A Niggling Worry

I love baptismal services.

In my church tradition we practice believers' baptism by full immersion in water. And every time someone gets baptised, it is a red-letter occasion!

And so it should be. It means someone has died to self and risen to new life in Jesus. Another person has been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. The grace of God has resulted in a brand new believer, born again of the Spirit of God. Hallelujah!

What niggles me though is this... when young people, who have grown up in the church, come to be baptised, it can feel as though it is chiefly a rite of passage and the sense of it being the natural climax of a conversion experience seems strangely muted. We use expressions like "ready now to be baptised" that, I must admit, sit a little uncomfortably with me.

It's not that I doubt their sincerity or authenticity as disciples. Perhaps it is simply inevitable that growing up in a Christian family and being part of a local church family for many years means that conversion is less well defined than one experienced by an adult who has many years of sinning and brokenness under their belt. Yet I remain concerned because it could suggest that we have somehow preached the gospel properly to outsiders but toned it down in some manner for our own children.

I have never belonged to a church that practices infant baptism. I see some merit in an argument for infant baptism that builds on the examples in scripture of whole households that believe and are baptised simultaneously and I can acknowledge the notion of families in covenant with God. Yet the Bible seems pretty clear; the gospel call is to believe and then be baptised. Perhaps it is my devotion to the doctrine of believers' baptism that creates the disquiet expressed above.

Maybe it is merely a sign of my advancing age and is a reflection of my generation. Still, I am always bemused that Christians can leave a church that practices believers' baptism and happily move to another church that practices infant baptism, all without offering any overt acknowledgement of the baptism question. It is as though the worship experience in a congregation or its leadership's preaching and teaching gifts or the geographical location of its services or its provision of children's and youth activities trumps any doctrinal question - so long as the new church is generally evangelical at its core and familiar worship songs are in circulation.

Are the younger generations just more savvy about what really matters? Or am I just being Pastor Meldrew once again?