| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

baptism

Page history last edited by Andrew Alder 17 years, 9 months ago

a wrangles page

 

All Christians agree that baptism is important. And that's about all they agree on.

 

Some churches insist that you be baptised before they'll allow you to join. Others insist that you be baptised before they'll allow you to marry in their church building, or (more rarely) before they'll accept as valid your marriage elsewhere.

 

Some churches recognise baptism by sprinkling of water, others only recognise it by full immersion.

 

Some churches baptise infants, others only baptise adults (or at least people old enough to make meaningful responses to questions of faith and commitment). Adult baptism is more properly called believer's baptism.

 

Generally, churches that don't baptise infants don't recognise infant baptism as valid, and similarly those that don't baptise by sprinkling don't recognise these baptisms.

 

Most churches don't allow you to be baptised a second time. But, if they don't accept your first baptism as valid, they'll of course allow you to be baptised again (or as they see it, for the first time).

 

Many churches that recognise sprinkling allow a believer the option of being dunked, provided of course they haven't already been sprinkled.

 

This can get kinda complicated if, for example, you've lost your baptism certificate, or if you honestly don't know whether you were baptised or not, and how or by whom. If it sounds funny, it is. Except it has hurt and inconvenienced an enormous number of people, some quite badly. Sadly, some churches are more understanding than others. That is to say, some act in hurtful and puzzling ways.

 

If that has been your experience, we are truly sorry.

 

Believer's baptism by dunking (full immersion) can and should be a joyful and intense experience for everyone concerned. So much so that some people lie about it, and say they weren't baptised as infants (or don't know) in order to experience believer's baptism. We don't encourage that. But we understand it.

 

Other people who have been sprinkled as children change churches, or visit an understanding church, so that they can be dunked as believers. You might think that this would sort everything out. Think again. They now have two certificates, and most (not all) churches agree that one of them is not valid. But which one? Ah, that's a bit tricky...

 

You don't need to be baptised to join this cyberchurch.

 

But we recommend it. It's a good thing.

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.