{"id":49561,"date":"2018-08-07T05:41:51","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T09:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=49561"},"modified":"2018-07-31T11:55:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T15:55:20","slug":"baptism-and-default-religious-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/baptism-and-default-religious-identity.html","title":{"rendered":"Baptism and Default Religious Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Scot McKnight posted about infant baptism<\/a>, which is apparently the subject of his new book, It Takes a Church to Baptize<\/em><\/a>. In a series of upcoming blog posts he will talk about how and why he has shifted away from believer\u2019s baptism to favoring infant baptism.<\/p>\n

I happen to have been baptized twice, which gives me an interesting perspective on this topic. The first time was as an infant in a Roman Catholic church, and the second was as a teenager in a Pentecostal<\/a> church. I grew up in the former but drifted away, and then after having a born again experience, I became persuaded that baptism ought to reflect a personal decision and so underwent a believer\u2019s baptism.<\/p>\n

I appreciate Scot\u2019s analogy to citizenship \u2013 in a post from more than a decade ago on \u201cWhy I Am a Christian,\u201d<\/a> I use the analogy myself. But is faith more like citizenship or like marriage (as understood in most of the English-speaking world), something where the default is presence or absence? Of course, one can always renounce citizenship, and one can arrange marriages from infancy. This is a question about the \u201cdefault setting,\u201d as it were.<\/p>\n

Those who object to infant baptism often do so based on how they perceive it detracting from the individual\u2019s freedom to choose their own religious path. For some, this is just a desire to see the absence of religiosity become the default position. For others, the emphasis is on personal commitment as opposed to nominalism.<\/p>\n

What is often missed in discussions of this topic is the fact that baptists broadly defined (i.e. those denominations that subscribe to believer\u2019s baptism) must put more<\/em> effort into cultivating commitment on the part of the individual. It is doubtful that extensive Vacation Bible School<\/a>, Sunday School, camps, clubs, and other aspects typical of Evangelicalism in particular constrain an individual\u2019s choice less than say infant baptism (accompanied in many instances by a merely formal mouthing of a commitment to foster faith by parents and godparents) and mere church attendance.<\/p>\n

There is no way that a human being will fail to be influenced and to some extent constrained by our upbringing, whatever form it takes. That isn\u2019t an argument for either approach to be baptism. But it is making a point relevant to both those who prefer to baptize infants and those who leave it for a later personal decision. There is no sense in which one approach or the other either leaves the matter entirely in the hands of the adult individual or places the decision firmly in the hands of family and community. Baptists and Catholics, agnostics and atheists too, all seek to instill their values in their children \u2013 whether those values be \u201cstay true to our tradition\u201d or \u201cmake up your own mind when you are old enough.\u201d Both approaches are found among the religious and the non-religious alike.<\/p>\n

What are your views on baptism and religious upbringing?\u00a0 What has your own experience been, and how does it relate to this topic?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scot McKnight posted about infant baptism, which is apparently the subject of his new book, It Takes a Church to Baptize. In a series of upcoming blog posts he will talk about how and why he has shifted away from believer\u2019s baptism to favoring infant baptism. I happen to have been baptized twice, which gives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":49579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[14621,1002,1089,5167,10911],"class_list":["post-49561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baptists","tag-adult","tag-baptism","tag-believers","tag-infant","tag-scot-mcknight"],"yoast_head":"\nBaptism and Default Religious Identity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scot McKnight posted about infant baptism, which is apparently the subject of his new book, It Takes a Church to Baptize. 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