believe – Kanisa la Christadelphian huko Anderlecht

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In certain Protestant churches, as with us, it is assumed that one must have acquired sufficient knowledge about God and His People, as well as about Scripture and faith, so that one must be at least in the teenage years to make a choice.

In the previous chapter, we saw that baptising a small child does nothing to help that child develops his or her faith. Even though infant baptism may have an „on joyfully long tradition”, we must realise that certain traditions have rendered the word of God powerless for the sake of their tradition. (Matthew 15:6)

When children grow up, they have many questions about God and commandments. During their search for God and faith, they may want to dedicate themselves to God. To this end, they sometimes make the choice to be baptized in the church community in which they grew up.

When they later get to know another church community and feel better at home there, they often wonder why they should be baptised again. They often forget what was asked of them at their first baptism, or what they had to comply with.

According to some churches, in the baptism of an infant, based on the living faith of the parents, is an advance, as it were, taken on the faith that the child will be handed over from father and mother. It is for this reason that when the Christian faith is completely absent from one of the parents or from both parents, or when the parents do not want to guarantee the development of their child’s faith, the Church, therefore, postpones baptism. If those children come to an age where they can make their own decisions, those churches are open to baptising them.

Reformed churchgoers regularly want to switch to a Baptist community and would like to become a full member there, but they do have difficulty ‘re-baptising’ or ‘overbaptising’. When people enter secondary school, they are even more confronted with all kinds of questions about their attitude to life and faith.

Over the centuries, infant baptism had become by far the most popular, but since the end of the last century there have been more questions about the value of such baptism and whether it would not be better to switch to baptism of faith. Opinions about this baptism of faith also vary widely. It is said that it is not only a personal choice, but that God would have chosen the baptismal candidate himself. The latter may give the baptismal candidate such an intense feeling that years later he or she is convinced that because God has chosen him or her and no new baptism should take place.

I admit that certain young people are truly convinced that they made the right choice in their teenage baptism, and that they did understand everything they were talking about. It may therefore be safe that a baptised person actually believed in a Only God during teenage baptism, but did not think further about whether his or her church community also thought that way about an Only True God. Often their thoughts were so intertwined with the doctrines of the church where they belonged. They therefore did not consider the existence or otherwise of three different entities of their deity that also spoke of « we », so according to them it was also about Christ Jesus.

Adherents of infant baptism see in that act a resemblance to the former circumcision. In the Old Testament, on the eighth day after his birth, each Jewish boy was made a sign of the covenant between God and Israel, in accordance with Gen. 17:10-12 and Lev. 12:3 a circumcision was performed on babies, in which a small circle of flesh is then cut away from the foreskin (the loose sliding covering) of the penis. In many Christian communities, they see baptism as the sign of the new covenant. According to those churches, the promises of the new covenant are greater than those of the old covenant, and that is why they say so

it would be strange to think that the promises in the Old Testament relate to the children, but not those of the New Testament.

Mennonites or Baptists, such as the Brethren and Brothers in Christ of Brethren in Christ (or Christadelphians) like to talk about baptism as a testimony of personal faith, and point out to child baptisms that the Bible never cites the idea of baptising newborns.

While non-Trinitarians view baptism as an active event in which the baptismal candidate indicates that he is entering into a personal relationship with God and that he is becoming a participant in the community of followers of Christ, the followers of infant baptism believe that one is not active in baptism, but passive. According to them, baptism is received and baptism is administered by the church in the name of God. Therefore, Anabaptists see baptism as an act of God in which He gives His promises to the person being baptised.

Of course, God can give his promises to both children and adults, but the institution of baptism is an act that was already performed for Jesus’ public life among adult people, as a sign of their surrender to God. Likewise, Jesus allowed himself to be completely immersed in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, as a sign of surrender to his Heavenly Father.

Among the Christadelphians, the baptismal candidate is also expected to perform a sign of complete surrender to God in the community. The baptismal ritual then becomes a confirmation of that covenant with God, but also of a union of the community of Brothers and sisters in Christ.

We can understand that if someone was baptised in a Pentecostal community and was only asked the following questions

Do you believe in God the Father, our Creator and Saviour?
Will you follow Jesus Christ, His Son, our crucified and resurrected Lord?
Do you entrust yourself to the Holy Spirit, who renews our lives?
Do you desire and promise to serve the Lord faithfully with the church, united around Scripture and Table, in the building of His church and the coming of His Kingdom?

that one could safely answer « Yes » if one really believed in the Only True God, the Heavenly Father of Jesus Christ. In this way, that baptismal ritual could be a real surrender to God.

For such baptised people, baptism will really have been a surrender and union with God. Their action is then actually a union with That Only True God who is only one.

But because their baptism was performed in a Trinitarian Church, it may be unclear to others whether they actually surrendered to the True Faith. Especially if they stayed in that community for a long time after that baptism and sang songs with it that glorify Jesus as God.

In several Pentecostal churches, after baptism, people sing a song in which they say they kneel before Jesus, whom they see as their Lord (God). Such a worship of Jesus is not possible at all and if an earlier member of a Trinitarian church wants to become a member of our Christadelphian movement, that person will have to conclude that old life and enter the new life through complete immersion in the water and confession of keeping only one True God, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac and Jacob, who is also the God of Jesus Christ.

The teenage years are a period of religious research and development that should not be underestimated. It is an important phase in life: a time of intense emotions and creativity, a phase in which social contacts are very important.
It is also a time of ‘weigh up’ and where the child wants to make a personal choice, free from the will of the parents. This means that in terms of faith, children during adolescence can take a completely different path than their parents.

We are convinced that children of teenage age want to deepen their friendship with Jehovah. To this end, it will certainly happen that they want to make it clear to their heavenly father what they stand with a baptism. We must respect that choice.

However, when transferring to another church community, it also comes down to whether the thoughts of the baptismal ritual correspond with the thoughts of the newly elected church community.

The biggest question is whether, during their teenage baptism, they really went for the God of the Bible, which we as Brothers in Christ want to carry high in our hearts.

It can be difficult if one feels that the baptism that has been entered has not been recognised. But one must rather see that when re-doping, one now also indicates that one wants to go through life as a Brother or Sister in Christ, at the service of Jehovah, the only True God.

To indulge in a re-doping is modest, and it is that humble surrender to God that can be admired. By now switching to an adult baptism, it is made clear that people want to dedicate their lives to God.

The preparation time for that baptism can then be a beautiful time in which they grow spiritually, just as it was for Jesus. (Read Luke 2:52.)