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A Tempest In a Baptistry

Written by Terry Howard

The question of re-baptism and the distress it caused in the sixteen hundreds, including what has at times been described as bloody murder, is still with us.

In 1965, President Johnson's daughter Luci was re-baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. While most of the world took no notice of the event, it created a very big ripple in a very small puddle, and generated a great deal of very loud conversation amongst the few who did.

The re-baptism happened at Luci's request. It seems her request, and the resulting baptism, are now generally deemed to have been inappropriate.

Under common high church usage, the only allowable reason for re-baptizing an individual is if the original baptism was improperly conducted. An individual's own judgment and wishes should be completely irrelevant. The matter should be decided by priests and canon lawyers, without regard to the wishes of the person seeking re-baptism. Miss Johnson's request is, mostly, considered to have been out of order and her priest in error.

Why?

Because, re-baptism brings the validity of the first baptism into question.

In an age when many people are not even sure there is a god, the question is not: "why no one cares?" The question is: "why anyone cares?" The few who do are concerned with the hope of church reunification; this requires a level of reciprocity and mutual respect.

In the sixteen hundreds life was different. Those few who questioned the existence of God, mostly, kept their heads down to keep their heads on. The question of re-baptism was a very serious matter, a matter of eternal life and death, a matter some were ready to die for and others to kill over.

When Christianity was the means of achieving eternal bliss and ease, baptizing a child insured she was going to heaven, probably by way of purgatory. Everyone was happy. Then along came someone quoting scripture and claiming infant baptism isn't worth the water it is written on. If they are right, everyone you have ever known who has died is not going to heaven and neither are you. Suddenly no one is happy. These people must be proven wrong and made to cease the vicious act of spreading their contrarian doctrines that threaten people's happiness and their immortal souls.

Now, if baptism's validity is solely a matter of a properly performed rite, irregardless of an inner experience or lack there of, then baptism is effective by virtue of the performance of the rite itself.

From a Roman Catholic stand point, according to a Catholic priest in my home town, proper form means she was baptized by a supposed Christian, (any Catholic can baptize in an emergency, and any baptized Christian is deemed Catholic even if he or she is also deemed a schismatic or a heretic) using the phrase "in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost."

If Luther is correct in saying the saving grace of Christ is by faith alone (sola fide), then, if one baptizes infants unto salvation, the unconscious response of a newborn must qualify as "faith."

It is a common doctrine that baptism is a once in a lifetime occurrence. This doctrine is found in the Westminster Confession and other like documents. Yet if a ...