Good Organizational Principles Take A Look At Infant Baptism

GOOD ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES TAKE A LOOK AT INFANT BAPTISM

It may seem strange to evaluate a religious practice by looking at it from a secular viewpoint. But GOD’s idea of “religion” is much more inclusive than the picture which most of us have. And, after all, He explicitly designed the organization of His church – which means that we cannot improve upon what God designed, right? The Creator who could design and implement the construction of the most complex machine in the known universe – the human body – never threw ANYTHING together!

One of the goals of any organization it to make sure that your structures and practices are the best ones that can help to accomplish your organization’s goals, as well as the best ones to protect those goals from being subverted by an accident, a competitor, or an enemy. Because this is Super Bowl Sunday, we will look at professional sports for an example. The most important goal of the offensive team’s front line is to protect the quarterback from contact by the other team’s front line. Since the opposing team makes sure that THEIR front line are the strongest and biggest men they can get, you want to have YOUR front line be stronger and bigger than theirs, right? But what if your coach is so much under the “inspiration” of his feminist fanatic of a wife that he decides to give women a shot at the front line? What do you think are the chances that you will see your team at the next Super Bowl? If you don’t like football, then switch to basketball and it’s need for very tall people!

Or, what if your hospital decides that it needs to have a gender balance among its surgeons that will create a 50/50 balance between the two genders. So, they start to give preference to female applicants, regardless of their surgical skills and experience.  Would you trust their past surgical staff’s reputation enough to let them operate upon YOUR child? If you don’t want to get involved in GENDER        issues, then replace “women” with “young,” or “black,” or “Republican.”

Let’s get back to the Church environment. Certainly, one of any church’s very important goals OUGHT to be to protect its structures and practices so that they accomplish the mission that Jesus Himself established for His Church. And that mission is to “make disciples” who fulfill what HE meant by the word “disciple.” From what He said in the gospels, HIS idea of a “disciple” will be a person who loves Jesus more than his own wife or children (Matthew 10:37). His idea of a “disciple” will “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:38-39) and be disciplined to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). His idea of a female disciple will be a wife who “submits to” and “obeys” her Christian husband (1 Peter 3:1-6); and His male disciple will “honor” and “love” and “cherish” their wives (1 Peter 3:7-12; Ephesians 5:25-29). We can go on and one, can’t we!

So, any practices of the Church should be the best ones at producing such true disciples, as well as and practices that guard the subverting the goal of having the maximum number or proportion of true disciples within the church.

The answer to the question of WHO should get baptized can be arrived at by just compiling all passages that deal directly and indirectly with baptism. But there have been enough radically different and conflicting interpretations on such passages that the natural and simple interpretations are covered by clever and confusing ones that usually leave the congregational member unable to see what IS  natural and simple. For that reason, it can be helpful for such “secular” organizational  principles to be considered along with those Biblical passages.

Infant baptism means that you are admitting into the Church a human being who has never thought about the identity and authority of Jesus; nor have they thought about the VERY specific and unique Way of life that He required of His disciples; nor have they ever made a choice about ANYTHING beyond how to prefer a full bottle over an empty one! No matter HOW faithful a congregation or denomination might be to TEACH about Jesus and His holy Way, that infant is going to grow up and someday choose His own way of life, his own values, his own “world views.” Baptizing an infant is based upon a vague HOPE that that child will make the right decision.

The other option about baptism is for the Church to teach faithfully the truly Biblical/Apostolic truths about Jesus and His holy Way, but also make sure that only those who have both the ability and the personal conviction to embrace it all fully before they are immersed into Christ.

Which of those two “organizational principles” do YOU think is most likely to accomplish the goal that Jesus created for His Church? NO practice can guarantee that there will not be lukewarm, worldly or Satanically-deceived members in Christ’s Church – you see it even in the days of the apostles (e.g., Acts 5:1ff); you even see it among the twelve apostles (i.e., Judas)! There may be no guarantees, but which process do YOU believe will wind up with congregations where the majority of “members” are not disciples of Jesus? Is not the answer obvious?

The Pre-Nicene Church gives us a unique form of the consequence of adopting the baptism of infants. The baptizing of infants started at different place and times, seemingly as a localized event (rather than universal and official). Yet, in THEIR case the proportion of true and passionate disciples in churches was clearly greater than the typical congregations of our post-Constantinian forms of Christianity. One reason for that greater faithfulness must certainly be seen in the fact that, even in those churches that were starting to baptize infants, their congregations were till teaching and practicing the natural and literal sense of the teachings of Jesus, including the horribly important instinct and practice of remaining separate from the ungodly cultures that surrounded them. One must also acknowledge the added “helpfulness” of that pagan cultures: their satanic delight in persecuting and torturing Christians would be a great aid among even those baptized as infants in not having any romantic illusions about the nature of that culture. But when the Emperor himself made it known that he had a strong preference for the Christians, the pagan public quickly became highly motivated to start pounding on the Church’s door for admission.

And both the Constantinian era history and the Reformation era history demonstrate convincingly that whenever the church accepts union or integration into its secular culture, that culture puts great pressure upon the church to make becoming a German occur at the same time as becoming a “Christian” (Or Frenchman, Italian, Spaniard or Englishman). Infant baptism quickly becomes the norm, once you accept that alliance and integration. Only the Anabaptists resisted that alliance – and they paid a very bloody price for their faithfulness!

The beginning of infant baptism was not the result of careful reflection upon the New Testament passages. It was the result of a tragic MISinterpretation of the passages that described how important baptism was: “He who believe AND is baptized will be saved,” Jesus had said (Mark 16:16). “…Baptism now SAVES you…”, Peter had said. And it does not appear that it was church LEADERS that had encouraged the infants to be baptized, but rather the parents of seriously sick infants (my “Blueprint for a Revolution: Building upon ALL of the New Testament” has more detail about that issue). They seem to have forgotten that Peter’s baptismal passage also went on to say, “… not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an APPEAL TO GOD for a good conscience.” Do YOU think that Peter thought that a parent can make that appeal instead of their infant? Furthermore, Paul had said, “… IF you CONFESS with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and BELIEVE in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person BELIEVES,  resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he CONFESSES resulting in SALVATION. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever BELIEVES in him will not be disappointed.” Do you see ANYTHING in that passage that would lead you to believe that an infant, who cannot “believe” that Jesus is his Master and cannot confess anything with his mouth can nevertheless qualify as being baptized, in the definition that Jesus, Paul and Peter had for “baptism”? Do YOU think Paul would have said it was OK for the parent to do all the clearly needed believing and confessing rather than their infant? Do YOU think that Jesus, Paul and Peter somehow forgot to include infants in what they actually meant and said?

So, organizational matters CAN help determine which spirit is influencing the Church for better or for worse! There is NOTHING in the New Testament that we can afford to ignore. The CHURCH body is very much like the HUMAN body – VERY well designed, with absolutely NO need for any changes of theology, discipline, practices, promises, or structure.

AMEN?