Baptism, re-baptism, and church membership

toddpedlar · #1 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 07:22 AM

I'd like to know from the credo-baptists among us why the following sort of thing occurs today in the modern church. These are not hypothetical cases, but real situations I know about, and am considering responding to by contacting the pastors and/or individuals involved - but wanted to flesh out the discussion here first.

When a family desires to join a baptist church - is inquiry always made about the baptisms of the family? I.e. were they baptized as infants, professors, whatever? I assume that if they are accepted as members either a) the church recognizes infant baptism of those so baptized as valid or b) the church accepts into membership those that it does not view as having properly been baptized. I'm particularly interested in knowing the difference between Reformed baptists and those who are involved in the SBC, or other baptist wings of the church that don't confessionally hold to the LBC.

Supposing situation a) above... what if a person who joined the church desired later to be baptized as an act of obedience, because personally they viewed their earlier infant baptism to be invalid. How would such a person be counselled in this case?

It seems to me that a proper view of church membership must include, in any case, the acceptance of the baptism of the proposed member - or include the baptism of that proposed member as an act of joining the church. Is that consistent with most baptist practice (esp. in "Reformed baptist" circles)? Could a member be accepted if the church viewed him as unbaptized - and... if he was viewed as baptized, would a "new" baptism ever be performed under any circumstances?

I hope the discussion is profitable - not just because of what I've run across but for the understanding about modern baptist (and Reformed baptist) practice for those of us who are steeped in paedobaptism personally and just haven't the experience with various kinds of credobaptist practices.

Pergamum · #2 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 08:21 AM

Many churches would say that a person "baptized" as an infant was not truly baptized at all because the carrying-out of the baptism was too far from the NT example and thus there would be no "RE-baptism" invovled, only a Biblical baptism. Many churches would require baptism as a pre-requisite for membership.

Wannabee · #3 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 11:25 AM

Excellent observation Pergamum.

Todd, the answer to your question is probably too varied to answer with any sense of being "absolute." For instance, many "reformed" Baptist churches recognize infant baptism for membership, but don't encourage it. However, a church that might seem sort of in-between would be Dever's church, where, if I remember right, believer's baptism is required for membership. At GCC (MacArthur) they state that someone has to be baptized as a believer, but have allowed for paedo membership when the applicants can express their position well. I've had this discussion with many who claim that "you're making it harder to join your church than it is to get saved" when you require believer's baptism. And many SBC or other mainline Baptist churches probably can't articulate their reasoning well, but do it because "that's just the way it's done." It's a complicated challenge, especially among the covenantal Baptists as they pursue doctrinal correctness and graciousness. The variance is probably most pronounced within the SBC as you have churches such as Sam Waldron's and Rick Warren's in the same denomination.

I'll share what we do. First, I think it's inconsistent for a Baptist church to allow membership for anyone who hasn't professed Christ first. From a credo point of view, it is the first act of obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. To fail to do so is to act out in rebellion and "prove" one's condition (unrepentant, proud and disobedient). Some disagree, and I'm not trying to persuade now so much as explain (per your request).
To join our church one has to be baptized as a believer. As Pergy mentioned above, we would consider infant baptism as a nice dedication, but not consistent with the scriptural mandate to baptize. For those who say we make it harder to join our church than it is to get saved, I would agree. We all have criteria that limit who can join in order to avoid divisiveness and protect the flock God has entrusted to us. We have to draw lines somewhere. It's an unfortunate result of our depravity as well as our lack of understanding of God's Word (some more accurately in certain areas than others).
For clarity, while our church firmly embraces the solas and TULIP, we are not a LBC church. We would be in substantial agreement, but not covenantal in a historical (systematic) sense.

There is another aspect to this that I'll hit on briefly because it's seldom brought up. Baptism is an essential part of the Gospel. When we witness to someone we often leave it out, simply trying to get them to see their sin and repent. Of course, when you only have a few minutes it can be difficult to get any further than that. But when we have any extensive witnessing interaction with an individual, as a baptist, baptism should be an integral part of our witness as it portrays the death of the old man and the birth of the new; the death to self and life for Christ.

I hope that helps Todd, and that I haven't muddied the waters any. Blessings to you in your pursuit.

North Jersey Baptist · #4 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 12:44 PM

Todd, not trying to dodge the tough question here. RB's consider an infant baptism to be invalid. We belive in baptism upon a credible profession of faith. Therefore we would require a new member to be baptized in a valid manner. We do not consider this re-baptism but baptism being properly administered the first time. This is pretty standard practice for all Baptists, not just RB's.

KMK · #5 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toddpedlar

Supposing situation a) above... what if a person who joined the church desired later to be baptized as an act of obedience, because personally they viewed their earlier infant baptism to be invalid. How would such a person be counselled in this case?

I assume that in this scenario, the person knows for a fact that they were baptized as an infant? Honestly, most of the people I deal with are not even sure. This is probably due to the fact that many paedo denoms do not stress baptism as a 'sign' and 'seal' the way PB paedos do. Honestly, I have never had a person come to me and say, "I know for sure I was baptized as an infant and I have the certificate to prove it." This leaves the Baptist church in a tough spot because no one knows for sure whether this person was baptized or not. It is my counsel in those situations to go ahead and baptize.

In addition, how do any of us know for sure that a person is correct when they say they have or have not been baptized? With everyone church hopping these days, and all of the 'bathtub baptisms', it is impossible for a pastor to know if he is indeed 'rebaptizing' someone unless its his own kids.

Sheesh! (Sorry this turned into a rant but it is a problem that I am dealing with right now)

Pilgrim · #6 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by North Jersey Baptist

Todd, not trying to dodge the tough question here. RB's consider an infant baptism to be invalid. We belive in baptism upon a credible profession of faith. Therefore we would require a new member to be baptized in a valid manner. We do not consider this re-baptism but baptism being properly administered the first time. This is pretty standard practice for all Baptists, not just RB's.

Agreed, Bill. Any "Reformed Baptist" type church (as described in one of the above posts) that accepts infant baptism or sprinkling is unconfessional. In most Baptist churches that aren't liberal or doctrinally indifferent, inquiry is generally made of those presenting themselves for membership. Those who were sprinkled, whether as infants or adults are baptized. There should be no difference between SBC, RB or really any other kind of Baptist. But in some aspects of Baptist life, there's been about as much of a downgrade in ecclesiology as there has been in soteriology. I have noticed a tendency among some Calvinistic Baptists, particularly younger ones, to adopt Bunyan's view that differences on baptism shouldn't be a bar to church membership or communion. In that respect some of the non-Calvinistic Southern Baptists are more confessional than some of the so called "Reformed Baptists" in their midst on this issue.

Various independent churches and some "Bible Churches" will sometimes be indifferent on the issue from a consistent Baptist perspective. These churches are baptistic in that they typically only practice immersion of professing disciples, but some of them will accept into membership people who were sprinkled, etc. if they do not want to be immersed.

DMcFadden · #7 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 02:14 PM

Todd,

One of the problems with asking a specific question about an autonomous movement is that one size does not fit all as it would in a confessional Reformed church.

However, that being said . . .

I served on staff in a Baptist church (150 attendance), pastored a Baptist church for a seven years (110 average attendance) and was senior pastor of another one for a decade (525 attendance) that accepted members in three ways . . .
a. Baptism upon a credible profession of faith.
b. Transfer of membership from another BAPTIST (any stripe) church.
c. Christian Experience

In the first one, one had to be baptized as a believer (therefore compelling a prospective member to repeat their infant baptism). In the last two, that was not necessary. In other words, a person who was a member of another Christian denomination (regardless of whether they were credo or paedo) could join our congregation on the basis of declaring that they had been baptized AND had been a member in good standing in a congregation of "like faith." In practice, this meant pretty much a green light for any evangelical coming from any evangelical denomination (including Presbyterian, Congregational, and Free Methodist where paedo baptism was practiced).

Does any of this make sense? No! Either you believe there is one valid candidate for baptism or you don't. My last churches simply wanted to be sure that a person had been baptized + had a credible confession of faith. Since church membership was taken to establish the second, the "irregularity" of the first was passed over.

Please understand, however, that outside of the SBC and many Reformed groups, denominationalism is not usually a big issue. Even in my "mainline" denomination of origin, here in So. Cal. less than 5% of the candidates for ordination were trained at a "Baptist" school. Most were either graduates of Fuller (and therefore mainly taught by Presbyterians of one stripe or another), Talbot (and thoroughly dispensational or progressive dispensational), or Bethel (SD). In my judicatory, we were more concerned with the "Evangelical" identity, not Baptist identity. If a person was an evangelical in conviction, had been baptized, and had a credible confession, they were OK regardless of their former church's practice on baptism.

Of the many anomalies inherent in this situation, try this one. If you are screening for an evangelical, then you are generally looking for agreement on the "fundamentals." In this respect, a conservative Presbyterian has more in common with an evangelical Baptist than the Baptist would with a fundamentalist Baptist! Yet, even the fundamentalist Baptist would share an ecclesiology quite close to the evangelical Baptist and they would both be pretty far in their sacramentology from the Presbyterian.

DMcFadden · #8 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 02:36 PM

I thought of an addendum to my last post. Since WWII, denominational identity has suffered greatly. My particular mainline group at the time (ABCUSA) scored lowest on surveys of the importance of denominational identity. Part of this was due to the Baptist practice of autonomy. However, that is not the whole story since the SBC has a VERY high sense of identity verging on a sectarian mindset.

The ABC has always been a group more conservative in the hustings than in the hierarchy. When I did a 500+ page M.A. in Organizational Management in the 90s, my research (systematic random sample of 1,400 pastors with a 49% response rate on a 180 question inventory), showed that the vast majority of pastors held to middle of the road evangelical views on most subjects (including the hot button ones). This tended to depress attendance at the almost universally progressive (to outright heretical) seminaries sponsored by the denomination. Not having a shared theological educational experience, functioning in a post-denominational milieu, and spending a good bit of time professing "I am a Baptist, but not THEIR kind of Baptist," probably contributed to the sloppy practice with regard to membership.

In theory, the Baptist view of the church should require transfer of membership only from credo-baptist bodies. In practice, it does not always work out that way for the reasons identified in this post and the previous one. Furthermore, the tendency for evangelical candidates for ordination to attend interdenominational schools does much to pluralize, relativize, and privatize attitudes toward the "right" kind of baptism. When your teachers and fellow students are co-religionists from a variety of traditions, insisting on your own group having the "right" way to do anything is a harder sell.

In my opinion, these reasons all help explain why some evangelical churches are more "open"/indifferent to the charismatic movement, women in ministry, acceptable eschatological variations, and emerging/emergent church trends. When your identify is shaped in a multi-traditional educational institution and you are prone to think in terms of the five fundamentals, you will be more inclined to see variation in areas not included in the core.

Todd, hope that helps.

Pilgrim · #9 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMcFadden

I thought of an addendum to my last post. Since WWII, denominational identity has suffered greatly. My particular mainline group at the time (ABCUSA) scored lowest on surveys of the importance of denominational identity. Part of this was due to the Baptist practice of autonomy. However, that is not the whole story since the SBC has a VERY high sense of identity verging on a sectarian mindset.

The ABC has always been a group more conservative in the hustings than in the hierarchy. When I did a 500+ page M.A. in Organizational Management in the 90s, my research (systematic random sample of 1,400 pastors with a 49% response rate on a 180 question inventory), showed that the vast majority of pastors held to middle of the road evangelical views on most subjects (including the hot button ones). This tended to depress attendance at the almost universally progressive (to outright heretical) seminaries sponsored by the denomination. Not having a shared theological educational experience, functioning in a post-denominational milieu, and spending a good bit of time professing "I am a Baptist, but not THEIR kind of Baptist," probably contributed to the sloppy practice with regard to membership.

In theory, the Baptist view of the church should require transfer of membership only from credo-baptist bodies. In practice, it does not always work out that way for the reasons identified in this post and the previous one.

Todd, hope that helps.

Thanks for this post, Dennis. I was just going to chalk up your practice to being on the left coast as well as being ABCUSA.

You have provided us with some helpful background that explains this practice among many baptistic churches. Although I didn't post it in this thread, I have long thought that, as you noted, this practice of receiving unbaptized members is due to the churches involved having more of a generic evangelical identity than a Baptist one. Some churches of this persuasion have Baptist in the name and some don't. I would be quite surprised if there aren't some Southern Baptists churches who do this too.

It is unfortunate that there was no "Conservative Resurgence" in the ABCUSA. Do you think the polity was somewhat to blame? Is it more "top down" than the SBC is? If I'm not mistaken, a lot of conservatives left the Northern Baptists in the 1930's during the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy as well, similar to the OPC leaving the PCUSA.

Also, to some the SBC may seem to have a sectarian mindset. I agree that it has a high degree of identity compared to the mainlines. But there is a lot of handwringing today over the lack of denominational identity among the "Younger Southern Baptists" that we see constant reference to in the Baptist Press, the blogs and elsewhere. Some of this lack of identity IMO is not helpful as I noted earlier. One symptom of this perceived lack is a "Baptist Identity" movement that seems to be largely coming out of Southwestern Seminary.

The perception of the SBC is largely in the eye of the beholder. Obviously it is a diverse group, including everything from Rick Warren to landmarkists. Many of the indy/fundy viewpoint still view the SBC as being only marginally better than the ABCUSA. I met a woman recently who is a member of a SBC in Mississippi. She told me the rest of her family is Missionary Baptist and views them as being "liberal" for belonging to a Southern Baptist church.

Hippo · #10 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 03:11 PM

I can see why Baptist churches would not see infant baptism as baptism and would require a believers baptism for membership or communion. Such a position is logical and consistent with their teachings.

What I have a difficulty with is requiring a baptism by immersion where the persons previous baptism was as an adult on profession of faith but by sprinkling.

Is this inisistance (rather than a strong preference) on immersion widespread or even universal?

Can this practice be defended as anything other than sectarian?

Pilgrim · #11 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hippo

I can see why Baptist churches would not see infant baptism as baptism and would require a believers baptism for membership or communion. Such a position is logical and consistent with their teachings.

What I have a difficulty with is requiring a baptism by immersion where the persons previous baptism was as an adult on profession of faith but by sprinkling.

Is this inisistance (rather than a strong preference) on immersion widespread or even universal?

Can this practice be defended as anything other than sectarian?

It is often regarded as sectarian by non-Baptists, but from the Baptist point of view there is no baptism unless it is by immersion.

Hippo · #12 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hippo

I can see why Baptist churches would not see infant baptism as baptism and would require a believers baptism for membership or communion. Such a position is logical and consistent with their teachings.

What I have a difficulty with is requiring a baptism by immersion where the persons previous baptism was as an adult on profession of faith but by sprinkling.

Is this inisistance (rather than a strong preference) on immersion widespread or even universal?

Can this practice be defended as anything other than sectarian?

It is often regarded as sectarian by non-Baptists, but from the Baptist point of view there is no baptism unless it is by immersion.

Firstly how widespread is this position and secondly why is the mode seen as of critical importance, without the possibility of differing interpretations?

Wannabee · #13 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 03:30 PM

The significance of identifying with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. We are buried together with Christ and raised to walk in the newness of life. These are necessarily lost if one is not immersed (submerged, if you will).

North Jersey Baptist · #14 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hippo

I can see why Baptist churches would not see infant baptism as baptism and would require a believers baptism for membership or communion. Such a position is logical and consistent with their teachings.

What I have a difficulty with is requiring a baptism by immersion where the persons previous baptism was as an adult on profession of faith but by sprinkling.

Is this inisistance (rather than a strong preference) on immersion widespread or even universal?

Can this practice be defended as anything other than sectarian?

If Baptists are true to what they believe they will insist on baptism by immersion of professed believers. Sectarian? I have to interpret your use of that word as pejorative. I prefer to view our view of baptism as scriptural. Arguable? On the PB, certainly!

toddpedlar · #15 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 04:58 PM

Thanks, my baptist brothers. This is helpful. I'm going to be talking to the people I mentioned anonymously, and we'll see how the discussion goes. I fear the church involved isn't being consistent in their application ... that is it seems they do accept baptisms of individuals regardless of whether they were as infants or as professors for the purpose of membership, but will baptize a person who is currently a member of the church (based in part on that previous baptism) previously baptized as an infant if they believe they are being called to do so as an act of obedience to Christ.

Such language makes me shudder.

toddpedlar · #16 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 05:03 PM

By the way, just to be clear - I have NO problem whatsoever with a baptist congregation being consistent with their principles and requiring professor-baptism of those who would be members. This is only treating baptism with the respect it deserves and being consistent with what they profess true baptism to be.

My problem is with those who seem not to have any real doctrine of baptism and hence slosh back and forth all over the place when it comes to performing (or not performing) it.

KMK · #17 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 05:20 PM

Speaking from the Baptist Pastor's position, in the modern Amercan church, you simply have to take people at their word and do what you have to do with fear and trembling that you will be held to an account. Someone could tell me that he was baptized and be mistaken. Someone could tell me that he had not been baptized and be mistaken. There is no way to find out what the truth is. Therefore, most of us would err on the side of caution and baptize and ask the Lord to forgive any irregularities.

As to immersion, I confess that I do not agree with those who believe that baptism upon profession by affusion needs a 'do over'.

The LBC says, "Immersion, or dipping of the person in water, is necessary to the due administration of this ordinance."

I take this to mean that on my end, as a Pastor, it is required of me to immerse. A man who has been sprinkled may have an 'irregular' baptism but I don't think it makes sense to 'rebaptize' in such a case because of the importance of baptism being a 'one-time' event.

Please correct me if I am in error!

Hippo · #18 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KMK

Speaking from the Baptist Pastor's position, in the modern Amercan church, you simply have to take people at their word and do what you have to do with fear and trembling that you will be held to an account. Someone could tell me that he was baptized and be