Expert: Rev. Andrew Smith - 5/1/2008

Question
Dear Reverend,

   I know that Baptists do not believe in infant baptism, but I don't know of any place in the Bible where infant baptism is forbidden. In the Bible it is recorded that entire households were baptized, which would include infants and Jesus said to suffer the little children to come unto him.

   In the Old Testament infants were circumcized and entered into the congregation and covenant of Israel, so why can't infants be baptized and enter into the Church?

   The first Church which practiced only a believers baptism was the Anabaptist Church which came into being in the Protestant Reformation. The first Baptist Church was established in 1612. Does that mean that between the first century and the Protestant Reformation there were no real Christians? That's 1500 years.

   I have heard that some Baptists believe that before the Reformation there were Baptist groups which existed underground, in defiance to the Roman Catholic Church. I have a Wiccan friend who told me the same thing about Wiccan groups which existed before 1920. I have read about a group of Evangelical Christians called the Waldensians who were started about 400 years before the Reformation, but they also practiced infant baptism. Modern day Waldensians have united with Presbyterian and Methodist Churches which also practice infant baptism, but they have not united with Baptist groups. So where were these underground Baptists? Is there any real historical documentation of their existence? Are there records of which countries they lived in, or who their leaders were? If they existed, then why when the first Anabaptist Church was created these people didn't come out and say that they have been practicing this form of worship all along for centuries? Do you have one shred of real historical evidence, or is it just a myth which was created to make Baptists feel good about themselves? I challenge you to find one shred of real historical evidence that these underground Baptist groups existed from the time ancient Christianity, let's say from the reign of the Emperor Constantine, until the Protestant Reformation.

Thank You!
~ Andrew


Answer
  Andrew,

  I can hear a hint of hostility in your question. I am going to go ahead and answer it in good faith.

  I am speaking as a minister: To say that something is permissible because the Bible does not expressly forbid it is a difficult place to stand. Polygamy, for instance, is only forbidden to clergy, not to laypeople. This does not, however, for a strong basis for its practice. It is true that the book of Acts mentions the baptism of whole households, although it doesn't mention the baptism of infants specifically. This amounts to an argument from silence.

  The Protestant to argue in favor of infant baptism using an analogy to circumcision was Ulrich Zwingli, the Reformer that turned the Swiss city of Zurich to Reformed Christianity from about 1525 until his death in 1531. He himself moved tentatively towards adult believer's baptism until he realized that refusing to baptize infants would endanger his civil ideal: for Zwingli, a Christian city is at the same time a Christian church. (Lindberg, The European Reformations, 208-210) Even though his studies of the Greek New Testament offered support for a rejection of infant baptism, he justified it using the Old Testament precedent of circumcision. This argument is still current in Reformed circles today.

  I can think of a few things a typical Baptist might say about this argument:

  1) There are many things the Hebrews did as a covenant people that we do not do. We do not keep kosher or celebrate Passover. Why should we initiate our infants? What warrant does the text itself provide for hanging on to this law?

  2) If the Old Testament law is binding on us, why not circumcise children instead of baptizing them?

  3) Circumcision applied to boys only, whereas we baptize people of both genders.

  It is true that Jesus said of the little children that the disciples should "forbid them not," but neither he nor the disciples baptized in this passage.

  Now for the next part of your question: it is only the most sectarian of Baptists that would assume that only those baptized as adults are Christians. This view is much more typical of churches in the Stone-Campbell tradition (Churches of Christ) than of congregations in the Baptist tradition. Baptists believe that only adult believer's baptism is truly baptism, but we do not generally teach that that baptism is required for salvation. Because we believe that people speak to Christ without mediation from the church, whether or not you are a Christian doesn't hinge on denominational affiliation. There have always been Christians, from the day of Pentecost until today. According to the Baptist perspective, however, they simply missed out on an opportunity to show their obedience through baptism.

  When you ask me if I "have one shred of real historical evidence" about pre-Reformation Baptists, I wonder why you need to write combatively before you have heard my opinion on the matter. It's true that many Baptists, especially Baptists in the Southern United States before the 20th century and even a few Baptists today, have tried to claim that there have always been Baptist churches, and that those churches represent a "trail of blood" reaching back to the first century, untouched by the influence of Roman Catholicism. Most Baptists no longer share this opinion, and I am among those who do not. Baptists are a Reformation people, and our theology comes directly out of that historical situation. If I were to boil this down, I would say that Baptists tend to think that while their churches best represent the church as it should be (who doesn't believe that about their own church?), our churches do not represent the "only" church or the "one true" church. We just believe that only believer's baptism is baptism as described in the New Testament. It is a symbol, so failing to get it does not mean one is not a Christian; it is a symbol of a conscious decision to follow Christ, which means it doesn't apply to infants.

  Again, I hope this helps.

  Andrew