baptism itself has many different theologies. There isn’t just one theology of infant baptism. The Catholic and some of the more liturgical Anglican and Lutheran traditions hold that the infant is grafted into Christ in the sacramental sense through baptism. There also is a view of infant baptism that is more Presbyterian in which the infant is embraced in the bosom of the church with the idea that the baptism received in infancy will bear fruit in a personal commitment to Christ at some point in their life. Methodists probably come close to this today. Baptists do something similar to that in what we call dedication. We dedicate infants. Dedication involves prayer, involves commitment and it involves the family, the parents and the child being embraced by the larger community of faith. Because an infant is dedicated we do not think that exempts that dedicated infant from needing personal faith and coming to Christ. We do not say to our children, ‘Be a good Christian boy or girl.’ We say to our children ‘Love God, repent, have faith and believe the gospel.’

Q: How have Baptists across the years generally viewed infant baptism, whether it be of the Catholic tradition or the Presbyterian tradition?

A: Most Baptists do not regard infant baptism as a proper New Testament form of baptism. I think there have been a lot of polemics in our history between those who practice infant baptism and the Baptist Church that doesn’t. It is one of the distinctive marks of the worldwide Baptist fellowship with some few exceptions here and there. Most Baptist churches have a confession of faith that includes baptism in the name of the Triune God by immersion for believers as essential to what it means to be a part of a believing community of faith.

Q: Is there any reason to re-examine that position, to revise our view of infant baptism?

A: My friend, John Piper, a very well-known Baptist pastor, discussed opening the doors of membership to those who had experienced infant baptism but not believer’s baptism. Now the church itself, to my knowledge, was not contemplating beginning to perform infant baptism but accepting those who had been baptized as infants, who had a living personal faith in Jesus Christ and evidenced it by the fruits of their life and wanted to be a part of that community. I heard Piper when he was speaking here at Beeson say we don’t want to make the door of the church any more narrow than the door of salvation. An interesting way to think about it. He is a Calvinist in his theology. That might have been something behind it. But that is one example of a very well-known pastor in a church that took seriously this question.

But I think, certainly in the United States and I think around the world generally, that is still a minority view. It is not a view that is winning the day in any large number.

I do think it would be a good thing for us to think about baptism as a part of the whole initiation into the Christian life. We understand, I think rightly, that one is drawn to faith by the Holy Spirit in different ways and in different sequences. God doesn’t just begin to work in our life for the first time when we are baptized or when we make a profession of faith. God is working in our life by letting us be born in a certain culture where the gospel is known, the Bible is available and certainly in families where Christ is honored. This is part of what we used to call ‘conviction.’ John 6:44, ‘No one comes to the Father unless they are drawn on by the Holy Spirit.’ Well the Holy Spirit is the sovereign Lord and draws people to Himself and that includes many things prior to the moment of repentance and faith. Baptism in that sequence is a crucial moment in the initiation into the Christian life. It can be prepared for in all kinds of different ways that involve families, communities, churches and personal friendships. God uses all of these things to draw people to faith in Christ. Baptists say baptism is the place where that comes to focus in your own profession where you embrace it and become identified by it in a public way. That’s one reason we’ve been reluctant to baptize infants because we see that element missing in infant baptism.

Q: What counsel would you give to a Baptist pastor who was asked by parents to do an infant baptism?

A: I can only speak for what I myself could or would think about doing. I don’t think I could in good conscience baptize an infant. I would want to embrace the family of the infant and encourage them in every way possible in their own Christian spiritual lives. But I don’t find infant baptism is true to the meaning of baptism as the Scriptures teach it or as I understand it to be. I think most Baptist pastors in the world would agree with what I just said. But I still want to reach out and encourage the step of faith that is evidenced by the request. But baptism of an infant for Baptists is not the appropriate way or the Scriptural way to do that.

Q: If a pastor should resist the pressure to baptize an infant then what about the Southern Baptist practice of baptizing preschoolers? Figures for the last year of record show 3,547 pre-school baptisms SBC-wide and 204 in Alabama.

A: Wow. Well I have faced this as an interim pastor in Alabama and elsewhere. I know some of the pressure here. I have a couple of thoughts about it. First of all, we want our children to come to Christ. We want to encourage them when they begin to respond even at a tender age to the gospel. We don’t want to slap them on the hand and say, ‘No, you are too young for that. Come back in 10 years.’

The question is what is the right way to deal with that when they are very, very young — preschool and younger? I have heard of three year olds being baptized. As I said in something I wrote, there is a theology for believer’s baptism that I adhere to and another theology for infant baptism that I don’t agree with but there is no theological rationale for toddler baptism. That’s what we are really talking about. It is neither infant baptism in the conventional sense nor is it believer’s baptism where a personal confession based on repentance and faith is at work.

Here’s what I have tried to do and I would not hold myself out as an example of perfection on this. I don’t think I have baptized any preschoolers but I have baptized children under 10 years of age. Sometimes I wondered but the family was there so I have baptized a few eight and nine year olds and 10 year olds for sure.

The best answer I have found on this in a Baptist context comes from the late W.A. Criswell. Criswell published a pastor’s manual in which he addressed this issue and talked about what he did at First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas. For many, many years when a very young child came forward making a profession of faith — technically seeking baptism and membership in the church — Criswell said he would embrace that child, affirm that child publicly and talk about that as a step toward Jesus, a step toward faith in Jesus. Then he would begin a process of working with the child and the parents to that point where there was a clear acknowledgement of repentance and faith. That doesn’t give you any rigid parameters — you can’t do this with a six year old, you have to be 12 before you are baptized. I would resist that kind of strict age limit. One thing about believer’s baptism that distinguishes it from infant baptism that I think we risk losing when we baptize children at younger and younger ages is the fact that your baptism is something you ought to remember for the rest of your life. So I like Criswell’s solution — a step toward Jesus, a step toward faith — then lovingly lead them to a deeper awareness of what’s involved.

Q: If you were talking to the parents of a young child who said, “I love Jesus and I want to be a Christian,” what would you say to the family about their responsibility to that child’s spiritual development?

A: I would want them to know loving Jesus is a wonderful thing. I would want to celebrate it, not discourage it in any way. Rather, I would want to say to the parents of the child that baptism involves saying ‘no’ to your former way of life — repentence. Is this dear son or daughter of yours at a point of making that kind of commitment? Baptism involves more than love for Jesus. It involves saying ‘no’ and ‘yes.’ You need a lot of parental and pastoral discernment. Where the Church can come in and help is to provide a place for that nurturing and encouragement and a structure for that nurturing so a parent is not left alone. I hope I would have the wisdom and discernment and maybe even the courage to speak to parents in that kind of way. We want precious gifts of God, your son or daughter, to come to a life decisive commitment to Jesus Christ and this is a first step toward that. Let’s recognize it, let’s celebrate it, but let’s keep moving in that direction.

Q: If a church follows a process like you describe should parents be concerned that they are standing in the way of their child becoming a Christian?

A: I wouldn’t want to disparage the fact that there may be parents who would have those thoughts. It seems to me that those kinds of thoughts come out of a misplaced understanding of how God works in our lives in mysterious ways that we cannot understand. I would hope a deacon, or a leader in the church, could come alongside those parents and help them see how God does work beyond the structures we may put in the way of the Holy Spirit working. We all are in the hands of God, we trust in God’s grace. In a way this is like what happens to a baby when they die in infancy. Do they go to hell if they have not been baptized? Not only Baptists but most believers say no. We trust in the gracious goodness and sovereignty of God. That’s what we have to do. We have a responsibility to lead people to a better, deeper, more biblical understanding. I don’t believe that baptism, whether it is infant baptism or believer’s baptism, ipsofacto removes the guilt of original sin apart from the superintending grace of God. We do have a big God and His grace is gracious to the uttermost.

Q: Baptists sometimes end up immersing the same person three or four times. Is that because we are not nurturing a growing faith?

A: Well Baptists don’t have anything that we call confirmation. What I would like to see us do is go back and recover some of the fuller baptismal theology and practices of the early Church. You know, there is a great debate among New Testament early Church historians as to when infant baptism actually began. In my best reading, the first expressed mention of it is the late second century, maybe the early third century. Before that there is no record of infant baptism.

There was the standard practice of baptism — what we would call believer’s baptism or repenter’s baptism. It was preceded by a period of catechesis which I think is what we have left out very often in our free church Baptist tradition. There needs to be a deep exposure to the Christian faith, to the Bible, to the Lord’s Prayer, to the life of faith, to discipleship at some level as you are leading up to the point of baptism. To be baptized in the early Church was to put your life on the line. You were enrolling in the number of those who were quite likely to be martyred. That is not something you want to do lightly or casually. The baptism itself often took place on Easter eve and involved somewhat elaborate rituals or practices. One such practice was the saying of the faith — what became the Apostles’ Creed — and it was often asked in such questions as, ‘Do you believe God the Father Almighty? Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God?’ I believe this to be owning the faith verbally.

Another thing they did was the laying on of hands. In Baptist history this became a controversial question. There were those who practiced the laying on of hands by every baptized believer, not just those being ordained. Laying on of hands at baptism has pretty much dropped out of Baptist practice all over the world. I’ve still seen it done in England and I think it is a good thing. Baptism is the place where we are commissioned by Jesus to go into the world preaching the gospel. A solemn setting set apart by the laying on of hands is one way to do that. Baptism is really a big deal — following Jesus Christ, being baptized, being set aside to serve as a missionary for the gospel. Baptism is a place where all of that should come together. Whenever baptism is happening in the context of worship, a big deal ought to be made about it. It shouldn’t be a footnote or an appendix.

Q: As you interact with Baptist leaders from different parts of the world and they become familiar with the way Southern Baptists generally practice baptism, what kind of reactions do you hear from them?

A: Well some are quite surprised, especially with the baptism of children at such a young age. That is not the standard Baptist practice around the world. Usually the average age would be somewhere around 14–16. A few years ago I was in Jamaica preaching at a Baptist church in connection with the Baptist World Alliance meeting there and they had a baptismal service scheduled for that day. I was able to witness it. It was a transformative event for those people who were being baptized. They gave personal testimonies of how their life had been rescued from disaster by the grace of God, what belonging to that community of faith meant, being surrounded by their friends and rejoicing. It was not a sour, dull event. It was full of jubilation.

We are celebrating resurrection, buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life. Death, burial and resurrection are not tidy events. I resist this effort to smother baptism in a kind of ritual understatement and I’m afraid when we baptize as often as we do and in such a casual way as we do, we’re tempted to do that.