Why My Children Are Baptized

In two weeks we’re scheduled to have our son Aaron baptized. Last week Karis Kemp, the childrens pastor at Quest, met with all the parents at Quest who plan to have children either baptized or dedicated. There must’ve been six couples or so and we all went around sharing whether we would have our children baptized or dedicated. Quest is a an
Evangelical Covenant Church, which allows for both believer baptism (BB) and infant baptism (IB). I suspected that most parents would lean toward BB and want their children dedicated, but I was surprised to discover that Sarah and I would be the only family there to choose IB.

I’m a bit of a cheat – I was both IB and baptized as an adult. My father is a Presbyterian pastor so of course I was IB. During my college days I attended a Bible church and I choose to be baptized then. Later on I reclaimed my Presbyterian heritage and chose to have all my children IB.  Sarah was IB and went through confirmation and so was never BB. I do remember being a bit offended when the pastor of my Bible church said that she still needed to be BB even though she had IB and confirmation.

So why IB? I’m not going to rehearse the theological arguments here. Karis asked me to share why we chose to have Aaron IB and I shared my personal reasons for doing so. I figure if you’re going to do one or the other it might as well be personally meaningful. I remember one of my friends saying to me that he believed his parents who were IB in a liberal Protestant church ought to be BB now that they were “born again.” When I asked why he said, “Because Christ commands us so.” I choose to have Aaron baptized not merely because it is the doctrinally correct thing to do or merely obedience. I do so because it is meaningful for Sarah and I, Micah, Hannah, Aaron, our family, friends, and church.

I’ve witnessed adults who were baptized as adults fall away from the faith so the old argument that IB gives a false sense of eternal security applies equally to BB (although I do recognize that many have grown up in nominal Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed congregations in which IB did give this impression). I’ve also witnessed BB Christians constantly attempting to convert their children – always seeking a genuine profession of faith. I think I would drive my kids and myself crazy if I tried to do that. For how reliable can a confession be? Who’s to say that they won’t later fall away? Who’s to say that I won’t later fall away? All to say that baptism is not the mark of a genuine Christian.

I want Aaron to know that he has been initiated into the church, the community and family of faith and baptism does that. I want Aaron to know that God initiates salvation – it is not merely his personal decision. I want Aaron to know that his faith is to be personal but it is not merely so. I want Aaron to know that he is expected to worship and obey God even as a child. I’m going to tell my children that because they have been baptized they are part of the peculiar people of God – it is a great privilege, it is also a great responsibility. As I look at my life it’s hard to say whether I chose God or whether He chose me. There are times when I wished I weren’t a Christian yet I couldn’t get myself to deny my faith because for better or worse it is part of who I am and to deny my faith would be to deny myself.