Scot McKnight, an Anabaptist writer and thinker, is writing about baptism over on his blog. Anabaptists (think Mennonite and Amish, for example) practice believer’s baptism. During the Protestant Reformation, Catholics and Protestants, who could agree on seemingly little else, too often agreed with one another that Anabaptists should be killed as heretics—in part for re-baptizing adult Christians who were baptized as infants.
McKnight is reviewing a book on Anabaptist theology, and he wonders if there isn’t a movement within traditions that practice infant baptism (like our own Methodist tradition) to reconsider the wisdom of the practice. In the comments section of that post, I wrote the following:
United Methodist pastor here… In my tradition, there is little room for “revisiting the question” of baptism. Infant baptism is not some merely acceptable but less desirable option. As clergy, we counsel and encourage parents to have their infants baptized, even when parents would choose to wait. Of course, some parents still hold out, in which case their children are normally baptized at confirmation. (For believers’ baptism, we are indifferent as to mode.)
I’m not complaining. I happen to agree with our church’s understanding of the sacrament. And I can’t imagine that Catholics, for example, are less strident on the issue, right?
Regardless, one recent development in my denomination—which may in part be a response to living in our post-Christian age—is an emphasis on the reaffirmation of baptism liturgy. We must continually affirm the promises we made (or are made on our behalf) at baptism, and this liturgy gives us the opportunity to do that. If you haven’t seen the liturgy, it looks and sounds a lot like the baptism liturgy. Instead of re-baptizing, however, we use the water in other symbolic ways and say, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.”
I often counsel with people who want to be re-baptized, especially after a powerful experience of spiritual growth. They want to acknowledge publicly what has happened in their hearts. I believe strongly that reaffirmation of baptism is a beautiful way of accomplishing that, and we pastors should regularly make it available to people.