"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
As you may have noticed, I’m doing a bunch of posts at the moment about infant baptism. One issue I’m not going to address in this series is the question of the mode of baptism: immersion, pouring etc.
Fortunately, Doug Beaumont over at Soul Device has just released a post on that very subject:
Yesterday I began to look at the question of infant baptism. We saw how, although we don’t have explicit references to infant baptism in the New Testament, that there are passages which strongly suggest that infants and children were baptized. Today I would like to continue looking at this issue, but from a slightly different angle…
Over the last six months, many of my non-Catholic Christian friends have given birth to their first child. This was brought about, presumably, through the combination of an extremely poor TV lineup last summer and an abundance of free time on their part.
With this wonderful addition to their family, several of these new parents are now facing a dilemma: should they baptize their newborn child?
You see, in many cases, one spouse comes from a denomination where infant baptism isn’t performed (Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, non-denominationals) and the other has come from a denomination where it is standard practice (Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist). The parents typically make the choice to either baptize their child or to have some kind of dedication ceremony.
This is an important issue to me. I was once a member of Protestant congregation where they did infant baptisms, but they also carried out child dedications, depending upon the wishes of the parents. This inconsistency was an important catalyst in my study of the ancient Christian faith and my eventual reversion to the Catholic Church.
So, in the next few posts I would like to present the basic case in favour of infant baptism…
I’m going to be in DC for the March For Life (22nd January) with a posse of people from San Diego. Are you ready?
I came across this very cute little video…
It’s been one of those days…this quotation feels appropriate…
“When someone prays for patience do you think God just gives them patience? No, he gives them lots of opportunities to practice patience. It’s the same when someone prays for courage…”
– God/Morgan Freeman, Evan Almighty
In the Diocese of San Diego we’ve had various “Mega”-themed events. It all began with “Mega Mass”, then “Mega Adoration” and then “Mega Rosary”. We even had something akin to a “Mega Bible Study” at the end of my Theology On Tap talk.
Why have “Mega” events? Well, we Christians often need to be reminded that we are part of something much larger than ourselves. We need to be reminded that the Church is far bigger than just our local parish or our local Bible study.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. – 1 Peter 2:9
This idea has been brought home to me at several points in my life, but the one which sticks out to me is when I traveled to Australia in 2002 and visited Hillsong church in Sydney. If you’ve never been, it’s absolutely massive. It was quite something to be surrounded by a couple of thousand Christians singing praise to God.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, …crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!”
– Revelation 7:6-10