The Real Reason Evangelicals

Don’t Baptize Babies

NOVEMBER 29, 2016 BY G. SHANE MORRIS

5
Friends (especially those expecting children) ask me with
surprising frequency why I believe in infant baptism. For a
couple of years, I replied by giving what I think the best biblical
reasons are. But I usually don’t take that route anymore,
because I’ve realized that’s not what convinced me.

For most evangelicals, what stands in the way of baptizing

infants isn’t a lack of biblical evidence, but an interpretive lens
they wear when reading Scripture. That lens–shaped by
revivals, rugged individualism, and a sacramental theology
untethered from the church’s means of grace–makes conversion
the chief article of the faith. We should expect this, since
American evangelical theology was forged on the frontier, in
camp meetings, to the sound of fire-and-brimstone preaching.

image:
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/troublerofisrael/files/
2016/11/baby_baptism-300x200.jpg

The core assumption here is

that you must have a conversion experience to be saved. You
must turn away from a past life toward a new one, usually with
tears and laments attesting your sincerity. And this view of
Christianity works well in an evangelistic setting, where many
have lived as open unbelievers. The problem is it’s an awkward
fit when it comes to multi-generational faith.
Anyone who was raised in a Christian home and still believes in
Jesus knows that there wasn’t a time when he or she
transitioned from “unbelief” to “belief.” We were never
“converted.” It was simply inculcated from infancy, and for as
long as we can remember, we have trusted in Jesus for the
forgiveness of our sins, whether we were baptized as a baby or
not.

But because of the baptistic emphasis on conversion, many (if

not most) raised in those churches found ourselves “converting”
over and over, reciting the “sinner’s prayer” at countless altar
calls during our childhood and teenage years, certain that each
time, we were truly sincere, but always finding ourselves back at
the altar. Some of us even asked to be re-baptized upon our
fresh conversions. And everyone raised in evangelical churches
will know what I mean when I say “testimony envy,”–that real
and perverse jealousy you feel when someone who lived a
nastier pre-conversion life than you shares their story.

This is where I think the chief difficulty with infant baptism lies,
at least for American evangelicals. I don’t believe baptistic
evangelicals really view their children as unregenerate pagans
before their “credible profession of faith.” If they did, they
wouldn’t teach them to say the Lord’s Prayer or to sing “Jesus
Loves Me.” I think what’s really going on is a kind of alternative
sacramentalism, where a dramatic conversion experience,
rather than baptism, is the rite of Christian initiation.
Thus, children raised in this setting feel the need to
manufacture tearful conversions over and over to prove their
sincerity. And rather than their present trust in Christ, they’re
taught (implicitly or explicitly) to look back to a time, a place,
and a prayer, and stake their salvation on that.
Infant baptism runs counter to this entire system. It declares
visibly that God induces a change of heart and a saving faith in
those too young to even speak or remember their “conversions.”
It illustrates that the branches God grafts in to His Son aren’t
sterile. They bud and blossom, producing new branches that
have never drunk another tree’s sap. And most importantly, it
matches the lived experiences of believers’ children, rather than
continually imposing a system on them that was designed for
first-generation converts.

Almost always, I see the lights come on after explaining this

point to an evangelical friend. And in most cases, their
acceptance of infant baptism isn’t far behind.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Flickr user Christopher

Michel

Read more at
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/troublerofisrael/2016/11/the-
real-reason-evangelicals-dont-baptize-
babies/#fb3yTA3YR2ao19ec.99