Infant Baptism
I listened to two infant baptism debates, one between James White and Bill Shishko here and one in the 2007/11/08 James White Dividing Line with Gregg Strawbridge.
Interestingly there were really three infant positions presented, since Strawbridge advocated infant communion too, whereas Shishko did not.
What is obvious to me after listening to these debates, is how easy it would be to convince oneself of one side or the other based on scripture alone. In large part the result is based on the hermeneutic. Do you take a western individualist mindset, or an eastern community/family mindset? How do you see the relationship between old and new covenants?
From my point of view, I can imagine the early Church, being mostly Jews, taking the Jewish mindset and baptising their children. The lack of discussion in the bible about whether to do it, or what age to do it, being indicative that they were practicing infant baptism. But I can well see the argument of baptists about the link between faith and baptism often seen as well.
One thing is for sure, the early church wasn’t confused about this. Had they been, some book in the NT would have discussed it more clearly. The early church wasn’t unclear at all, but now, based on scripture alone, people are confused. Nobody can agree. Obviously scripture alone isn’t working as well as the oral apostolic teaching worked.
The question is, could the early church who wasn’t confused have passed on the apostolic tradition to their successors? Was God’s plan to lead his church in the truth, or was it for different denominations 2000 years later to be engaging in endless debates and not getting anywhere?
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Maybe if we had more regenerate folks in the covenant community/church then we have clarity on this issue. As it is I suspect that too much yeast is in the dough (too many goats and too few sheep in the visible church).
Therefore, the last thing we need to do is add people who don’t even profess to be Christians into the church just because they are infants.
Do we believe in original sin or not?
Unless you are willing to declare these infants absolutely regenerate, then they are at the time of being baptized most certainly the devil’s children not Christ’s. These unregenerate infants would kill the entire church if they had the ability (physically) and God didn’t with His common grace restrain their wickedness.
“Maybe if we had more regenerate folks in the covenant community/church then we have clarity on this issue. As it is I suspect that too much yeast is in the dough (too many goats and too few sheep in the visible church).”
So, apparently you are a baptist, and those pesky Presbyterians, not to mention Calvin and his ilk are not regenerate, and thus can’t see the truth? Hmmm….
“Therefore, the last thing we need to do is add people who don’t even profess to be Christians into the church just because they are infants.”
Err.. Are these infants destroying the clarity with their gurgles?
“Do we believe in original sin or not?”
Which version of original sin? The western Calvinist one?
“Unless you are willing to declare these infants absolutely regenerate, then they are at the time of being baptized most certainly the devil’s children not Christ’s.”
Ok, so we declare them regenerate, since as the Orthodox hymn says “As many of you as have been Baptised into Christ, have put on Christ.”