Why we baptized our babies

Part of my story is that I grew up Lutheran, baptized when I was 10 days old, then "fell away" in a sense my freshman year of college, "got saved" shortly thereafter, and then spent several years as a baptist/revivalist Christian. In many ways, I resented the liturgical church of my upbringing, including the "religious" practice of baptising babies. I saw it as an obstacle to the gospel, because someone who has already been baptized might be reluctant to have an "accept Jesus into my heart" experience later in life. If a person's salvation depends on whether or not they choose to have this conversion experience and allow Jesus to save them, then this is a very real concern.

However, several years ago I began to study the doctrine of the Reformed tradition, starting with a stroll through the Westminster Confession of Faith. The WCF, and the scriptures that support its theology, really opened my eyes and made the Bible make sense in a unified, God-centered way that they hadn't before. So, I became a Reformed Baptist, which has been a surprisingly popular position within Reformed circles, since the Reformation.

And then my wife and I had kids. Suddenly, the debate on infant baptism wasn't an academic one. After much deliberation, we decided to have our children baptized over Labor Day this year. The following is an explanation of how this decision came about, and the reasons that support it. It was initially penned as an explanation to extended family members that would disagree with us on this point of doctrine. The over-arching goal of this piece is to explain our position, not to tell everyone else they are wrong. The intent isn't to divide, but rather to hopefully facilitate understanding between camps who disagree on this point that tends to be somewhat of a hot button issue.

This piece was originally a letter/e-mail, but I've tried to go through and revise and adapt it for this environment. The attachment I refer to can be found here. Anyway, here it is…

…this subject is obviously one that requires a rather lengthy discussion for us to explain exactly what we are thinking and why we have decided to have our children baptized.

One of the reasons that this discussion is a lengthy one is that it doesn't start and end on the subject of baptism. In truth, a person's understanding of the very nature of salvation, both theologically and experientially, greatly impacts their presuppositions concerning baptism. I fear that our differences in understanding stretch beyond the borders of the infant- or believer-baptism debate. Continue reading this post »