There is a group who call themselves the Church of Christ (this was in South Africa and may or may not be associated with other groups of the same name) who were very insistant on the need for adult baptisim by full imersion. They hold that this is essential for salvation and that any previous infant baptisim is invalid - I don’t know what thier view is on someone baptised as an adult by another denomination. Not quite the same as the Donatists, but…
Baptists and some other Protestant denominations also practice adult baptisim and would re-baptise those that wanted it. They insist on this for full church membership, but don’t ever call your salvation into question - at least not in my experience.
Originally, it was only Bishops who were entitled to baptise new converts, but as the numbers rose, this role was passed on to priests, and the role of the Confirmation ritual in the Anglo-Catholic tradition was for the Bishop to confirm that the original baptisim was “kosher”. As the area covered by a bishop grew, there could be a period of several years between Baptisim and Confirmation, so any infants that had been baptised would now be adults and the role of the ritual changed to an initiation of adult members of the church as marked by First Communion.
Good questions - baptisim is an “outward and physical symbol of an inward and spiritual grace”, so the important work is done by God, not by the baptiser, nor by the baptisee. This is the justification for the validity of infant baptisim - that even though the child is not capable of understanding or making the baptismal vows, having them made on the child’s behalf by the parents is honoured by God. I suppose that because you are an adult and capable of making the vows for yourself - if you do not mean them, then God would not honour his part of them, and they would have no meaning or validity. Even in an emergency, I would guess that the baptisim would only be valid (in a spiritual sense) if you, as the baptisee were sincere in your desire to repent (the central theme of the ceremony after all).
I think that God still honours His side of the deal, but it is up to you whether or not you keep your end of the bargin…
Yes, the group does exist in the United States- I was a member of it for the first 27 years of my life. Your description of their stance on baptism is correct. For someone baptised as an adult by another denomination, they would recognize it as a valid baptism if it was an immersion. If it was baptism by sprinkling or pouring, they would rebaptize, based on their belief that immersion is the only valid method of baptism.
It can be confusing, though, because there are several different groups that go by the name “Church of Christ,” including two mainstream denominations, this affiliation of independant churches (they don’t think of themselves as a denomination because they don’t have any central structure or governing body), and at least one fringe group that has been banned from quite a few college campuses.
I joined the LDS church 4 years ago, and as such was baptized by the authority of what the LDS church calls the Aaronic Priesthood. My mother, staunch Catholic as she is, insists that my only baptism was when I was an infant back at old St. James Parish…she does not consider my LDS baptiasm to be valid (and reminds me of that fact frequently). I wonder how the Catholic Church regards me - am I a heretic, or still a member of the Catholic Church in their eyes. As far as I know, my entire family is still listed on the parish records in my old parish.
A person in my situation, does the Catholic Church still consider me a member??
Again speaking only to the Roman Catholic tradition, “any person who has the requisite intention” may confer the sacrament of baptism in an emergency (Code of Canon Law, Can. 861 §2). The “mock-baptism” in your first example would not be valid, since the intention of the baptizer would not be there.
But wait - what if you go your whole life thinking you were baptized, but it was all a cruel joke by some nut in a rent-a-Roman-collar?
The church also has the general concept of baptism by desire - the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Those who die for the faith, those who are catechumens, and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, are saved even if they have not been baptized” (CCC 1281; the salvation of unbaptized infants is also possible under this system; cf. CCC 1260-1, 1283).
It seems clear to me that if you believe you were baptized, act accordingly, receive the rest of the sacraments… then, even though the actual form of baptism did not happen, you were, in fact, baptized.
As to your second question - a child below the age of reason (seven) cannot form an intention one way or the other. Once the person is over seven, Canon Law requires that baptism is not to be conferred until the doctrine of the sacrament of baptism is explained to the person to be baptised, and agreed to.
Since we’ve covered the RCC side, lemme try to hit the opposing point of view.
There’s three ways to join a church.
Profess your faith: Meaning “I Believe!” You get dunked/sprinkled.
On Statement of Letter: You were a member of Second Baptist and are joining First Baptist, or similar situations. A “Letter”, in this case is a simple thing saying “Yeah, Joe Bob was a member here”.
Baptism: If you come from another faith, you have the option of getting dunked. This sigifies your similar beliefs and all that.
If you grow up in the baptist church, when you become a Christian, you’ll get dunked. It’s symbolic, that’s all. It’s done because Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist.
You can be a fine Christian without it.
So, being Baptised is symbolic of your believing in Christ. If you suddenly decide to join the Buddists, Hindus, Zorasterians, or the Yankees, say, you just sign up according to their rules. There’s no formal “UnBaptismal” needed. It’s all about what you belive in the end, anyway. The rituals we’ve invented for the process won’t mean much when we’re all judged.
As another Catholic-born Mormon, I think that the Catholic church sees being baptised a member of another faith as apostacy, and grounds for excommunication.
The LDS perspective on baptism is that it must be done by someone with the proper authority, and at the age of accountability–no less than eight years old. The idea is that you make covenants at your baptism, and a small child is not able to make such covenants. The authority is the Aaronic priesthood, which is given to worthy young men at the age of twelve.
Ex-communication in the Mormon church is similar to that of the Catholic church. It provides the individual with an opportunity to examine their life, and try to fix whatever is wrong. After a prescribed period, they will be welcomed back with open arms if they have repented, but will need to be re-baptized.
Getting back to the question, it is understandable that your mother would not recognize your recent baptism, as Catholics wouldn’t recognize the authority of the prieshood as valid. I wouldn’t worry too much about leaving your names on the books, as it won’t matter in the long run. If you are happy where you are, don’t concern yourself with bookkeeping.
Yeah, sorry; I was trying to say that Aryan is no longer applied to all speakers of Indo-European languages. (Sometimes you’ll see “Indo-Aryan”, which doesn’t really make any sense; the Aryans were the Indo-European speakers who wound up in India, so “Indo-Aryan” is kind of like saying “Indo-Indian”.)
Ah, see, that appears to be different from the Catholic view, then. I think Catholics wouldn’t re-baptize someone who had been excommunicated. I’m not sure about Protestants. Would Baptists re-baptize someone who had been given a Baptist baptism and then backslidden or converted to another religion or something?
Hmmm…here’s one Protestant evangelical view on the subject. It says that if you were baptized by sprinkling; if you weren’t baptized in what they consider to be a Christian baptism (i.e., Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are out); if you weren’t baptized for the right reason; or if you were baptized but didn’t really believe, then you would need to be re-baptized. However, they go on to say “When one is baptized because their “first” baptism lacked an essential element… It is not really “re-baptism”!..Technically speaking, the person is being baptized scripturally for the first time! When one has been scripturally baptized once…There is never a need to be baptized again!” So, I suspect that if Bob were baptized in what appeared (according to the author of that web page) to be a proper baptism, but then he ran off and spent a few years in the Hare Krishnas, when he came back he’d probably have to be baptized again, because he obviously (according to this view) didn’t really mean it the first time.
Thanks for all your input. The religious citations may be a little tangled, but I think I can see the simple answer is “no”.
In case you hadn’t figured it out, I have had people tell me I’m going to hell for not practicing, but then retracting that when they find out I was baptized. It would have been fun to say I’d considered their views and gone out and received a reversal of some kind. Guess I’ll just have to live with their opinion of my afterlife.
I vaguely remember an incident a few years back about a Jewish couple suing the Catholic Church because a priest baptized their child by accident, without their knowledge or concent; apparently he thought it was another baby.
Don’t know what the outcome was, but it sure sounds like a case for baptism annulment to me.
There’s a book called “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara” about the 19th century case where a servant secretly baptised a 6 year old jewish boy, and the Papal Inquisition removed him from his home as their laws forbade a Catholic to be raised by Jews. He was never returned.
I beleive that that Anglican Church follows the Roman Catholic tradition on this point, and takes the view that once baptised, there is no need for a further baptism.
