Can There Be Diversity in Baptism?

The theological systems of believer’s baptism and infant baptism seem to conflict in irreconcilable ways. The theological implications of infant baptism are too much, too soon for those who favor believer’s baptism, while those who practice believer’s baptism can appear to focus too much on a person’s decision to join God’s family and not on God’s action toward the person since they were born.

Navigating the waters between the two views, as I have in both study and my own spiritual journey, has been a confusing and divisive experience: baptism is a divisive issue, and it’s a deal breaker for many churches in how they accept leaders into their community. The mutually exclusive views on baptism can cause headaches when people move from one church or denomination to another; indeed, one only has to read On Plymouth Plantation to realize that baptism has caused division within American Christianity since Europeans landed in the New World.

But I do not think this necessarily has to be so. I believe there can be diversity in baptism amongst denominations and even the local church. That may seem naive, stupid, or counter-intuitive, but in a post-Christian world, when so many local churches are made up of a rich tapestry of spiritual and theological traditions, this is not a pipe dream or wishful fancy. I believe thinking about theological diversity within the local church will become a necessity of the church in the post-Christian era.

When the local church focuses on baptism as part of the spiritual journey of Christian discipleship, and not as an isolated “event,” both systems can function within the structure of discipleship within the church. This requires the church to have mapped out the important steps in a disciple’s life:

• Ministry of Others
• Entrance into the community
• Elementary Discipleship
• Confession of Faith
• Continuing Discipleship
• Public Profession of Faith
• Advanced Discipleship

When the church focuses on discipleship, baptism becomes a part of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. This track for discipleship that I laid out above can be used by the local church as a path of discipleship that allows for a diversity in baptism.

For parents who choose to infant baptize or had their infant baptized prior to joining the church they fulfill the first two steps on the above path. The parents have ministered to their child through bringing them forward for baptism, which marks their entrance into the church community. Then the local church disciples the child through children’s church and Sunday School, until the child makes a confession of faith (their conversion experience). When a child begins to own their faith they continue discipleship  as he or she prepares for their profession of faith before the community. Once a child (now teenager or young adult) makes a profession of faith before the community that reaffirms the baptism they received at their infancy, he or she then joins in further discipleship as an adult member of the community. What has been laid out here is basically the model for confirmation in many churches, but I have placed the focus on discipleship so that it can be adapted to not just teenagers but adults as well.

This system works just as well with believer’s baptism, because the focus is not on confirmation or baptism but on discipleship. For parents in the church who choose believer’s baptism, they minister to their child as it grows, and mark its entrance into the community through baby dedication. The child then continues just like above through discipleship until he or she makes a confession of faith and begins to prepare for their public profession of faith when they are older. At the public profession of faith the child (now teenager or young adult) a baptism would then take place, so that the public professions of faith at the church would allow for either a reaffirmation of infant baptism or an adult baptism. What this system does eliminate is re-baptism, because in honoring the diversity of baptism within the church no re-baptism is necessary. Adult converts who had been baptized as infants, children or teenagers (or even as adults) would not be baptized again but to reaffirm their baptism as an act of God’s grace on their spiritual journey.

The below table illustrates how the the path of discipleship that allows for a diversity in baptism might work in a local church:

Infant Baptism		Believer’s Baptism
Ministry of Parents	Ministry of Others	Ministry of Community/Parents
Baptism	Entrance into the Community	Dedication
Sunday School/The Home	Elementary Discipleship	Sunday School/The Home
Ownership of Faith	Confession of Faith	Ownership of Faith
Basics of Christianity	Continuing Discipleship	Basics of Christianity
Confirmation	Public Profession of Faith	Confirmation & Baptism
Continuing Growth in Faith	Advanced Discipleship	Continuing Growth in Faith

This system of discipleship, also easily allows the integration of adult converts through the ministry and discipleship of others, where they would then be integrated into the community in much the same manner as the children and young adults are. The only difference to an adult would be that their entrance into the community would be more informal, a sense of belonging and an interest in service and ministry, and the formal entrance would be at their public profession of faith and baptism (if they had not been baptized as an infant).

We must remember that God has called us not to baptize the nations but to make disciples of all nations. That is our first and most important goal. What this focus on discipleship allows for is the opportunity for parents to make the decision for either infant baptism or believer’s baptism based on their own convictions, knowing full well that the local church that supports this model will take their charge to disciple all persons, whether big or small, baptized or unbaptized, seriously.

This is the final post in my series exploring baptism. You can find the previous posts in the series by following the links:

“Which Baptism To Choose?: My Story”
“The Case for Adult Baptism”
“The Case for Infant Baptism”
“The Problem with Adult Baptism: Where’s the discipleship?”
“The Problem with Infant Baptism: Where’s the covenant?“