Sharp Disagreements on the Subject of Baptism
Speaking up about the differing views and beliefs on baptism has often had consequences that would shock modern readers.
Does the act of infant baptism really bring salvation? This is the hard question the author was confronted with when her church asked her to write a 12-week course on the Holy Spirit for their adult Sunday school class. The author came up with one surprising incident after another in the history of the early Christian church that led her to the surprising origins of the infant baptism taught in her church and that of more than half the churches worldwide as she discovered The Secret About Infant Baptism That Everyone’s Missing:
The origins of infant baptism
Martin Luther’s flip-flop
How the Reformation was compromised
The goddess religion connection
The problems caused by having two different water baptisms is bigger than most Christians are willing to admit. Many are longing to know the truth about water baptism. Were they saved or not when they were baptized as infants? And, they wonder if infant baptism is necessary for salvation. They are sensing something is not quite right with the doctrine they have been told will give them eternal salvation.
Come Examine the Subject of Baptism
In writing on the origins of infant baptism, I am aware that doing this is not socially acceptable in today’s politically correct world where discussing religion, and the discrepancy in water baptisms, is taboo. Yet an overview of Church history reveals that this silence has resulted in two different branches in the Church, two different baptisms (three if you count baptizing dead people as done by the Mormons) and two wildly-different ways of getting to heaven—one believing that baptism saves by itself and the other branch believing it does not.
It does not take the proverbial rocket scientist to see that if the Bible says there is only one baptism (Ephes.4:4-6) and the Church is teaching two, one of these is in error. Realizing this is an opportunity for the worldwide Church to enter dialogue, study Scripture, and together reach a decision about the one true baptism of Scripture—and then EVERYBODY could humble themselves and practice the one found there in the Bible.
We are alive at an exciting time in history. Surely Jesus is returning soon. His last earthly prayer on the night before He was crucified was that there might be unity in the Church. Now is the time for the Father to grant the dying request of His only Son. (John 17:20-26).
Fractures will heal and harmony come as denominations study baptism together and come into agreement with Scripture.