Can a Person be a "Baptist" and not Immerse?

Drew, I was baptised in the Episcopalian Church as an infant but raised in an essentially non-Christian home (church on Easter and maybe Christmas, etc.). So I was baptised again as a believer as an adult.

I would probably do the same as you did in your shoes.

All I am trying to say is that I cannot judge what others do if they are also believers. I cannot tell them something they did or did not do my way is somehow not good or not Christian or whatever unless it is actually a sin. That is why I asked if being baptised in a way other than immersion is a sin.

You see, the fact that I would probably do exactly what you did is not the matter at all. The matter is whether we respect what another brother or sister in Christ has done under the conviction that it was being obedient to Christ (and again, assuming it was not a sinful act).

As far as being a Baptist is concerned, let me state again that although we do not belong to the nearby Baptist church here in the USA due to some real problems there, we ARE members of a Baptist church in Australia -- we have a bicontinental marriage and jet lag is a familiar feeling!

 

Wow!! Sister Helen the jet-setter

I think there are a few things that one might be able to find as common ground, in the dialogue. I reiterate from my personal perspective, and I been wrong before and I will shore be wrong again, but my love for Christ will always be consistant.

1)It is not baptism which saves the sinner, but confessing with their mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believing in their heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

There will be those who will be saved out of many different Christian faith traditions, (ie.Mehtodist, Lutheren, Presbyterian,etc.), but probably a larger percentage where the Gospel is preached, and reaching the lost for Christ a priority.

2)Believers are to be baptised, as one of the two ordinances of the Body of Christ, and following the example of our precious Lord Jesus, and the New Testament Church.

3)Those coming to a Baptist church, from a different faith tradition, specificly sprinkling, should be rebaptised, as a Baptist, as an outward confirmation of their support for the Baptist ordinances, and to bring them into full membership.

I apologize if I have failed to communicate properly, and if I have butchered theology. I was just trying to jot down and solidify my perceptions.

May God so bless His precious children.

A servant of Christ,
Drew

 

Hey, Everybody! I'm looking over this thread & see two different things going on at the same time.

The thread is about Baptist baptism (or so I thought). Not Salvation. But the two topics seem to be entwined / interchangeable in this thread somehow.

You can be a Christian and not be Baptist.

You can't really be a Baptist unless you are immersed, full body dunk (as I stated before).


So is the topic supposed to about Salvation or Baptist baptism? Or am I the one confused around here?

 

Thank you, Drew. I agree totally on 1 and 2. On #3, however, since baptism, especially by immersion, is a matter of obedience between a person and the Lord Himself, it seems to me that joining the Baptist church and having one's name on the membership roles might be more appropriate to show unity with Baptist teachings than asking for a renewed public commitment to Christ Himself.

Obviously, however, my thoughts on the matter are of no concern to churches anywhere! And that is as it should be. This is simply a discussion board.

 

Technically, SheEagle? The topic was about slamming things I had said in another thread and attempting to disparage my character, especially where BaptistBoard is concerned.

You can see the original thread here:
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=002174;p=1

 

I agree with SheEagle that "two different things going on at the same time" in this thread (or possibly more than two). Some of us are answering the question "can a person be a 'Baptist' and not immerse" and some of you who are in the know are discussing something that transpired in another thread. Anyone care to enlighten us by providing a link?

 

I just did. See the post before yours, please.

 

It may be of some interest to know that the early Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England did not support sprinkling as baptism. It followed the Salisbury use that immersion was the accepted mode, and this provided for the trine immersion of the child.......they had the wrong candidate, but the right mode. The prayer book of Edward VI succeeded Salisbury, but this too immersion had a place of honour and affusion was only for the weak. In 1533 Queen Elizabeth I was immersed. Sprinkling was not efficacious, but was a covenant promise to bring up that person in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It was in later years that baptismal regeneration came into view.

The early English Baptist were essentially a part of the new Congregational Church and some carried on with its teaching, but immersion was the dominant practice even among early Baptists from its inception as a separate entity.

Baptism is not an option, it is a command. Hence, to avoid or refuse baptism is indeed a sin. Ignorance is no excuse, else we must make excuses for all who would alter their belief systems because they "believe" themselvs to be correct, when the word, the ultimate teacher, has already declared it to be so. I do not deny the work of the Holy Spirit, but when the word is plain, we do not need an external force behind it. Some of us need a good kick in the behinder parts to come to our senses, but that is another avenue.

As to other believers: indeed there are devout believers in many circles. We cannot deny this. We are, however, talking about being a Baptist and we ought not to forget this important factor. We recognize one baptism; the symbol of our death, burial and resurrection with the Christ. We generally recognize the letter of testimony from other like-minded assemblies and a second baptism is not required, but in no way are we to even hint that infant baptism or pouring should replace immersion as the proper mode of baptism.

As an aside, when I was leaving the Church of England, the local bishop reminded me that "we" baptize by immersion on the mission field, and some churches in England still have the old baptismal pools beneath the pulpit.

Cheers,

Jim

 

It is a fact that there were some of what we today would call irregularities concerning baptism among the Anabaptists and English Baptists (and Williams, Holliman, & others in America). But even if one accepts the English Separatist origin theory of Baptists, there has been almost 400 years of history of immersion for Baptists, and immersion would have been entwined with the rise of the early Baptists to such an extent, that at least it would define them from other reformers and separtists. So, IMO, with immersion entangled with the history of Baptists, and with the scriptural considerations added, and the Baptist position on sola scriptura, I am hard-pressed to consider any separate existence of Baptists without immersion.

 

Helen,
You have taken personally a point I was making to Karen. She was taking her knowledge of you and forming her opinion of the subject. My point was not that I chose to keep your name out of it to personally "attack" you, it was to show Karen that she should look at what was said, more than who said it.

I was not alone in what we saw. We were not talking about other practices. We were talking about a Baptist belief. This was conveyed several times in several ways.

Lastly, I am not attacking you personally. I apologize if you are upset with me or my stand. But, I will not agree with any other form of baptism, except that of the Baptist belief and the Bible teaching of total immersion. I also have a problem with respecting others beliefs to the point of not showing or correcting when they are wrong. Confusion comes with the fear of "judging". You are not judging a person, if you are correcting them. If they are believers, then they will take what you said, and pointed out scripturally, and corrected where they were wrong, without upset and changes will occur. You have not judged, you have admonished.

spellig and grammatical corrections

[ January 18, 2003, 01:28 PM: Message edited by: TheOliveBranch ]

 

Jim, your comment on the Church of England reminded me that I have read that the early practice of the CoE was immersion. Do you have any source of more detailed info on the matter? It would seem unlikely that separatists leaving the CoE would institute pouring instead of immersion. Why would Baptists restore immersion in 1641 or 1644 if the CoE had already been practicing it? I admit to little knowledge of Church of England history (except for old Henry VIII ). Perhaps you could enlighten us some more on their practice. Thanks.

Also your point about baptism as a command is important. Ignorance of the mode, or sincerity of heart in whatever observance chosen, does not make an irregular baptism acceptable. If this theory were accepted, we would revert to the days of the judges - "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." IMO, the commission speaks volumes to the issue. Baptism is as much a part of it as evangelization and instruction (Matt. 28:18-20).

Helen, thanks for the link.

[ January 18, 2003, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: rlvaughn ]

 

Jim, Olive, everyone else -- I have NEVER argued against baptism by immersion either being correct or being Baptist. This entire thing started here
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=002174;p=1
with the question regarding a pastor who had pastored for some time but later came to a saving knowledge of Christ himself. The question was asked concerning his formerly baptising others -- and about his formerly preached doctrine.

When Drew answered in such a way that it could be misconstrued by others reading (that other denominations were not Christian), I asked him to clarify a couple of points, which he did. In the process, I found myself defending the fact that I recognize other brothers and sisters in Christ as true Christians regardless of how they were baptized. I then got hit, and hard, regarding the correctness of immersion, which I never disputed, and everything got weird from there.

So be it. Olive, you used exclusively my quotes, so I responded. Karen did take the time to read my posts and not just have a knee jerk reaction, and I appreciated that deeply.

Now you folks can go on bashing the things I have said to your collective hearts' content. I have much better things to do than continue with this; in addition, I think I have explained what I believe and why about as well as I can and if is going to be misunderstood by anyone, feel free to PM me or just go on misunderstanding, according to your choice.

 

helen be patient with your Christian brothers, your doctrine i cannot always agree with, but i believe some are on guard toward very plain clarification. i never did read your post as being against immersion or even for sprinkling. i would like to see more dispute against liberal religionist views on matters that are always against conservative fundamentals of biblical truth. i believe that a baptism should be immersion if possible, but a question i do have for some and it being hypothetical, if a saved person was in a situation where he was unable to be immersed for baptism yet wanted to be obedient in baptism and only enough water was available to sprinkle should they consider it?

 

Brother Bob,

I am just recalling my early learning within the Church of England. As you might recall, I was schooled through the Anglican Church right through to university.

We don't hear too much about the fact the Church of England once immersed for baptism. I have a number of Anglican clergy friends and I shall make an enquiry of them. Modernity has somewhat clouded this fact, plus the new theology, of course.

In the Anglican mission book, I know it talks about baptism on the foreign mission field and makes a passing remark that immersion in a river is quite acceptable for heathen converts who should be baptized.

It is not a subject of great importance to most profane history writers, and many church historians tend to overlook it as well.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Abiyah,

I neither said nor implied that I approved of everything taught in the Didache. I only said I like the approach taken by the Didache on the mode of baptism issue. There are a number of things I really like about this ancient document (e.g, its stress on the sovereignty of God and its stance against abortion and infanticide), but that doesn't mean I agree with everything it contains. I understand that there is room for disagreement with some of the teachings of the Didache, as well as room for debate as to what it actually does teach about some issues.

Pastork

[ January 18, 2003, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Pastork ]

 

I think immersion is just that...immersion!

I think this is a good topic.

Dr. Bob, I love the dickens out of you...but stop lumping opinions into groups. I am Southern Baptist. I believe in full immersion. And I believe in singing songs other than just songs from hymnals.

Sherrie

 

http://www.anglican.org.sg/ethos.html

This is an interesting site for the Anglican Church in Singapore, where they immerse adult believers.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Jim, I've been scratching around to see what I could find and came up with this on the internet:

The entire article may be found here:
http://www.llano.net/baptist/baptisminkjv.htm
Actually, its main emphasis is a study of the use of the word 'baptism' in the King James translation, and discusses the charge that the translators used 'baptise' because "The translators (as well as King James I himself) were members of the Church of England (Anglican or Episcopalian Church) which uses sprinkling for their baptism." But I think it is very very interesting if it is true that immersion was the common mode of the Church of England about the same time of the supposed rise of Baptists in England.

 

Brother Bob,
That is not foreign to what I remember from my schooling. This does make suspect the notion that the first Baptists would sprinkle or pour when the state church immersed.

I do know that some early Baptists did pour after the manner of some Congregationalists and perhaps Ana-Baptists.

I am going to pay a visit to Queen's University. They have a very good Anglican library and perhaps I can find more there.

In one town where I served in Saskatchewan, the local vicar was from the same Bible College I attended, and he had baptisms at the local river and dunked the same way we do. He was not censored by the bishop for doing this. Now, I don't know if this was because of attending an evangelical college or his Anglican history, and I am not sure if it was widespread in his parish.

Interesting though. You see from that site I gave you that they have no problem with immersion.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Sprinkling and Pouring were practices developed out of practicality. (It's very difficult to have a river baptism in January in Northern Europe). Immersion was it appears to be the most predominant mode (even for the Roman Catholics for a long time) but that word "predominant" is the key. Predominant does not mean the only mode, just the main way.

The Anabaptists we know did not regard the mode and they poured, sprinkled and immersed though immersion seemed to gain more favor among them as time went on. Menno Simmons does seem to favor immersion from his writings though it does not appear it was necessarily uniform among the Mennonites. The reason most believe that the General Baptists did not immerse exclusively was because

1. Their writings on Baptism never emphasizes Immersion, only Believers baptism. Leon McBeth believes that the General Baptists did not adopt Immersion as the only form until 1660 (Though that can be disputed)

2. The Particular Baptists with their birth around 1638-41 did not get their views on Immersion from the General Baptists. According to the Kiffin manuscript ( Hey! that's my handle) they came to this conclusion through the influence of a Anabaptist congregation in the Netherlands. It seems they would have came to this conclusion from the General Baptists since they were much closer to them and not from a Continental Anabaptist congregation if the General Baptists practiced immersion only.

3. The two earliest Particular Baptist confessions, the 1644 London Baptist confession and the 1655 Midland Baptist confession all espouse Immersion as the valid mode of Believers baptism, something that is missing from the early General Baptist confessions. The Particular Baptists were militant on Immersion yet the mode seemed to lack importance to the General Baptists.

I personaly see the Anabaptists and the General Baptists as the pioneers of the Baptist faith and I see the Particular Baptists as solidifying and correcting some of the errors of our forerunners the Anabaptists and our founding fathers, the General Baptists.

[ January 18, 2003, 09:23 PM: Message edited by: Kiffin ]