The Problem with Adult Baptism: Where’s the Discipleship?

It is important when discussing the problem with adult baptism or infant baptism to first and foremost realize that baptism does not happen in a vacuum. Whether a church practices adult or infant baptism, the baptismal event is one part of a larger system of discipleship that a church community follows. Churches that practice adult baptism in a general take a believe and belong approach. Before you are baptized you make a statement of faith that testifies to your belief, and only then are you a member of the body of Christ. The problem inherent in this way of doing things, especially within our American context, is that churches that have the tradition of adult baptism have become lackadaisical in their discipleship of new believers. Its very easy to have someone stand before a community and profess faith—it becomes much harder to bring that person to a point where they belong to the community and contribute to other’s discipleship. This is a symptom of the dichotomy that is infused into the modern practice of adult baptism: there are non-believers, then believers. In effect, when a person is baptized we are implicitly telling them that they have plateaued in their spiritual journey. They have arrived at the top, and the only place to go is down.

And down they go. There is no greater evidence of the problem with our modern version of adult baptism than the number of people who are re-baptized under the believer’s baptism model. This is a hard pill to swallow for churches that hold dear to believer’s baptism, but the problem has become too large to ignore. To use the Southern Baptist Convention as an example of the typical believer’s baptism church or denomination, 60% of believer’s baptisms today are not initial baptisms, they are rebaptisms (also here), and the vast majority of those rebaptisms, 36%, are of adults who were previously baptized as adults (not infants or children). The whole system of believer’s baptism hinges on the argument that infants or young children are not capable of testifying to their faith in Christ, yet the number one reason cited for rebaptism is “because the candidates feels they “had not been regenerate believers when they were first baptized.” The act of rebaptism should never, ever be taken lightly, because this is not a baptism of man (like John the Baptist) but the baptism of Christ and the sealing of the Holy Spirit we are dealing with here. The vast majority of believer’s baptism churches now practice rebaptism (for sin, for backsliding, for re-affirmation, for overt spiritual growth, etc.) more than they baptize new believers as a testimony to the power of Christ’s gospel. This is a very bad, and spiritually dark situation we find ourselves in.

I am of the opinion that the system of believer’s baptism works within communities that practice it well, as is written about Baptist churches in other countries. What needs to happen within the American context of adult baptism is a renewal of holistic discipleship which views the sacrament/ordinance of baptism as the commencement of a lifelong journey of faith. Somewhat ironically, I think the person who writes best about this concept is the Anglican N.T. Wright, when he implores us to understand that “the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel is that…this new creation, has already begun: it began when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on Easter morning, having faced and beaten the double enemy, sin and death, that has corrupted and defaced God’s lovely creation.” In order to recapture the intent of believer’s baptism, churches have to remember that the core of the gospel is not just the cause but also the effect. When we give testimony at our baptism and say “Jesus is Lord” we are not just submitting a fact for review, we are testifying to a paradigm shift in our entire life and in the entire cosmos; in other words, we are saying Christ has begun the new creation and we are now baptized into it.

The believe then belong approach must take discipleship seriously, or it will continue to be a place of perpetual belief with no belonging: an endless cycle of rebaptisms where no discipleship takes place between spiritual epiphanies. Believer’s baptism can be a beautiful event, especially within a church that takes discipleship seriously. Let our hope and prayer be that our churches that practice believer’s baptism re-discover the purpose and intent of baptism and the spiritual weight of Christ’s new creation: that baptism is a one time entrance into the new creation.