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RnMomof7: In our church the Pastor actively works against infant baptism and explains to the parents it is of no spiritual benefit..I have not seen one baptised in the 2 years I have attended there..but I have seen many dedications..The previous church I attended for 15 years I never saw a baptism there eithor.

Glad to hear it. I know you were baptized as an infant but was baptized as a believer as an adult. Did infant baptism mean anything special to you compared with the baptism as a believer?

I think that in almost every way, believers' baptism is superior. I know my conscience is pricked by thinking about my baptism, the committment I made to our Lord. In a way, it's like a step you've taken with Christ that you can't just ignore. I feel that in baptism, God has laid a claim upon me just as I have laid my claim upon Christ. If I am tempted, it is harder to sin because I think about how a baptized man who has claimed Christ for himself cannot or should not do certain things. It does help somewhat. It really has generally made me less able to enjoy sinning and just to ignore my faith or to listen to the whispers of hell that such-and-such a sin is only a little sin. Every willful sin becomes a repudiation of Christ's command to live a holy life. My baptism has become Christ's indictment of that old man of sin that still dwells in me. I won't deny that I slip. But my baptism has made it hard to truly fall into godless ways again.

I can see how some people might see infant baptism as meaningful if raised in a very Christian family and how they might find it valuable or precious. But I can't see how it compares to believers' baptism. Unfortunately, our friends who do baptize infants can point out how many in Baptist churches (and others) are baptized in a pro forma manner, simply because it's expected or their parents pressure them or the rest of the kids are getting baptized.

Neither practice is perfect or ever can be. But I think believers' baptism is more likely to be of real spiritual benefit to both the individual and to the church itself.

fortheDeclaration: I reject the idea of 'dedication of babies' also. The idea of infant baptism is nothing because it is nothing to God! If it means nothing to Him why should it mean anything to us!

I don't necessarily reject infant dedication. I only recognize it as the parents expressing their intent to raise their child in Christian belief and their desire that the church should help them to do that. Probably, it's actually more accurate to call it a "parents dedication". But you'll probably say that such is the duty of any sincere Christian parent. And you'd be right to say it. But if it helps to steel the resolve of those parents in the upbringing of their child, I have no real objection to it. My own mother personally dedicated me to God as an infant the day I was born and I suspect she did the same with my brother and sisters. I can't say it ever meant much to me to know this, any more than an infant baptism would have. But maybe when she was hauling us kids to church, teaching Sunday school and VBS, helping organize and support the youth group, maybe it helped her to keep her committment to raise us kids in the Christian faith. She could always recall her prayer to God and her promise to Him on my spiritual behalf.

Something to think about there, the value of a parents' dedication as represented by what we call "infant dedication". We need to ask who is being publicly dedicated, the infant or the parents.