Upon winning the Stanley Cup, Detroit Red Wings’ Tomas Holmstrom decided to let his cousin use the Stanley Cup as a baptismal font to baptize his 7 week old daughter. Now that’s probably never been done before.
Growing up in a Korean Presbyterian Church, I was baptized as a child, and I was confirmed as a teenager. However, in the Evangelical tradition, they disagree with infant baptism because they believe baptism to be a symbol that one has made a confession of faith. As a result, since babies can’t make confessions of faith, infant baptisms are null. (My line of argument is more or less simplistic.)
This brings me to my current situation. I know that I am saved, and I have made a confession of faith through my confirmation. However, since I am currently attending a church that lines itself up with the Evangelical Tenets of Faith (as do I), is there a necessity to receive water baptism?
Hello! Randomly found your blog and have enjoyed reading your thoughts…:) Just wanted to encourage you to keep it up!
You have been baptized already and you have claimed that faith as an adult. I can’t think of any way you could agree to be baptized a second time that wouldn’t require you to deny the original baptism.
Lee Lee,
Interesting thoughts. So why would getting baptized a second time be a denial of the first baptism?
Here’s a bit more in regards to the situation. I was baptized as an infant, confirmed as a teenager, but then I had a few years when I lived in sin and walked away from God. A few years after that, I came back to God and have been passionately following him since.
Is baptism required after a “relapse” or a “backwards sliding”?
No. Baptism is once and for always.
Repentance comes after a relapse or backwards sliding.
Hopefully you have people around you who will help you to claim God’s promises. Know you are forgiven.
Know you are one of God’s children. You have been all the while. That is what baptism is about.
AMEN!
I totally agree with you.
🙂
So, do we win a prize or something if we agree?
Haha…Based on the post, I guess the most fitting prize would be the Stanley Cup.
🙂
If the Canadiens win the Stanley Cup in 2009, maybe I will reconsider my position on baptism.
Haha.
Lee Lee, can you tell me a bit about yourself? And what do you think about infant baptism?
Will email you.
I have a few thoughts to add here, if I may.
I was baptized as an infant because of the religion I was born into.
As an infant, although it was not my choice, my baptism served to encourage the faithful present at that time. It showed that this was something necessary, important, that we are following the example of Jesus. So there is an inherent communal value to baptism even when it’s for an infant.
Now, as a follower of Christ, I chose baptism in order to proclaim Jesus as Lord of my Life. My baptism had the same effect as the first, but I got to personally give all the glory to God.
And that’s really the point isn’t it. Baptism isn’t really about us is it? It’s about what Christ has done for us.
Baptism is an expression, one that was modeled by Christ for us to follow. Think about it, Jesus, the Son of God, perfect in every way humbled Himself and subjected Himself to a symbolic purification as it were, where no purification was required. He chose to do it anyway. That is why I think it’s important for us to choose. By choosing we are truely imitating Christ.
The baptismal rite has no feelings, it is not a person, it is not even God. We cannot offend baptism. So why worry about OUR infant baptism? It was never OURS or about us to begin with. Baptism is and always will be about dying to OURselves and rising to a new life in Christ.
Brian,
I agree with you completely.
However, is confirmation not doing the same thing?
I suppose it would depend on where your heart is when you get confirmed.
I too was confirmed, at 10 years old I think. Some in the RC Rite do it at around 14 or 15. I always thought later was better.
I have to say my “descision” then was far different than my descision now. And, personally, I don’t believe that the public witness of baptism or confirmation has the same impact on the faithful inside religion and outside religion. Baptism and confirmation are just things you do in the RC Church. No one in the RC Church can choose baptism, and I have yet to meet an adolecent that said they were not ready to be confirmed. I’m sure there are a few, there has to be, but I’d go out on a limb and say 95% are just going through the motions.
So it just becomes ritual. And I think it has that same blase effect on those who are witnesses.
Perhaps this is different in the Korean Church.
Perhaps there is more emphasis on what you are chosing to do.
Even in that context, how much of that process was your choice? Were you free to initiate the discussion of confirmation when God put it on your heart to do so, or was it just part of the program? What would have happened if you chose to wait?
All this discussion brings me back to the fact that as a church, with a new heart, a heart for following Christ, we are stuck with an amazing amount of Religious baggage that has possibly served to confuse instead of affirm the message of Christ.
We are free. We have freedom in Christ. In that freedom I think you are free to decide if you want to affirm or re-affirm, as the case may be, how Christ has changed your life now and into eternity. I think you are free to do that in the context of baptism or even as you faithfully serve God as you do every day. Perhaps there is someone who needs to hear how Christ has changed you. Perhaps there is someone who needs to understand this freedom I am talking about.