GW what about Baptists? Wesleyans would ,in fact, encourage an adult baptism of a baptised infant (not as a requirement,but as a outward sign)You'd be better off asking Jerry or other actual Baptist ministers. I expect that Baptists would not re-baptize anyone who was baptized as a believer. I would generally expect it wouldn't be too difficult to find a Baptist minister who would give a believers' baptism to someone "baptized" in infancy. It might be the case they would be more eager to re-baptize those baptized as infants n churches of a certain doctrine. I'm sure you catch my meaning here.
Weighing in here as a Lutheran, I can speak to this. I was baptized when I was a month and a half old by parents who, yes, were a little apprehensive about a baby dying, but who recognized that I would probably live a long time. I take great comfort in the fact that my parents, aunts, uncles, and many neighbors saw fit to take steps for my faith at an early age. I don't see my faith today belonging just to me -- I recognize that many, many people have shaped and nurtured my faith in Jesus Christ. That started even before I was baptized and has continued to the present, some 35 years later. Today I am a Lutheran pastor with a strong personal faith in Jesus. But I don't think for a minute that I got here on my own, or that my faith is the simple result of my own decision. In hard times, it is valuable to me to go back to my baptism and consider God's faithfulness and commitment to me when I was helpless. (If I'm honest, in a lot of ways I'm still helpless.) When I face trials, it helps me a great deal to remember the community in which I was nurtured as an infant and a child, and the communities that continue to support me today. "None of us lives to himself, none of us dies to himself; ... we are the Lord's." I recognize a great beauty in the faith of my friends who practice only adult baptism. But often I see that the end result of that practice can become a radical individualizing of faith that denies the Body of Christ -- the fact that we belong to each other as well as to Christ.
I think one of the issues facing us today is the whole question of how to view baptism in the face of a "post-Christian" culture. Do we focus on the individual's faith to the exclusion of community? Do we focus on the communal faith at the risk of missing individual commitment to Christ? Nobody I've been reading lately has good answers to this one at the moment.
Another, perhaps better question is, what is God doing in baptism, if anything? I've heard a lot of argument on this voluminous thread about what we do ... but very little discussion of what God is up to.
Sorry for the delay... I church morning and evening on Sunday's, and today was pretty busy (I took a nap after work, I was fairly tired).
I'll try to respond tomorrow, thanks for your patience.