This is my opinion:
My religion is spiritual but we are all human and humans like rituals - God even approves and gives hints on how some are to be carried out. Rituals and symbols can help us to understand difficult spiritual concepts and make us feel more involved.
As for the commitment - my commitment was made was made very slowly over the last 18 years with the final bit coming 18 months ago - yesterday was about announcing it to the world, sharing my journey and being obedient to God and the promises I made. There was no magic and my baptism has not saved me or made me more spiritual or even closer to God (those things have happened and will contiue to happen - well except the magic) I did what was the right thing for me and God
As an atheist, I fervently hope that someday you will see that you never needed God’s help to get there and that it was in you all along. But if this is the path you needed to get there, then I’m glad you took it.
Congratulations on your baptism. Although I am not Baptist I am happy for you. And ignore the naysayers and meanies. You have your faith and it makes you happy, filling a need in your life. If someone wants to just jump in here to say something rotten or dump on your happy day then they can just go to…another thread where they can post their nasty views.
Just curious, what denomination of Baptist are you?
madrabbitwoman, I’ll jump in to add a couple of details, if you don’t mind. I was baptized into the Seventh Day Adventist church, which is definitely different but shares a lot of similarities with the Baptist church.
I was baptized at 12. I’m not certain, but I think that you can be baptized at any time - I’ve never heard of avoiding baptisms during Lent; why would protestants care about Lent? Perhaps churches closer dogmatically to the Catholic church do so; my own fundamentalist protestant church didn’t follow the Liturgy at all. We had our own calendar, which roughly followed the liturgical calendar - Easter was studied and discussed in March/April, Passover during Passover, Christmas at Christmas, and so on - but we didn’t have any sort of Lenten requirements at all.
For my baptism, I wore a swimsuit under a black robe. The robe was much the same as a graduation gown. I don’t recall precisely, but I believe my pastor was in the same getup - a black robe under which he probably had swim trunks on. I don’t recall much of the ceremony, but I think it started with a prayer, I said some words pledging to my church, then he put his arm behind my back and a white cloth over my face, and dunk! Much like the stereotypical “dip” at the end of a slow dance.
I believe I was baptized in late winter, so my ceremony was at a church, in a baptism font (much like a large bathtub). The water was lukewarm and came up to mid-thigh height. After, we waded out and into a separate bathrooms to dry off and put on nice clothes and be received by everyone and such.
God bless you! Personally, I was baptized at age 9, about a week after my profession of faith (Southern Baptist church). It can be at any time, but the person needs to be able to understand the difference between right and wrong as a basic foundation.
Our children made the same profession of faith late last year, and I really questioned them before they came up and joined the church. They still have not been baptized: one is waiting for the other, who has a massive fear of water.
Wonderful - sounds like a great experience. As one of the Frozen Chosen (i.e. far too proper in most Presbyterian churches to do full immersion), my baptism was but a sprinkling on my head at 23.
I will say that the spiritual moment for me was when I stood up in the new members class to discuss why I was there, and I really felt a jolt. The baptism itself a few weeks later is more remembered for the presence of the President of Bulgaria and several Secret Service Agents 10 feet away.
Hey, you took a giant steaming dump in this thread and didn’t even collect a warning for it. I’d suggest you should have quit while you’re ahead. :dubious:
The Baptisms I have attended and participated in had a lot of folks coming out of the water screaming and praising Jesus due to the holy spirit entering their body.
Did this happen to you? How’d it feel if it did? If it didn’t, did it happen to anyone else? how long were you held under? Our preacher like to say a few dozen words while holding you under, this might have something to do with the screaming.
