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PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 11/7/2001 3:41 PM (GMT -6)

BAPTISM

This is just a way of starting a new thread. The other Baptism thread was getting full, and was to laden with arguements that were off-issue. Pia suggested that I begin a new one. To get things going it seems good to post something from a particular point of view...in this case I'll post the traditional, sacramental view and practice (from ).

Other views are invited!

I hope that this can be a rich thread....

quote:

posted by PotOnWheel - 11/06/2001 : 10:40:33 PM
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BAPTISM

I'd like to hear what some OTHER (besides myself) people have to say about Baptism. That is why I come to this board -- the diversity of views and the chance to interact.

So, for everyone who HAS NOT posted on Baptism for a while....please comment on the below (someone else's words) OR import your own choice text.

quote:
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Through the act of immersion, the baptized person dies to this world and is born again in the resurrection of Christ into eternal life. He is clothed with the "garments of salvation" symbolized by the white baptismal robe which is the "new humanity" of Jesus himself who is the new and heavenly Adam (See Jn 3, Rom 5, 1 Cor 15). Thus, the words of the Apostle Paul are chanted as the newly-baptized is led in procession around the baptismal font three times as the symbol of his procession to the Kingdom of God and his entrance into eternal life: "For as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Alleluia" (Gal 3:27).

In ancient times this procession was made from the baptistery to the church where the newly-baptized received Holy Communion at the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Baptisms were normally done in connection with the Easter Liturgy; our present procession around the church building on Easter night is nothing more than our remembrance that we are baptized, that we have left the life of this world to enter the eternal life of the Risen Christ in the Kingdom of God. This new life is given to us in the life of the Church, most specifically in the Divine Liturgy. Before the baptismal procession and the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel is fulfilled in the reception of Holy Communion, however, the newly-baptized is given the gift of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Chrismation.
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There are many different views on Baptism represented by folks on this board. A year or so back I saw that the room (was a church sanctuary) where I was baptized is now a gym. it felt funny; even though the denomination (BGC) is probably pretty non-sacramental. Friends in the Reformed tradition talk about "sign and seal" a lot. Pressed, they were not sure for themselves how that avoided "virtual reality" and represented something real. The older of them remarked a need to maybe just take the Bible literally as it says, "(wait a minute!)".

This thread should result in a variety (not made up, but those views which each of us represent) of things shared, discussed, examined, and respected. That does not mean pluralism; just belief that the responsibility that God gives each of us is to be respected for us allowing the "other" to do their own deciding--which is something holy. Lets learn how to do this!

The text the old Calvinist quoted is: "...We died to sin; how can we live in it any died to sin; how can we live in ti any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Romans 6:2-4) The tradition quoted above gives attention to both Baptism and the Reception of the Holy Spirit.

We will NOT persuade each other to take our view. But it SHOULD be worthwhile to hear each other out and to see each other explain. THAT should make us each more literate of the territory--enabling us each to make good decisions!

So....PLEASE comment on the TEXT, the TRADITION illustrated above, OR import your OWN choice text.

Thanks.

PotOnWheel

(ISA 64:8 "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.")

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 11/08/2001 06:39:48 AM

pia†desideria
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301

Posted Yesterday 2:36 AM (GMT -6)

Great thread POW! Thanks.

I can relate to your funny feeling when you learned that the room you were baptized in is now a gym. The church where I was baptized is now a bank! I wonder what they did with the baptismal.…

I was baptized by immersion as an eleven-year-old infant. I say “infant” because spiritually that’s what I was. There wasn’t even a glimmer of theological intuition or exegetical savvy—and I had never heard of a sacrament. I just loved the Lord and baptism seemed like the right thing to do.

Looking back, it seems like my baptism was a kind of inauguration into a deeper level of faith. About that time God gave me a real hunger for the Word—I even wrote my favorite passages from the psalms on the walls of my bedroom. When I passed notes to my friends in class, they were passages from Scipture I found the night before. And I was discipled not too long after that too—I couldn’t get enough. Good thing we worship a God who is the bread of life and living water.

Now that I’m a seminary student, I feel like I finally have a sound theological understanding of the significance of baptism. But the fact that I didn’t back when I was an “infant” didn’t seem to phase the faithfulness of God. Baptism is not a human work—it is God who is at work.

I’d like to hear some of your baptism stories!

Maybe some of you have baptized other people—what’s that like?

Blessings,
pia

~·•·~·•·~·•·~·•·~
God is wild. § Harold

whasssuuuppp
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 210

Posted Yesterday 3:05 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
I’d like to hear some of your baptism stories!

I think you were talking to POW, but...here's my story.

I was baptized Catholic by one of my grandmas when I was an infant (not sure how--I think it was the "sprinkling" thing--but I'm pretty sure it wasn't immersion

). Then when I was 19 I was baptized by immersion in a hotel pool.

So...so far we've got POW baptized in a room that is now a gym, Pia in a church that is now a bank, and me in a hotel pool...anyone else?

************************

If we are going to change the world at all we must first be a little crazy.
-Wislawa

Semeia
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted Yesterday 4:43 AM (GMT -6)

PoW, Pia, and Wu,

I was baptised as an infant in a Catholic church. I was baptised again when I was 28 or 29, by my husband, in the bathtub. There was a lot of laughing and crying going on.

Semeia

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard

pia†desideria
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301

Posted Yesterday 4:53 AM (GMT -6)

Wu and Semeia, what made you decide to get rebaptized? pia

~·•·~·•·~·•·~·•·~
The glory of God is the human being fully alive § Irenaeus

Kyle Essary
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 113

Posted Yesterday 6:31 AM (GMT -6)

I was baptized when I was nine, and when I was changing to get into the robe to be baptized in I somehow ripped my pants badly. SO, I got to wear the wet robe for the rest of the service!

Kyle Essary

geej
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 93

Posted Yesterday 5:59 PM (GMT -6)

I was Baptised in a now defunct Baptist Church in Stillwater. I was somewhere between 7 and 9 and I remember the excitement I felt as though it was yesterday.
I was the youngest one of the group and I was thrilled that I was getting baptized because I had heard it was a command and that it was an open expression of my faith. I don't think I fully understood the finer nuances of the reasons for Baptizm but I had begged my parents since I was really young (6) to do it.
As for my view (which according to some faiths would damn me to an eternity separated from God), I go with the concept of "outward sign of an inward Grace." Baptism is a sacrament that is important and much like "do it yourself communions" my fundamentalist days tell me that you can't be Baptized without a pastor...that it's somehow better. I feel as though I'm committing some terrible heresy when I take communion outside the context of the church as I feel somehow sacreligious when we have Baptisms performed by family members. Of course, my head says that my early fundamentalist training is pathetic but there it is....lurking in the back of my mind.
Its pretty amazing how God's Grace completely sets you free from worrying whether or not you have every "t" crossed and every "i" dotted; you never have to wait for the other shoe to drop. I am greatful that regardless of whether I get it exactly right, God will forgive me for it. It's a pretty awesome thing.
GJ

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted Today 2:36 AM (GMT -6)

When I was in the seventh grade I had no idea that where the Holy Spirit was there was the Church, the Kingdom of God presently acting in history. (I don't think that I stretched that too far--my memory is not great.) I just knew that I would rather be outside playing ball than listening to my dad tell me about the necessity of being Baptized. To my "that age" psyche it was yet another requirement. Our discussion was not deep. I surely was not deep. Sacramental understanding in my Baptist church was not deep. But my dad's words, which I trusted, that Jesus wanted me to do this thing (following a pastor's class that would begin the next week) and that it was a necessary part of being in Jesus Church. (The institutional aspect of just about anything, for me at that age, extended just about to the horizon of when I would be called in for dinner.) It was not a hard decision to be baptized.

What is harder to understand now is all the times I had responded to altar calls in my 4-6 grades years. I had been a cognizant Christian back to well before age 4. Being around lots of people now who speak of Covenant Theology, it is not hard because I know that there is not a time when I know that I wasn't taking God's hand and He mine. I could be perturbed that those adults made me miss being a participant in Jesus supper all those years. The emphasis on "decisions" did that. I suspect. Getting them, causing them, harvesting them. Making them too. but mine--if there was one--was made in that Sunday school class of four year olds (if only because this is as far back as I can remember) where my mom's cousin asked about us asking Jesus into our heart. My sister did that with me too later that year. (It was fresh each time.) So for me it is the on-going that is more a part of my experience. But back to baptism.

Baptism is not an ongoing... It is a gonna--doing--done thing. It was very special. The classes (before which my dad had done the right thing by discussing with me himself first), well, they were fine; they did the job. Being baptized was super. Being welcomed into the church in a line of handshakes was real.

(Family is waking up now; so I'll have to wrap this up.)

The ONGOING part of baptism is, in the Eastern tradition's words at lest, the 2nd-baptism of Confession. Confessing sins is a washing in that baptismal grave where we were buried with Christ and risen with him, entering the Church. That is what happens when we follow: "If we confess our sins, He is faith full and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

SPLASH!

PotOnWheel

(ISA 64:8 "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.")

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 11/09/2001 07:39:56 AM

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